CN Yellowhead Division

[Tad_T]

Very nice, sir.

Take one of the back shot views with a train coming through.

[Scottl]

@Tad_T I tried to take some shots from that back angle and struggled with the trees in there now, plus the bridges are in shadow from that direction.  It is a neat potential shot, so I'll keep working on it.  I need to make a very compact mount for the cell phone to keep it in place in tight spots like that.

I refined my focus stacking flow and came up with much better images.  These scenes are 8-9' deep and I am really pleased with how they look in focus!  I've also reverted to my older phone camera which seems to have less saturation of color built into it.

[GaryHinshaw]

Excellent!! I'm especially impressed with the colour and sense of motion you're capturing in the rivers.

Now you need to weather some of  those trains.   

[Scottl]

@GaryHinshaw weathering those pricey locomotives is my greatest fear.  My next weathering will be the intermodal cars and containers- let the fading begin!

[mu26aeh]

@GaryHinshaw weathering those pricey locomotives is my greatest fear.  My next weathering will be the intermodal cars and containers- let the fading begin!

Once you do one, you'll take care of the rest of them.  Light passes with the air brush.

[Scottl]

I ballasted the yard one end to the other.  It took a few days but a big and unpleasant task behind me.  I used stone ballast from Scenic Express, which by the time it gets to this part of the world, is worth a few MT TBOX's, lol.  It was OK to work with and the sieving they use is pretty good.  There are some coarser bits that add character to the overall look.

Now I only have a few feet of track left to ballast and a bridge to build to finish the infrastructure.  You can see I have almost 350 conifer trees ready to plant- the smallest ones that are about 1.5" tall will replace the Ebay special trees that I used to get a quick sceniced look.

After I clean the yard up, I'll bring out the rest of the trains, and *maybe* do some weathering this winter. 

[Scottl]

Good weather this week allowed me to finish my backlog of trees so I now have over 500 conifers to place on the layout.  Hopefully this will be the last of the tree making until I extend the backdrop and scenic the rest of the layout.  I've made over 1000 trees and countless shrubs so far.

With the dirty work behind me, I pulled out another train today to run and take some photos.  This is the Windy Point-Henry House area of the the line and looks rather naked with just basic ground cover and a blank backdrop.  There are a lot of challenges to photographing this section, most notable are the narrowness of the scenes and the convex-concave reversal of the backdrop.  This area is pretty dry and the trees are sparse but there is a fair amount of shrubbery to add, and off course, the photo backdrop. 





The reverse curve in the backdrop is especially evident in how it alters the lighting on the backdrop in this shot.

[Scottl]

A panorama that captures most of the layout.  I'm really happy with how the room and space works and the amount of railroad I fit into the area- not too much and not too little. 

The last bridge to build is on the far left and represents the west entrance to the town of Jasper.  This will be my last major scenery project for the season.

[LKOrailroad]

Would be sweet if you could extend the backdrop image around the end of the peninsula backdrop and meld it with the image on the opposite side. Perhaps a piece of PVC pipe cut lengthwise to round off the end a bit would soften the image wrap.

[Scottl]

Would be sweet if you could extend the backdrop image around the end of the peninsula backdrop and meld it with the image on the opposite side. Perhaps a piece of PVC pipe cut lengthwise to round off the end a bit would soften the image wrap.

I've been thinking that I would just paint it sky blue but a half pipe might be a perfect look there.  Thanks for the suggestion.

[NorthWestGN]

Hey Scott,

I agree with Alan on the pipe idea, cutting a channel out of 1 or 1 1/2" diameter maybe??

I also agree with Gary on the weathering those locomotives, try some chalks, if you don't like it you can wash it away - No Risk!

Congrats on all the trees as well and the stunning river run photos, inspirational!

Brent

[mark.hinds]

I've been thinking that I would just paint it sky blue but a half pipe might be a perfect look there.  Thanks for the suggestion.

Another idea is to just paint it the baseboard color.  Rationale being to emphasize that it isn't part of the scenery (the sky isn't a thin blue tube...).  FWIW.

MH

[Scottl]

I'm leaning towards mounting a 1" half pipe and painting it sky blue, mostly to clean up the look. I agree it is hard to make this part of the scenery.

My bigger issue is the reverse backdrop curve in the Windy Point scene I posted above.  This is a drag as there is nothing I can do about it and it creates a lot of photography issues.  I"ll basically have to edit the sky in every photo.  Ah well, can't always get it right.

[lock4244]

Such a great scene