Aroostook Northern

[vt_railroad_guy]

Here is a picture of the area I'm looking to develop.  The Main line is on the outside and the pass is next to it.  The rest of the "yard" is just me visualizing things.  The area I have to work with is between the strip of cork in the middle and the pass.  I would like a large(ish) industry or two rather than trying to build a yard.  I have a connetion for a future yard expansion on the other side of the layout.  BAR serviced the paper, forrest and food industries.  My first thought is a representation of a papermill or the McCain foods plant, but that may not work in the area I have.  The one thing I don't want, is to cram too much in.  I want large, but I want it to fit.  Any ideas?


JDB

[DKS]

Assuming that cork strip is the back of a double-sided backdrop, then one way to have large-ish industries without cramming things in is to build them mostly as flats against the backdrop. This leaves the bulk of the area open for some kind of interesting arrangement of track and roads.

[Bsklarski]

You can also run one of those stubs toward the foreground and to the left for another industry all together or another section of the main industry. Or you can leave it open.

[vt_railroad_guy]

Assuming that cork strip is the back of a double-sided backdrop, then one way to have large-ish industries without cramming things in is to build them mostly as flats against the backdrop. This leaves the bulk of the area open for some kind of interesting arrangement of track and roads.

I was thinking of angling the main buildings toward the scenic divider for a better appearance.  I find flats to be, well, flat and I'm not very talented when it comes to disguising that fact.  I am using a ridge as my divider, so I will have to blend them into the hill somehow.

JDB

[M.C. Fujiwara]

I am using a ridge as my divider, so I will have to blend them into the hill somehow.

Except for the depot, all these buildings are flats up against a hill:



The whole space is 9" deep.
Thank goodness for bushes and trees 

[vt_railroad_guy]

Except for the depot, all these buildings are flats up against a hill:



The whole space is 9" deep.
Thank goodness for bushes and trees 

Whoa, that looks great! 

[vt_railroad_guy]

Wow, it's been over 6 years!

Well, my hobby room turned into a bedroom for my oldest daughter and the layout went into storage.  A move to a larger house last year gave me room to resurrect the Aroostook Northern, but time (and my three kids) hadn't been kind to the ole gal.  I have been working on piecing the main line back together and last night I finally closed the loop!  I have to soder one feeder tonight and i'll make the test run to see if we are back in business again.

Anyway, hello again to all of you.  It's good to be back!

JDB

[davefoxx]

Welcome back!  Keep us posted on your progress.

DFF

[Wardie]

Welcome back, just as an FYI I get up to Aroostook county at least one every couple months for work. If you want some photos of anything let me know and I will see what I can get.

[vt_railroad_guy]

It's been a year since my "return".  Does that make this my re-return??

Anyway, a lot has changed.  After I got my main line up and running, I endlessly tweaked my design to better fit what I wanted to build.  In the end, a HCD was just a little too small to fulfill my desires.

To that end, I built a 4x8 table over Thanksgiving to give myself enough room to accomplish what I want.  I have expanded my minimum main line radius to 18"+ and have given myself another 6 inches on either side of my divider to better fit in my scenery and industries.  My biggest issue was representing a paper mill in a 4' x 1.5' area.  I just didn't have quite enough room to pull it off.  Now I have given myself 5.5' x 2' to work with, which makes a huge difference in N scale.  I have created a broad sweeping curve that crosses a river twice and will provide a nice photo spot from three sides of the layout.  My town on the other end has enough room to spread out a bit and incorporate an underpass as well as an overpass on the other end of town.  My siding length on the old layout relegated my train lengths to 10 cars and 2 engines and required the use of the main line to switch the paper mill.  I now have a long siding that wraps half way around the layout which will also double as the switching lead for the paper mill.  I have incorporated a couple of turnouts to allow future expansion without the need to tear up existing track work.

Over all, I am very happy with the size of the layout and track plan.  It is large enough to accomplish what I want and small enough to finish to a reasonable level in a relatively short time frame.

Without further ado, here is the inaugural trip around my main line.  I am happy to report, no derailments as of yet, though I am going to shim my atlas switches.

[vt_railroad_guy]

I have made some progress.  This is working FAR better for me than my door layout was.  This is literally the furthest I have ever gotten on a layout, but here it is my progress for your consideration.

Kitt Transfer is the very first N scale building I have ever painted.  I was reasonably pleased for my first attempt.

I am modeling northern Maine in October, so after a lot of research I decided to use actual soil and dried leaves for the ground cover.  This corner is where i am going to experiment and practice before i turn myself loose on the rest of the layout.

Anyway, I hope all are well and taking care of themselves in these trying times.  Keep the faith and keep on modeling!

[LIRR]

good call

[vt_railroad_guy]

I've been working on rocks over the past week.  I cast them with plaster of paris in an aluminum foil mold and attached them to my scenery with liquid nails.  I painted them "granite" and then washed them with a "pavement" color.  I then added sifted dirt to the cracks and am playing around with foliage to use in those spots.  You can see my dirt/leaf ground cover in the foreground.  I think once I add the trees, it will look just about right.  What do you think?





I've also been working on the layout of my town and assembling buildings.  Right now I am concentrating on assembling and painting my buildings.  I'll add decals and details later on.






And I whipped together a track cleaning car.  It was a pretty easy project.






That's it for now.

Stay safe and keep modeling.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Looking great! Are you doing Dead Season?

Also, I LOVE the placement of the town on the end. The buildings hide the "blob" aspect quite nicely. That's really smart.

[LIRR]

nice progress