Layout Tour

We start our layout tour at the layouts namesake area, Broughton Vale. This logging camp was built completely on site by the lumber company. Although small in size, the camp boasts three bunkhouses, a camp kitchen and dining room. From right to left, the three bunkhouses are from Master Creations and John Rendall kits. The Dining Room, Kitchen Water Tank, and Camp Kitchen were scratchbuilt from wood by my best friend Nicole. Nicole's scratchbuilt Kitchen supply tank is the first structure she had ever made. Details such as an interchangeable menu board, ladies hanging washing out to dry, and four of the camp children playing, are just a few of the eye catchers in these scenes.

As we head out of town, our empty log train passes the Broughton Vale Sawmill and Blacksmiths. The sawmill started life as a Keystone Danby Sawmill, but was heavily modified to better represent typical "bush architecture" and designs. Small Australian bush sawmills were rarely enclosed, most getting by their entire working life with just enough corrugated iron to to cover the expensive boiler, donkey engine, and saw carriage machinery. The sawmill is the centrepiece of the camp, so almost everything above the deck is scratchbuilt . This included the boiler, (equipped with fire circuit in the firebox and Seuthe smoke machine in the chimney), donkey engine, and the roof, which sports individual trusses, NBW detail, and all appropriate overhead drive shafts and pulleys.

In contrast with the sawmill, the Blacksmiths shop had very humble beginnings. What started out as a Kibri European lumber drying shed from the scrap box, had it's sides plated over with scale wood planks and it's "plastic trying to be thatching" roof replaced with some scale wood roof beams, and scale corrugated iron. Once weathered and surrounded with "junk", it fits the bill perfectly. The tools and machinery inside are metal and plastic castings, and the heath was fabricated out of leftover sections of plaster culvert. The heath is equipped with a fire circuit which simulates the smoldering ashes used by the blacksmith to heat metal parts for bending. Out the back of the shop lies the remains of a vertical boilered skidder that has suffered a boiler explosion. The basis of the model is a white metal sled from a small Keystone skidder, while weathered aluminium foil and wire simulates the rended boiler plate and boiler tubes.

A 1/2 mile or so down the tramway, we come to the picturesque crossing over Broughton Creek. The trestle here was scratchbuilt from scale stripwood, and detailed with NBW castings and styrene. Around 95% of the scenery you see in this photo is natural materials, as is the rest of the layout. This use of lichens, ferns, and other small plants, combined with a foam base, and "soft rocks", makes for an easy, economical, and light weight way to build scenery. In this scene there are many details, such as a fisherman and his dog, two koalas, and a Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger. At the top of the falls, there is a mirror which bends the scene around to the left.