Burlington Northern's Scenic Subdivision

[Kevin C]

Nkalanaga. Thank you for sharing a bit of the history and details of Pasco and the surrounds. I am sure that with your father working at the Pasco yard, you had the best opportunity to get right up and close to all the action.
Funny thing that happened is that since your last post, I was scratching around in my DVD collection looking for a National Geographic, wildlife DVD that I had misplaced when I came across a copied DVD marked trains.

This DVD filmed in June 1989 was all about the Burlington Northern's train 110 and in particular a loaded flatcar of particle board from the Weyerhauser plant that was to be sent to one of their customers beyond Chicago. Train 110 originated in the Pasco Yard and travelled all the way via Spokane to Chicago to connect with Conrail to take the load further. On the DVD was a short clip showing the hump yard with the retarder in action. I found it very ineresting as I could relate what I was looking at to that which you had described.

Progress on my layout continues with me busy with the scenery on the top level. I have decided to work from the the top down so any mess that falls from the top level does not mess up any scenery below. As mentioned in a previous post, I am dividing the top level into sections between the steel upright supports and working on that section only until the scenery is 100% complete including the top facia, light box with lights working. I will then continue with the next section.

I have taken a before photo shown below, and was only going to post once the 100% stage was reached but it is a time consuming process, which I am really enjoying. I therefore decided to show the latest update which I feel is about 50%.
I am working from the back to the front so there is still the track ballasting to do and then on to the foregound detail.

Below are the before and after photo's to this point.

[nkalanaga]

Your DVD sounds interesting.  And, yes, I did have better access to the yard than most teenagers!  Growing up around the railroad safety rules were also a major part of growing up, and as long as we were with him, nobody asked any questions.  40 years later, I doubt that even employees can bring visitors in, especially kids, without formal permission.  During his last couple years there (he retired on disability, diabetes, in 1973) I spent several nights in the tower with him, in case he had medical issues.  He never did, fortunately, but I got to see most of what goes on in a major hump yard, and a few "incidents" that the railroad didn't publicize.  Once the workings of a cushion underframe dropped off a boxcar in the middle of the switches for the first (west side) bowl tracks, tying up that part of the yard.  The next car stopped on top of them, and got stuck, so it took a while to clear.

I wasn't there the night the group retarder stuck, catching a grain hopper with an old, mostly wood, boxcar behind it, and the next cut of grain cars squashed the boxcar.  Splinters and scrap metal over a wide area, and they had to put the "brake shoes" back in the retarder. 

Grain from the Walla Walla Branch had to have idlers between the 100-ton hoppers, because the bridges weren't designed for modern loads.  They fixed that a few years later.  A lot of the eastern Washington branches were like that, and many were abandoned within a few years, as it became cheaper to truck the grain to terminal elevators, rather than load boxcars/hoppers at each little town.  Rather than upgrade the track, the lines were abandoned.  Parts of the GN's Mansfield Branch, southeast of Wenatchee, still had rail from the 1890s when it was taken up in the 1980s.

The top picture looks like a good start on eastern Washington scenery.  Just tweak the colors a little bit!  The main difference is that, on the east side, retaining walls would probably be concrete instead of stone. 

Concrete was probably more common than stone on the west side, but I wouldn't want to swear to it.  The NP didn't reach the coast until the early 1880s, and much of the early construction was wood.  When it was replaced, concrete would have been cheaper than stone, due to labor costs. 

[Scottl]

Kevin, that section looks great, keep it coming.  I love how layouts transform from plywood or foam into something that looks realistic.  It is the best part of the project!

[Kevin C]

  Just tweak the colors a little bit!. 

Please can you give me some advice. The main base material I am using is the " Woodland Scenics - Blended Turf - Green Blend " . I have started to add patches of olive coloured underbrush and course turf in places, all that I can find at my LHS. Do you think I should go lighter or darker. All input greatly appreciated. I have also noticed that the camera I am using is also not helping with the overall result. I will ask my brother one day to bring his new Canon over and we can play around with clarity and detail.

Scottl . Thank you. Now that I have started the scenery. It is an enjoyable process. I have not even finalised the track plan on the lower levels " Only got the mainline in ". but I will get to that later.

[Scottl]

Kevin, do you have an airbrush?  I suggest a light overspray of the vegetation with either red or light gray to tone it down a bit.  Most of the WS colors are a bit intense.  Red is the complementary color for green so the mixing of the two desaturates (tones down) but light gray works as well.  Just a real light coat will do it.

