Muck and Brass

‘OO’ GAUGE LAYOUT Dirty Diorama

Remembering the dirt and decay of the 1950s, Brian De La Cour crafted this very photogenic diorama that captures an essence of his childhood memories.

Words: Chris Gadsby Photography: Chris Nevard Artwork: Andrew Mackintosh

What makes this layout great?

Pleasant summer’s day layouts are all well and good, but to see something that accurately encapsulates the seedy underbelly of the UK rail network is so pleasing to the eye.

Far away from the idyllic, summer-time backdrop of many model railways we see today, Brian De La Cour remembers an all-too-different appearance to his trainspotting days in the 1950s. Locking his bike up on the main street with his friends before slowly crawling through the hole in the protective fence and descending the steep slope down to the trackside, they found themselves in one of the UK’s Meccas for the railway enthusiast: Old Oak Common.

“Frequenting the roundhouse was common, and the thing I remember the most wasn’t the magnificence of the locomotives or the sheer size of everything; it was the dirt. Everything was black. Everything was grubby. You could taste the soot as you walked around. Amazingly, we were never discovered and never chased off; we simply climbed the bank when we had finished, worked our way back through the hole in the fence, and went off. It’s that memory I’ve tried to capture with this latest model.”

Brian has built this sort of diorama before, his last build featured in Model Rail’s special publication Great British Model Railways 2021, but a desire for something more expansive with a broader variety of scenery to provide him with more photographic opportunities lingered, and work on this one began.

“I’m afraid if you’re a track purist then this diorama is going to be a disappointment, as there’s a mix of old Hornby and Peco track on the model, it was just whatever I had around. It has power, and stuff does run, but I have no interest in operating trains. For me, it’s scenery all the way. This model is 4ft 4in long by 1ft wide, allowing me to place locomotives at various points along the line without having the same background. Photography is much more efficient this way!”

Despite building a similar model before and having his own memories to reflect on for inspiration, Brian is always looking for more. As it has been for so many others, the pages of Model Rail provided him with the answer.

“I saw Jack Boskett’s steam-era shed diorama in MR304 (September 2022), and it was exactly the sort of feel I was hoping for with my creation; that dark, dirty look that the 1950s seemed to have. Over the years I have perfected my preferred method of achieving such weathered looks. I’ve tried weathering powders but didn’t like the effect. I tried airbrushing but thought that was too uniform. The jackpot method? Washes of enamel paint. I use it everywhere. All of the stock has matt enamel washes on them diluted with white spirit and dribbled onto the top of the model. It works its way down with gravity the same way as the prototype and settles in all of the crevasses, resulting in a pleasing rust effect. On some locomotives, I also weather in a bleaching effect as it runs down the boiler, a bit like a lime wash.”

MIXING IT UP

Of course, it isn’t just the locomotives and stock that need heavily weathering to give the diorama that grimy feel. The scenery needs it as well. A model such as this is a great way to get rid of loads of odds and sods that have been hanging around your spares box for many years, which is exactly what Brian has done.

“The rusting piles have all been created from plastic kit sprues, offcuts, spare parts that came with kits that went wrong and the like, weathered in the same way. Next to those is a smashed ‘OO9’ coach body, which was the result of a project that went wrong. I broke the windows and took the wheels off, and now it’s a makeshift office in the corner of the model. I’m not sure I would want to work in it though. The rest of the huts were scratchbuilt from plastic card once I knew how much space I would have, and the loading bay platform is an old Hornby model I modified by adding a ramp to one side. The water tower is also a Hornby model. I’ve collected a lot over the years and was focused more on the atmosphere than things ‘looking right’, so I don’t mind using a real mix of products.”

Brian’s eye for grime hasn’t just been contained to the three-dimensional areas of the diorama. His hand-painted backscene provides a visceral impression of air so thick with smog that you can almost taste it.

Furthermore, his rendering of barren winter trees and a leaden sky, plus the odd blackbird, blends seamlessly with the layout. The backscene was painted with artist’s acrylics and it produces a tangible sense of coldness – one almost gets the shivers just looking at it.

Although Brian is now running out of space to build another diorama, a potential house move could offer more opportunities. Don’t be surprised if we see another atmospheric build from him in the future.

3 things we like

1 The Peco ‘spear’ fencing running along the top wall.

2 The rails and sleepers haven’t escaped the rusty treatment.

3 The cracks in the rear wall showing the lack of maintenance.

STATISTICS: ‘DIRTY DIORAMA’

ABOUT THE MODELLER: BRIAN DE LA COUR

“I’m hooked on the early history of the American frontier. I wrote a novel set in that era called Fate’s Cruel Cry, which I’ve self-published. I am currently writing the sequel as it was requested by some of my readers.”