Moana 4: Nothing to see here. Carry on.

DB says: I've been putting in half an hour here and there on Moana this week, although progress has been less dramatic. Scenery danced its way to the far end of the boards and work has progressed on adding some structures. In the shot above you can see a goods shed (I may have to lighten it up a bit) and the balsa decks of a footbridge are barely visible under construction at the extreme end of the visible universe, being held in place by a colourful string of paint pots on the station platform.

The shots from the previous Moana blog post didn't really show the scenery well, but perhaps the distant trees in the following shot convey the effectiveness of the 'layered mixing it up' approach as discussed previously. The foreground needs some flaxes and DBR 1213/1267 is obviously having an identity crisis: Most of the blue background is an old Tehachapi backscene held up while the shot was clicking. This makes me wonder if I should have built a backdrop at this end as well, but the sky on the backscene to the right will continue down into the corner module and hopefully provide the same effect.

In this last shot below, work has started on the property in the middle of the pic adjacent to the points at the southwest end. Perhaps this was the station master's house in the good old days? A low weatherboard house will go in here and the fence is up already. Rather than make the dude's back shed, I employed one of Rhys's wee resin huts. I also produced my Modeller's License at this stage and added a trackside shelter and control box ex Rod Murgatroyd that have been sitting in my box of bits for quite some time. This week, an old flock of HO sheep were found wandering through one of my boxes of scenery, so after tailing them, they were put to work in the foreground mowing the grass in forced perspective. The foamboard station platform is just visible at back right, and one of the 'fancy houses' that Moana has become infested with in the last few years will be represented on the hill out of shot to the right: with a lovely view of the goods shed. I think this will be the first layout/module I've built where the rails and ballast will be the last thing to be added - track here is dummied up for the pictures and to test clearances.

Incidentally, although I have taken quite a few pictures of Moana, for the structures I've been referring extensively to the 'Station File: Moana' article in the Feb 1996 Journal, penned by the late Peter Hodge who was one of the great gentlemen of the hobby in NZ. I have about half the Journals going back to the late 1980s and they really are a mine of useful pictures, plans and information. One of these days I'm going to have to rejoin the NZ Model Railway Druids Guild.