The Little Rock Line

[Bendtracker1]

Thanks Mike!
I'm looking forward to your build as I miss watching your last one.

[Philip H]

looking more like a south Arkansas crick every day - almost a bayou!

[Bendtracker1]

Thanks Philip.

I finally got around to getting the static grass applied at Whitewater creek, and added the rip rap to the abutments.
I still have a long way to go yet.
I plan to add some dirt patches in areas by sifting my earth mix onto the grass, adding some detritus where the trees will be planted, adding patches of coarse grass,
making and adding Reeds along the creek edge, placing some driftwood in places and of course the trees.
I may also make one final thin pour of the creek once all the details are in place.

[wazzou]

Allen, the scene looks good. 
I do wonder about the grass beneath the trestle though?
I’ll preface this of course that my experience is on the West Coast, but I’ve been around an awful lot of bridges and the Railroad will typically try to prevent grass or other ignition sources beneath or immediately adjacent to trestles.

Additionally, the area right under a trestle doesn’t get as much sunlight either.

[amato1969]

Whoa, that grass looks great!  Nice touch with the abandoned trackage too!

  Frank

[Bendtracker1]

Allen, the scene looks good. 
I do wonder about the grass beneath the trestle though?
I’ll preface this of course that my experience is on the West Coast, but I’ve been around an awful lot of bridges and the Railroad will typically try to prevent grass or other ignition sources beneath or immediately adjacent to trestles.

Additionally, the area right under a trestle doesn’t get as much sunlight either.

Thank you Bryan.
@wazzou , I can't argue with your logic.
I've had a couple guys say the same thing about the grass under the bridge.
Here's my thoughts:
I'm modeling the spring of 1979 roughly, the last year the track saw service under The Rock.

Also, since it was the last full year of operations on The Rock, actually The Little Rock (because this portion of the line was cut off from the main corporate and was operated much like it own entity) I doubt there was a lot of excess capital to go around, so I'm assuming weed control wasn't high on the priority list?

I've never been to this spot personally, but I've been told it get rather lush in the spring.
Having said that, I do plan to go back and add some dirt patches much like I did in my yard as I did get a little too much grass applied.



Also here is a shot from Google Maps from May of 2014
There is a fair amount of green under the bridge.


Also knowing that this area floods a lot, I'm sure the weeds would come back aggressively each year as the floods would probably wash the weed killer away or bring
in fresh soil?
Either way, I'm flying by the seat of pants here, so I'll see how things turn out as move along.
But I thank you for your input and concern, it's duly noted.

[Bendtracker1]

Whoa, that grass looks great!  Nice touch with the abandoned trackage too!

  Frank

Thanks Frank!
The abandoned trackage is actually still used.
On the other end of the scene, I cut in a connection so I could access the gavilon Fertilizer plant there.
Here's a video I made of the operations on this section.

[wazzou]

Allen-
Thanks for the prototype photo.  Hard to argue with that.  Please carry on.

[Pomperaugrr]

Thanks Frank!
The abandoned trackage is actually still used.
On the other end of the scene, I cut in a connection so I could access the gavilon Fertilizer plant there.
Here's a video I made of the operations on this section.

The video definitely answered my question about those tracks.  Nice work!

[Bendtracker1]

The video definitely answered my question about those tracks.  Nice work!

Thanks Eric.

[Bendtracker1]

I haven't posted any updates since getting the static grass applied as I've been working on building trees and adding reeds to the creek.
I did manage to add some coarse grasses and then some ground cover where the trees will be planted.   
So I'll post a few pics and leave a link to my blog instead of retyping everything.

Here are some of the reeds


While working on making and adding the reeds I also started building a ton of Supertrees, about 60 large trees and close to 80 smaller saplings and fillers branches made from trimmings of the larger trees.  This is only about 1/3rd of what I made.


Another tree I wanted to make was a Loblolly Pine, these are fairly common in the local that I'm modeling and wanted to include some.


I've thought about how to make these for sometime now.  Recently I watched a video where a modeler made some Birch trees for his layout and thought that I could use his method to create a Loblolly.
 
So I started with this


I wound up with this


Here's the links to the blog:
Reeds
Supertrees
Loblollys
Loblollys 2

Next step is to start planting the trees.

[Philip H]

Wait, did you just SOLVE the southern pine problem that has been plaguing me and @davefoxx since time began?

WELL DONE SIR!

I guess I owe you more drinks now . . . .

[Bendtracker1]

Wait, did you just SOLVE the southern pine problem that has been plaguing me and @davefoxx since time began?

WELL DONE SIR!

I guess I owe you more drinks now . . . .

I sure hope Phil?
These are the ones I mentioned to you a while back.



Or just a bottle of Dew would be most welcomed when you and Dave come for a visit or session... 

[davefoxx]

Or just a bottle of Dew would be most welcomed when you and Dave come for a visit or session... 

Sweet.  I'm on my way to the airport now. 

DFF

[davefoxx]

These trees do look nice.  One thing to add to the foreground trees would be the dead branches still on the trunk below the canopy.  I think that would really make them look like pine trees.

Kudzos,
DFF