[Kevin C]

I do have an airbrush. There is another hobby shop nearby that caters mostly for radio controlled car and plane goods but they do have a large range of airbrush paints. Next time I go past there I will get some paints and give it a try. I will hopefully have results for you in the next week or two. Thanks!!

[Scottl]

Any paint will do:  dilluted latex wall paint tinted with artist or craft paint, or similar.  For scenery work, I would not use expensive hobby paint.  The finish is not as critical as on the models.

[nkalanaga]

Kevin:  I was actually talking about the upper picture, with no finished scenery at all!  The scenery in eastern Washington is largely "shrub-steppe", basically desert with grass, sagebrush, a few willows where there's water.  The ground color depends on the rocks, with the soil immediately east of the Cascades being largely light brown/yellowish, typical clay/decomposed granite colors, not too different from much of the world.  This would include Yakima and Wenatchee.

In the lower Columbia Basin proper,  around Pasco, the "soil" is mostly sand, as the smaller stuff either blew away or washed away.  The sand, in turn, is left from Ice Age floods, and is literally ground up Rocky Mountains, granite and sedimentary rocks, and Columbia Plateau basalt.  Pasco sand looks gray in sunlight, with nothing to compare it to, but next to a white surface it has a noticeable brownish tint, due to the high iron content.  It doesn't turn red, like most high-iron soils in wet climates, but if one drags a magnet through it, the iron particles stick.  If one had the money, and energy, for a big enough magnet, it would probably be viable iron ore.

The Cascades themselves are typical sedimentary and granite, and again, the rocks don't look much different than a lot of places.  Columbia Plateau basalt is dark gray to black when freshly broken, but weathers to various shades of brown, due to the iron.  Except in the river canyons and Ice Age flood "coulees" most of the basalt is covered, as it forms almost level layers, with linear faulted hills.  The lower areas have flood deposits, like Pasco, and are good farm land.  The higher, uneroded areas have Palouse Loess soils, which tend to be more tan/yellow, and finer, but are also usually covered with grasses.  The area south of Spokane is called The Palouse", and shows what most of eastern Washington looked like before the massive flood. 

Wenatchee is an odd area.  The west side of the river is Cascade rocks, while the east side is Columbia basalts, with the river running along the boundary.  The scenery is different, depending on which way one looks.

As for the railroads, the NP follows the Yakima River, and is generally in farming country, with no major rock formations, between Yakima and Pasco.  Above Yakima, it's in the bottom of the Yakima Canyon to Ellensburg, then up the Kittitas Valley to the mountains. 

The scenery in your picture really doesn't look like basalt country, as it forms layers.  It could well be the eastern foothills of the Cascades or northeastern Washington, where the basalts didn't reach.   If I was painting it as eastern Washington, I'd say the rocks in the lower picture are close, since the colors vary depending on the type of rock, but most tend to be grayish.  For vegetation, most of the year, dry grass, in yellows and browns, with some light green in wetter areas, and no trees in open country.  Sagebrush, in various sizes, some bunch grass, tumbleweeds, etc. 

It could be around Wenatchee or Ellensburg, but most of the year it wouldn't be that green.  If it was on the west side, with enough rain to keep it green, there would probably be more trees, unless it had recently been logged or burned. 

Washington scenery, especially along the NP and GN, has enough variety that one almost has to find pictures of the particular location to get the colors and vegetation right.  Fortunately, much of it has been well photographed, and the pictures can be found online.

Here are two pictures of the Yakima Canyon, showing both the basalt scenery and how the colors depend on when/where one is.  I don't have dates or exact locations, or the photographers' names, for either one.



The hills to the upper left and center seem to be part of the Cascades, where the basalt flows have run up against the older rocks, since they don't have the layered look of the lava flows.  That's the BNSF ex-NP line, with concrete ties and fresh ballast, even though it doesn't see a lot of traffic today.



Much drier than the first picture, and looking more like mid summer or winter, as well as a different angle.  The lava flows don't seem to be as neatly layered, so I suspect this is closer to the northern, railroad west, end of the canyon, nearing the Kittitas Valley.

And, a recent picture from the Tri-Cities (Pasco) paper, of the Hanford project, showing the general scenery of the lower Columbia Basin, with two of the Cascade vocanoes in the back ground, Mt Rainier on the right, and Mt Adams on the left.
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[Kevin C]

I have inserted two maps to indicate the area and small sections of the Burlington Northern Railroad System that I am trying to model on my layout. This is to give an idea of the scene I am trying to set on the upper level.

