Erie Railroad Mahoning division HCD

[Dave V]

This layout is absolutely spanktacular!  I think you share @wm3798 Lee Weldon's gift for creating a natural-looking scene that we've all seen somewhere before, even if we can't put our fingers on it...

There's also something to be said for making industries look big enough to justify rail service!  That mill looks perfect for that.

[Chris333]

Laid some planks for the crossing and painted it up along with the rails. Used a more rust color on the sidings.


Started cutting a piece of black styrene for the road.

[wm3798]

Spanktakular?  Put your fingers on it?  I think Dave needs to be alone with his laptop for a bit...

[OldEastRR]

How did you get the raised crooked ridges on the asphalt? Or is that an optical illusion?

[Chris333]

I used a pointed tip in a Dremel tool. The close up shot is before I knocked the edges down with sand paper. Leaving what look like cracks. The process is what the great DKS did on is Z scale James River Branch.

[Dave V]

Shall I assume the advantage of a Dremel over, say, a good ole' X-acto is that the former tends to "wander" in relatively curved trajectories, versus the "lightning bolt" collection of straight jags one gets with a #11?

[wazzou]

Shall I assume the advantage of a Dremel over, say, a good ole' X-acto is that the former tends to "wander" in relatively curved trajectories, versus the "lightning bolt" collection of straight jags one gets with a #11?

That would probably be a likely assumption, I would suspect.

[Chris333]

I guess an exacto would work if you ran it upsidedown to score, but I always end up dragging the blade 2-3 times to get depth. With the dremel I did the whole sheet very quickly.

[OldEastRR]

I used a pointed tip in a Dremel tool. The close up shot is before I knocked the edges down with sand paper. Leaving what look like cracks. The process is what the great DKS did on is Z scale James River Branch.

What tip did you use in the DRemel?

[Chris333]

What tip did you use in the DRemel?

This one:

[OldEastRR]

Be interesting to see using a combination of the dremel tip for big cracks and Xacto blade for smaller shallow ones out from them.. I'll have to try that.

[railnerd]

Is that the "9909 Tungsten Carbide Cutter"?

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Accessories/Pages/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=9909

-Dave

[Chris333]

Chugging along...

[davefoxx]

That looks sweet, Chris.  I like the wide sidewalks and the areas with grass between the curb and sidewalk.  You have captured detail that is usually overlooked.

DFF

[wm3798]

I hope those driveway aprons are 6" thick and reinforced with rebar.  This town has a building code, you know. 

May I suggest you go back and add some elevation to those yards.  And maybe some outbuilding garages.  The kind with basketball hoops over the door.  In case Wally and Lumpy want to play Horse with Eddie Haskell.

Lee