Penn Central in Ohio on a 2x3

[robwill84]

I have a box of these if you want them, or a mold that will make a full wall.



Mold looks like this https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=28266.msg394840#msg394840

This is what I used the single stone faces for:
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That's very cool, I'd have to use the individual ones since the majority of the wall is on a curve. They would produce really good results, but I've got about 30 inches of one inch high wall to brick up, so it would take a very long time to apply.

[robwill84]

This looks like a DKS style micro build.  Really digging the progress.  I think this style of layout is going to be a fairly significant trend as people work out their various solutions to their personal housing crises, whether you're an old guy downsizing, a retiree escaping to an RV, or a youngin' trying to move out of mom's basement.

Can't wait to see the scenic effects you'll be treating us to.

Lee

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Yeah, I'm glad to see so many smaller layouts being built. For years I've admired Japanese micro layouts, where craftsmanship is key, even if the train is just going in circles!

[robwill84]

So, I kind of chickened out on the whole carving my own blocks thing. I found in my scenery supplies some Chooch flexible random stone wall that I never used because I didn't like the way the soft resin curled up around the edges and didn't trust it to stay glued in place wherever I used it Well, I had the idea to laminate it with superglue to some balsa wood, and that worked well to hold it in place.

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I'm going to add another 1/4 inch or so on top of the stone with some stripwood, try to make it look like concrete blocks. Then I thought about the purpose of a stone wall like this, in Elyria the stone wall eventually becomes an arch bridge crossing the Black river. I don't have a river running through the middle of my layout, but I do have a street so what if...

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That would give somewhere for my dead-end mainstreet road to go, and give some reason for the walls existence in the first place. Then on the other side of the portal I can transition back to the angled pieces, and have an area for the water tower surrounded by trees-

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[robwill84]

I'm still plodding away on this little layout. I got the first Walthers underpass ready to put in place-

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I decided to build it as it comes in the kit, aside from modifications to accommodate the Unitrack. Even though in the real world its very common for underpasses to pass through at various angles, it just looked weird to me on the model. So, its just the standard kit, the biggest change is I simply replaced the deck with a piece of .010 sheet styrene, as the original was too thick for the Unitrack roadbed.

Another change I am considering is using a Unitrack double track truss bridge at the back of the layout-

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Even as I'm looking at it now I'm already changing my mind though. I thought it might look interesting with some trees in front of it, maybe add a little depth to the scene. Its just not a very good looking or well-detailed bridge, so the close ups leave a lot to be desired-

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So yeah, probably won't be going with that, but it was interesting to try. I'm still moving things around, seeing how different things work together. It's one thing to have a plan on paper, quite another to see everything in 3D. I'm considering the area in the middle, I had originally intended for a small park. I have a lot of parts leftover from my Vulcan kitbash, I could make another small industry right in the middle of town and add another wrinkle to my switching operation. I have a bunch of walls from the Walthers beverage distributor building, and a Micro Engineering Petroff plumbing supply building I might be able to cobble together into something interesting...

[Cory Rothlisberger]

Even as I'm looking at it now I'm already changing my mind though. I thought it might look interesting with some trees in front of it, maybe add a little depth to the scene. Its just not a very good looking or well-detailed bridge, so the close ups leave a lot to be desired-

This scene looks like it will be amazing. Once you weather up that bridge, I think you'll come around a bit on it...

[wm3798]

I was hesitant to use them on my TTrak modules, but you know... TTrak!


I weathered the heck out of them, started with silver bridges, sprayed oxide red, then some black, then added several washes of rust and grimy black.  Also added some trees to mask those wonky end plates at the top of the truss.  They ended up quite serviceable.

You could also try the Walther's double track thru truss, which I think has a little better detail with the webbed girders at the top, and roughly the same geometry.



Looking really good, overall!
Lee

[Dave V]

So yeah... The Kato single-track truss looks very North American, but the double-tracked truss doesn't really look like anything I've seen on this continent.

Lee's right regarding the Walthers bridge; plus it's based on a North American prototype.

That said, if the aim is to keep it simple and stick with Kato, you could do worse than following Lee's example. His weathering on those Kato truss bridges is about the best rust-on-plastic I've ever seen, and it really hides the Japanese origin of the truss design. And, for PC in the 70s, that degree of rust is perfectly appropriate.

You've got a tough decision to make here, but either way, I'm sure it'll work out. This is definitely one of my favorite build threads on TRW!

[OldEastRR]

That Kato bridge looks way too long -- railroads tended to only build bridges where they were needed. they liked being on dirt whether ground level or an embankment: it was cheaper to build, safer, and required less maintenance than a bridge.
You could cut the bridge in half (remove the center spans)and add embankment to the left-side track. That gives you the opportunity to add another spur to the outer track in the back there (to the left of the bridge), with an elevated line to reach the industry in the far left corner. Factories did have loading doors on the second floor in some eastern US cities.
Doing surgery on the bridge may open new modeling skills for you.

[garethashenden]

A girder bridge may be more appropriate. There are lots available too.

[robwill84]

Thanks for your comments and suggestions everybody, I am reading everything even if I'm not responding. I am leaning more toward the Kato bridge, need to get it painted and see. Thinking about working in a very small stream under the bridge to justify its existence, that will then run behind the foundry and into a culvert under the track. I did solve the problem of what to put next to the siding in the middle to give me another spot to work-

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That's the Walthers Golden Valley freight depot, the built up version. Found one cheap on ebay, and it fits right into the little area across from the downtown buildings. I need to weather it up, so it looks the part of an old wooden depot just barely hanging in there, still receiving a delivery every once in a while.