The mainline between Seattle and Spokane consists of two Sub Divisions. These are the Burlington Northern's now "BNSF 's" Scenic Sub Division which starts at the King Street Station in Seattle and ends in the town of Wenatchee. Trains travelling across this division pass through Interbay "Balmer Yard", Everett, Snohomish, Skokomish, The Cascade Tunnel, Berne, Levenworth and on to Wenatchee. The section of track from Wenatchee to Spokane falls under the "BNSF's" Columbia River Sub Division.

If I can pin a location to each part of my layout with reference to the map below, the left hand end of my Level 4 staging will be Spokane's Yardley Yard. Here trains leave and enter the main Helix "Helix 1" which represents the Columbia River Sub Division on the trip west. I have two shelves that protrude from the helix which will become dioramas of two locations found along this section of mainline.



At the top of the helix, the trains emerge from behind the town of Peshaston "refer to Map below". and travel as on the prototype, parallel to the Wenatchee river, crossing it on my layout in front of the window and proceeding towards the Stevens Pass and Cascade tunnel which can be said is in Helix 2.



When the trains exit Helix 2 on my layout they enter Seattle which will have all the relevant industries to be added later. After passing over my layout, the trains will enter Seattle's Balmer Yard, represented as the right hand side of the staging on Level 4.

I found the perfect photo " refer below" to illustrate what I am trying to achieve on the top level of my layout. As can be seen on the associated photo location map, it was taken close to Peshastin.

In the background are the rolling hills covered with hundreds of trees together with outcrops of rock and green vegetation showing through. The foreground is also covered with a lot of green vegetation. I totally agree with the comment that Scottl made in an earlier post regarding the green being too overpowering. My goal as he suggested is to tone it down. I will also add more browns and dry brush colours to add to the variation.

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/531460/

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Washington scenery, especially along the NP and GN, has enough variety that one almost has to find pictures of the particular location to get the colors and vegetation right.  Fortunately, much of it has been well photographed, and the pictures can be found online.

Truer words have never been spoken, but let me expand on that: "scenery has enough variety that you need to find pictures to get it right".

I don't know why people will take great pains to find photos of equipment to get it right, but then rely on their memories for scenery.
This is one of my most important scenery modeling tools: https://picasaweb.google.com/103328750375507168249/WinterSceneryReferencePhotos

[GaryHinshaw]

Very helpful to see the maps and photos.  I think if you're trying to model the east slope of the Cascades (e.g. Peshaston) in the model scene above you should make the rock much browner as well.  If you study the proto photo, there is relatively little contrast between the trees, grass, and rock in the distant hillside.  You should avoid the temptation to make them too dark, because you're indoors, but darker than they are currently.

Also - and not to be too negative - I think the shape of the retaining wall seems a bit forced with those rectangular lines, and the segment above the tracks seems unnecessary.  Again this is a case where a photo for reference and inspiration would help a lot.  I tried to find a shot of a retaining wall in this part of the world, but I came up empty.

Nice to see the progress though!

[M.C. Fujiwara]

avoid the temptation to make them too dark, because you're indoors, but darker than they are currently.

Good rule of thumb, and not just because you're indoors.
On my Free-moN modules based on local Bay Area California scenes, when I used the actual dirt from those locations, it looked too dark.
I had to find lighter dirt to use as groundcover, but at the end of layering in the more complex groundcover, it looked more realistic.

Also, I'd recommend using more static grass than ground foam, as it's too easy to have WS ground foam (& one "blend") create a "carpet" effect.

[Kevin C]

Thank You Gentlemen for all the comments, thoughts and suggestions. It has given me something to mull over and investigate further and try out.

Ed!. The link to the website you noted above seems like an amazing source of information. I am sure I will spend a lot of time looking at it to get ideas.

I will keep you posted.

Kevin

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Thank You Gentlemen for all the comments, thoughts and suggestions. It has given me something to mull over and investigate further and try out.

Ed!. The link to the website you noted above seems like an amazing source of information. I am sure I will spend a lot of time looking at it to get ideas.

I will keep you posted.

Kevin

I'm glad you like, but remember, it's MY album of photos taken from the area I'm modeling (some from the exact location... it's a trail now so access is super easy). The world looks a lot different where you're modeling. One good thing though... Google street view and Bing's Birds Eye View make remote research so much easier. But you have to spend some time with them (and take some screen shots of good sections).

[basementcalling]

I am so stealing some of this for the Idaho Belt, as it links to BNSF and UP in Spokane. The variations in the geography are one of the main characteristics that drew me to the region in my search for a location for my layout.