Nutty Slack

Coal yards at harbours and railway premises were once a common sight. They were scruffy, often dilapidated places manned by equally scruffy individuals. (I know that for a fact, my best friend was a coal merchant for 30 years). The vehicles were rough and ready, although in Tarbert last year I saw a very smart coal lorry belonging to a local merchant. Nice one!

Anyway I'm trying to replicate a coal yard of the 1960's in this small diorama. The pic shows very early stages of construction. The old Bedford lorry is typical as is the ancient Muirhill digger/shovel/loader. The base needs to be given some shape, I'll do this with plaster bandage and cover it with Woodland Scenics ground cover materials.

The untidy heap of black/brown shapes will eventually look like a stack of small 1cwt sacks. I use quite a lot of Tamiya weathering powders though I've overdone the bonnet on the lorry - the camera doesn't lie! Look closely at the lorry and you'll notice that the weathering includes some distressing of the body and wheel arches. This is done with a hot soldering iron.

The final stage in the construction is to search my library of books for details of yards in railway pics and haulage yards and add the small stuff that makes the scene but most people never notice. Touches like a broken bike, an abandoned Calor gas bottle, a smashed pallet and the like. And there'll definitely be a scrapped van, a Ford E370W. I've already started on it!