For the next engagement in my early 20th century alternative history the map calls for a railway track to cut across one corner of the table.
I am fighting the battles using 6mm Irregular Miniatures figures on Kallistra Hexon terrain. I have tried in the past to adapt the Irregular Miniatures railway track to fit the 10cm
hexagons but was not really happy with the result.
Also I have of late been trying to create set-piece hexagons including the relevant terrain rather than plonking features on the top of the grass. This of course does not assist with the storage!
Rummaging in the toy cupboard I found more track sections and some old unflocked hexagons that had been irregularly plastered and painted a hideous “grass green”. Time for some recycling.
To be awkward the rail line had to cross most of the hexagons across one edge, rather than directly from side to side. It still had to enter and leave each tile At the mid-point of the tile edge. I took seven of the old hexagons, drew the course of the track in pencil and filed off the plaster along that track.
Next I carefully placed the track sections and cut the ends to align with the hexagon edges, aligning each hexagon tile with a couple of others to ensure continuity. The track sections were glued to the tiles and allowed to dry.
The next step was to smother the tiles with a thick coat of Basetex textured paint, right up to and over the edges of the track pieces, and to scatter flock onto the wet paint through a decommissioned kitchen sieve.
After leaving this lot to dry overnight the surplus flock was shaken from the tiles and the track painted. I started with slate grey and blue grey for the ballast followed by black for the sleepers (ties) and magic metal ( dark brown metallic paint) carefully applied along the edges of the rails. Finally I ran a craft knife along the top of the rails to remove the paint and leave the bare metal.
Et voila! A small branch railway line.
Now I just need to paint the train set… Luckily not actually needed for this engagement.
General Whiskers' semi-historical wanderings 