So Christmas delivered such things as a Dapol Autocoach, a book on Autocoaches and a Dart Castings GWR Autocoach detailing kit which provides extensive undercarriage detail to show the workings peculiar to autocoaches. Autocoaches are coaches that when attached to a fitted locomotive, allow a driver to operate the train from the carriage end for visibility without having to turn anything around or take the locomotive around the coach(es). I have yet to commence the hard part of detailing the coach in part because the first step is to remove some of the existing undercarriage. Simple it is not but looks like it will make the coach a much more authentic model.
The counterpoint to the detailing kit (in some respects) is the auto-mobile distribution facility diorama for my daughter. A not quite square piece of plywood with pine edging for some strength and torsional rigidity. This was to be a "simple" painted diorama: no fancy ground cover or textures, no grit to get in wheels, no grass to wear off the surface with use... So first step was to seal the plywood so the colours did not soak straight in with out having any effect. Matt clear spray paint was my best friend here. Then on to the colouring in, as it were. We would need some railroad track area, some road type area, including a carpark, some concrete area for the buildings and of course some green for grass for the rest. Artists acrylics in multiple coats were my friend here. White road lines add a special touch with the simple expedient of using masking to to (what else?) mask off certain areas and leave short dashes down the approximate centre of the roads. To top this all off, more clear matt spray paint and then some clearcoat matt finish to provide some wear and tear to the coloured paint. Then to attach the cork and rails to bring the autoracks and flat cars in on, some double sided tape for the cork and then track pins for the track were a traditional solution here. The "hard" part was then setting up the tracks for the unloading ramp. having cut up some track earlier and drilled trackpin holes, it as a matter of getting the rails to be as close to parallel as possible.
So how did it turn out? Well the best verdict is how much my daughter loves to play with the diorama which was the whole point of making it anyway, while giving an education in trains carrying cars, or autos (a word that appears a great many times in an article about model railroading...)
