A Short Stretch of Road (1/35)

With countless road vehicles and modules with very limited road facilities (I'm building a model railway after all!) I have been missing a place to photograph my lorries and cars. Now I have built a short stretch of road to enable my road vehicles to be photographed on a proper length of macadamised local road.

First stage in the building of my simple 'road photo plank': a length of plywood with a piece of foambord for road surface. Disregard the workshop clutter, please.

With a roadside slope made from plaster the whole plank is painted black using my standard 1:1 fence paint. I did a little fence painting as I had the lid off the bucket. When dry I sprayed the surface with matt varnish from a spray can.

I planted grass in several tones along the roadside and added a few clusters of higher plants as well. When the glue had dried I placed a layer of gravel between the plants and road and fixed it with a mix of water, white glue and washing up liquid applied with a syringe. In this state the 'road photo plank' was ready for its debut acting as a scene for steam roller and living van.

I decided to fit some telegraph poles at the roadside although they are too close to the road to be completely realistic. That will however hardly be noticable on photos. On my shelves I found sprues with parts to make some 1:35 plastic telegraph poles. Not particularly detailed, but sufficient for this simple photo diorama. The poles are from Italeri (kit no 0404). The poles were assembled, painted and weathered. I mounted a length of brass wire in each pole to allow them to be easily planted in the 'road plank'. The brass wire also worked as a handle during painting.

There was barely light enough, but I managed to paint the telegraph poles before darkness.

The finished road plank carrying my model of an excavator transport on an old German Army Sonderanhänger 116 heavy load trailer pulled by a Faun ZSR tractor.