A shelf layout emerging from a turnout

[central.vermont]

 

Looking good!!!!
Also doing the back side lets you get even better once you get to the front side.  Practice makes perfect ya know.

Jon

[svedblen]

Thanks, Jon. And yes, some practicing can never hurt 

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Ok, I'm going to say something that may be a bit unpopular.

While I LOVE your track (absolutely, it's incredible), I'm not in love with the ballast.

In my experience, ballast is usually a somewhat consistent size, generally coming from a commercial rock crusher. Yours has a mix of bigger and larger bits that looks off to me. That doesn't mean it isn't right, it's just different from what I'm used to.

[nscaler711]

@Ed Kapuscinski
I hear you, but it does kinda work for track that is poorly maintained though too.
On mainline track the ballast is usually up to the top of the ties and is pretty much about fist sized (or slightly smaller) rocks, that are sifted to lock in place.
I have seen some abandoned track that looks about how he's got it, if his doesn't look better than some tracks I've seen.
If that's his siding then it could work too, but could have a better maintained look to it...

It still looks good though so no need to tear it up for some sillyness.

[svedblen]

Ok, I'm going to say something that may be a bit unpopular...I'm not in love with the ballast.

No problem Ed. To tell you the truth, I'm not always in love with it either 

I could offer you a lengthy explanation on why it looks like it does, but the short version is that @nscaler711 is rigth (thanks for the support  ): It is supposed to be a small-time outback operation, where they use anythting they can lay there hands on for ballast.

But I had actually already decided to try and hide the worst. So when I am done there will not be very much, if anything, left of the roadbed profile. The surrounding terrain will be raised and most of the larger bits will be burried and no longer visible. And weeds will probably grow over other parts of the ballast.

Keep your opinions coming - good  or bad 

[GaryHinshaw]

I'm not in love with the ballast.

I had the same initial reaction, but when I was in California this summer I drove by the Sierra RR ROW and their track looked just like this.  The side track (right track) in this photo is an example; not so much between the rails, but definitely along the shoulders.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Cool. Goes to show that, no matter how much railroading you're familiar with, there's always more out there.

Which is great, because this really IS beautiful.

[davefoxx]

I had the same initial reaction, but when I was in California this summer I drove by the Sierra RR ROW and their track looked just like this.  The side track (right track) in this photo is an example; not so much between the rails, but definitely along the shoulders.

Same here on the initial reaction, and, even after looking at the picture Gary posted, I think you still need to pick off the large rocks in the shoulder of your track.  That would address the issue properly for me.  Otherwise, it looks fantastic!

DFF

[svedblen]

Thanks for the comments. Your reactions convince me that I should hide or pick off the larger rocks, just as I thought.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Better modeling through peer pressure at work!

[svedblen]

I have made some layout work during the holidays

• I am done painting the back of all rail meaning I could swap the layout around, so that the front is once again forward faced as intended 
• I have replaced the wheels on the remaining two cars, so now all (3!) of them have wheels with proper /115 treads.
• Finally I changed the wheel axles on the engine, so that my re-gauging for standard O gauge would work better. The existing axles were shorter and for the more narrow, but prototypically correct, Proto:48 gauge.

With all this done it was time for some running, But before I could do that I had to clean the rail heads (before I mess them up again when doing the weathering on the front side). Said and done, and with both clean engine wheels and rails I set out on a back and forth run. A few dirty spots remained, but with those taken care of I still had problems near then end of the track. In the very same spot the loco stopped dead every time.

A light push and it started up again, but then went silent. After many more attempts to clean rails and wheels, to no avail, I finally brought out my voltage meter. I soon found out that at this very spot none of the wheels on the right side made electrical contact with the rail beneath it! How could that be?

If I lightly pressed on the right of the loco there was once again contact. I first thought the problem was that the roadbed was leaning in some way, making the right hand wheels suspended in the air. But that could hardly be the case. The trucks would surely be able to take up any small (invisible) misalignment like that.

Something else must make the wheels rise. So what could make them climb? When I thought "climb" I finally understood  It turned out the track gauge was on the narrow side in that spot  , which made the wheels climb ever so little. It was really not visible, but enough to make the wheel treads loose contact with the rail heads. The flanges still had contact with the sides of the rail head, but there my newly applied paint and weathering stopped any electricity from coming through.

I really ought to pull the rail spikes in that section and move one of the rails, but for now I just removed the paint from the uppermost part of the rail head - and no more spurious stops in that spot.

[GaryHinshaw]

I really ought to pull the rail spikes in that section and move one of the rails, but for now I just removed the paint from the uppermost part of the rail head - and no more spurious stops in that spot.

Classic short line railroading.

[svedblen]

Classic short line railroading.

Sure, this is not meant to be a Class A main, but making sure the wheels fit between the rails is a minimum even on this line 

Anyway, the problematic section has been fixed; spikes pulled, tie plates removed, rail offset about a millimeter, new tie plates inserted and new spikes driven in. Vioilá, piece of cake! No, actually it was no fun at all. But now it's done 

[svedblen]

I wanted to model a stone wall, with moss and lichen. I could think of a number of ways of doing this, and buying a ready-made casting was not one of them. What I could do was to for instance:

• Do a simple plaster casting and scribe a stone pattern on to it
• Scribe or imprint a stone pattern in a piece of extruded foam
• Build the wall from individual stones

I've done the first two in other (N scale) projects so I settled for the last one. Might (perhaps) be doable in O scale, which as you know is the scale for my current layout.

So I sat out to do a test wall. First I got myself a bunch of O scale stones. I made them from a flake of not yet cured plaster which I first scribed and broke into strips. The strips where then cut up into more or less rectangular stones. Like this:



I then built a support structure from styrene...



...on which I then stacked the stones and secured them with ordinary white glue. I applied the glue in the back, towards the support only, since I did not want any glue on the visible parts of the stones. Any glue on the stones would ruin any later staining. Here four rows of stones are in place:



And finally we are done:



I admit, the resulting surface is a little on the uneven and rough side. A real stone layer, working with cut stones, and producing a result like this would most probably have got sacked! The individual stone surfaces can also be improved. But for a first test I think it came out quite nice.

Here is a shot with the wall on the layout. The height of the wall is about 1.5 scale meters (a little less than 5 feet).



Next up is staining and painting, followed by the application of lichen and moss.

[central.vermont]

That looks really good Lennart!! Now you have to paint and weather it. I did something similar in N scale one block at a time for some bridge abutments.

Jon

Before................



..........and after