Buildings
Lots of planning is required with a really small layout, you can't fix things on the fly. With a heavily industrial setting like I am trying to create it's worth spending some time making mockup buildings out of cheap thin card. Cornflake packets would be best but I forgot to save the empty ones. I put this lot together an left it to look at for a few days to make sure everything looked OK. As an example, the building front left was to be back left but it looked too small. I moved it to the front to hide the track entrance and it works better there. The only building with any detail at this stage is the middle right one with the arch because I was copying (sort of) a photo and since the track has to go through it it needs to be reasonably accurate. I have ideas for the finished buildings in mind, all I need to do now is build them.
Building
has started. The model under construction is based on one I saw while on
my way back from a conference at the Aston Villa ground. The roof will be
made of asbestos and lifts off. The prototype had only a single story but
I wanted more to avoid a backscene below the edge of the lid. 
Not
all the buildings are built from scratch. I decided to cheat a little and
kit-bash a Ratio Boilerhouse kit a little. The chimney has to split at the
roof line. A simple card building at the end provides a little height for
what is a small building. The interior is a bit hidden as I weathered the
windows with thinned paint and the turpentine reacted with the plastic.
How
do I close the lid ? Simple, all the buildings have removable roofs. The
chimney also splits but the guy cables stay in place. These are made from
think elastic and help to hold the top on when it is in position.
The
building on the left of the layout has a painted end. I cheated and printed
my own waterslide transfer using one of the commercial kits. The result
was pretty good although I should have placed it on a coloured background
as it would have stood out less - the brickwork colour changes slightly
thanks to the transfer film. Copious amounts of micro-sol ensure good adherence
to the brickwork.
I
know these aren't buildings but I don't have a vehicles page. The CW Van
is simply a re-painted Husky model. It's about the right size and was picked
up at a swapmeet for about 4 quid - less than a whitemetal kit would have
been. The livery is copied from a prototype van.