Conway Street bus depot

Upon completion of the diorama, it was decided to add more foreground by way of an extension board. left: Two FS-type Lodekkas are parked on the waste ground whilst a Queen Mary emerges from the western garage.  above: In full N.B.C. livery, an open top FS on a circular tour service.

The `outside` roads were given a slight camber by placing a thin strip of card at the road centre line, glued directly onto the plywood base. Upon this, a layered of card, the full road-width was added and then the tarcamcadam sheeting was placed over this. All layers were glued down with wood glue. The modern street lights are by Ratio, being placed to help disguise joins in the modified office structure.

  The `BH&D` staff are actually Dapol railway worker figures painted and some cases modified to represent road transport staff. All other figures are from various OO-scale ranges. All depot lettering is by Slaters in various sizes, the N.B.C. style fleetname on the eastern garage being placed on part of a back of a greetings card, the logo actually being made from two letter Ns.

  In total the diorama has taken about 90 hours to build at a cost of approximately £62.00, considerably less than the cost of a display case that could accomodate a similar number of models.

  The plywood base is mounted on a wooden frame sub-base which incorporates a plywood drawer to store the models and their respective packaging when either not in use or for transportation purposes. The whole frame and drawer front is faced with two converted pine shelves, available from most D.I.Y. stores. This facing has been stained and varnished. Even the four shelf brackets have found a use - as the feet for the frame structure.

  Artistic licence came into play with the roof guttering and down-pipes (Ratio Builder Kit parts) which have been painted Prussian blue whereas in reality these

would have been in similar colours to the operator livery. Again positioning of some of the down-pipes has been to disguise joins in the office block walls.

  The folding garage doors were fitted as per card kit instructions except that these were backed so that the inner sides are also blue. To complete the diorama, a water- colour wash was given to roads and pavements and to `weather` the building or else to colour the edges of the card kit. Lastly, to protect the diorama from enemy no. 1: dust, a display case was made from clear styrene sheet.

THE EXTENSION: CONWAY STREET (south side)

After completion of the diorama an extension board was built to add more foreground. Again 9mm plywood was used, mounted onto a wooden frame which sits into slots fitted inside the half-opened drawer. As per the prototype in the early 1970s, the south side of Conway Street has been built to represent waste ground. This waste ground has been re-created using dryed tea and flour, which was fixed with extra-hold hair spray (don`t tell the wife !) and ready-mix filler which was then painted with grey acryllic paint. Various watercolours were then added to simulate an `earth-and-demolished building look`. A section of wall, left over from the bus garage kits was added to represent a demolished building. Finally green scatter material (available from model railway shops) was added to represent weed growth. The extension took just three evenings to build, costing next-to-nothing, utilising left-over materials or everyday household products.