Railways were originally constructed to carry raw materials & fuels to places of manufacture, and also to carry goods to market. Often these materials were delivered to large factories, where they became anything from shoes to internal combustion engines.
As modellers, we often create scenes of factories & warehouses alongside our railway lines, either having direct rail access or as part of the backscene. These tall buildings help to disguise the flat sky behind, whilst also conveying a sense of place and time for the railway in front, drawing the viewer into the world we've constructed.
With one of the various Scale Model Scenery kits, plus a few added extras, it's quite easy to create a factory or warehouse scene on your layout or diorama. We've chosen our large factory kit for this example, but a similar scene can be made using any of the various low-relief factories in our range, and the modelling and detailing holds true for any scale too.
A Factory Yard Scene
The basis of this small diorama is the KX001-OO Low Relief 1930s Factory kit, which we've made up as directed in the instructions. This is the original kit, which uses layers of card to make the walls. We'll be re-issuing this kit, in the near future, using MDF and Laserboard, to bring it up to the high quality of the newer kits in the range.
With the building made up, we've used a couple of spare pieces of MDF for the base and backscene. Where you site your model will obviously depend on your layout's requirements.
The first stage was to cover the ground with a suitable texture sheet, to represent concrete panels. We used TX134-OO Concrete Hardstanding. To add more detail to the ground, we added drains and grids from the AX013-OO Manholes, Drains and Ironworks texture sheet.
We added a wall and gates, using the KX002-OO 6ft Industrial Brick Wall & Gates kit, along the front edge.
To reflect a more modern era, we added an air conditioning unit to the wall, using the AX038-OO Air Conditioning Units and supports from the LX134-00 Small Brackets kit. We also added two MP039-OO Extractor Fans on the windows.
In the yard, we've added a few pallets and a couple of barrels, but you can really add lots of further details, either as raw materials or possibly as a selection of the finished goods awaiting collection.
Further details you can add are AX071-OO CCTV Cameras, AX055-OO Working Wall Mounted Floodlights, and even CX009-OO Barbed Wire on the top of the wall.
Quite often, what you place in front of a factory can quite dramatically alter the whole scene.
Let us know what you've made
Whatever you do for your own factory/warehouse low-relief scene, please send us photos as we'd love to see what you've created.
I do diorama for road transport and use a lot your excellent product