South Oak Road

Retaining wall and tunnel construction

I used Scalescenes.com’s R013 Retaining wall and a kit bashed version of the R014 Tunnel kit. Both kits are quite straightforward with clearly illustrated instructions, so I won’t go into too much actual construction detail here. The Retaining wall kit is a versatile design that was easily adapted to suit the ramped wall I had planned, the Dark blue brick (TX27) is a good match to the distinctive engineers blue brick that is common for large structural features such as these. At this stage I have left off the parapet wall as it will hamper construction of the low relief warehouse that will run along the back of the layout.

With the retaining wall complete it was into the tunnel. Building twin skewed tunnel portals into the same wall was certainly a lot harder than it looked on the plans! Using my longest item of rolling stock (a Mk1) as a guide, it took three plain card mock-ups to get the arches and tunnel shaft clearances just right. I used the matching Dark blue brick (TX27) texture sheet to create the longer tunnel face required to accommodate both portals and to add a couple of refuges inside the tunnel shafts.

To finish, I used a soft brush to lightly work some dark brown weathering powder over the most of the wall and tunnel surfaces especially working it into the corners. It’s a quick and easy way to ‘tone down’ the richness of the print surface. Inside the tunnel and on some spots on the retaining wall I also smudged white chalk pastel to simulate lime scaling. Once again a simple technique that really adds extra realism to the scene.