"Super sized Carolina Central" -2

[CVSNE]

Just to show that I really do get to build stuff thought I post this in-progress shot of my new N scale layout.

This is a 4 x 8 (or so) N scale layout based very, very loosely on the MEC.  The main industry is a paper mill - there's also a small town and some "countryside running" - of which this scene (provided the image shows up!) is one.

Still under construction - the water hasn't been poured yet and I need to add some more texture to the ground cover. I haven't weathered the the engines and rolling stock yet since, well, I haven't gotten to that chapter of the new book.

This is a rough idea for a cover image for the book.




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[Caleb Austin]

Woah! very cool. More pics!

[wm3798]

I see you went to the John School of Mismatched Bridge Piers and Abutments...  AARRRRGHGHGG!
Lee

[amato1969]

I really like the fall colors on the trees!  Nicely done without any day-glo orange.

  Frank

[bsoplinger]

I see you went to the John School of Mismatched Bridge Piers and Abutments...  AARRRRGHGHGG!
Lee

Yanno, that caught my eye too. But it does look nice in general and I must admit fall looks good on your layout. (Although you gotta admit those day-glo orange trees just do something)  :

[CVSNE]

I see you went to the John School of Mismatched Bridge Piers and Abutments...  AARRRRGHGHGG!
Lee

Lee,


I'd say mismatched piers and abutments were the rule rather than the exception in New England, so I went with it.  I've even seen lots of bridges were concrete "toppers" were added above the older cut stone piers.  ;D Of course, the real problem was the Chooch pier was such a pain to cut to height (that stuff is like cutting Kryptonite!) that I didn't want to think about cutting the abutments to height and figured scratchbuilding the things was much easier. 

Marty

[CVSNE]

I really like the fall colors on the trees!  Nicely done without any day-glo orange.

  Frank

Thanks Frank.

I have two rules when it comes to scenery -
1. No Woodland Scenics fall colors allowed in the house
2. Ground foam is a "filler" or a "base" but only in rare cases is it the "final" coat.

Oh, and third rule -

3. No Woodland Scenics fall colors allowed in the house (it's so important it's worth repeating  . . .)

After looking at the picture it's obvious I need to add some pine trees - I'm waiting for this rainy weather to stop so I can flock and paint the Heiki trees I have set aside for this scene.

Marty

[John]

I think we need a tree tutorial .. not that there weren't enough in Nscale in the past ..

[tom mann]

I really like the fall colors on the trees!  Nicely done without any day-glo orange.

  Frank

3. No Woodland Scenics fall colors allowed in the house (it's so important it's worth repeating  . . .)

Nice, maybe David Popp will see this...

[train1]

Do you have an 'overall' photo of the layout ? That photo is just teasing !

[Dave V]

Marty,

I second the opinion that you did an excellent job on the fall scenery.

Fall scenery is so difficult to pull off convincingly.  My favorite season up at Penn State was fall; mid-October to be exact.  The days are getting shorter and colder, and even the occasional snow flurry shows up and the mountains appear to be burning with color.  Oh, and it's JoePa football time!!!

But as David Popp (whose layout I otherwise really, really like and respect) has unfortunately shown us, this season is nearly impossible to model effectively with off-the-shelf colors.

For as much as I love fall in Pennsylvania, I chose to model summer.  My wife wondered why.  But after I showed her various "autumn" layouts from the pages of MR, she instantly agreed that summer would be much more realistic.

So, great job!  I'm looking forward to seeing more!

[lashedup]

So finally made a decision on where to go with the new book? Is this an all-new layout plan or a variation on a previous plan?

Looks good so far. Can't wait to see it develop.

[CVSNE]

Marty,

I second the opinion that you did an excellent job on the fall scenery.

Dave,

Thanks, I appreciate it.

I've messed around with fall scenery in one form or another for the past decade or so ( see MRP 1998 and 2000 for some indication of my earlier efforts) - I like the results I've achieved at this stage ( though there's always room for improvement) enough to press forward with it on the rest of this layout.  I think it complements the Harvest Gold paint on the engines beautifully. Funny, I'm not sold on the fall colors for the layout in the next house (we're having a house built with a kickin' basement . . .) -- I think one of the best uses of fall colors is to give some uniqueness or punch to a diorama or small layout.  We'll have to see . . .

To answer some of the inquiries about the trees --

I use Super Tree armatures.  After prepping them by removing the big leaves I spray paint the large armatures (about the size of an O scale "tree" - trying to make these in N scale size will drive you nuts at this stage in the process) with Krylon "camo" paint from a spray bomb.  After they dry I soak the armatures in a dilluted mix of matte medium - this preserves the trees (some of the trees in the shot above are the same trees as on the cover of MRP 2000 - this will make it their third layout, plus a couple of years in storage!!) and seals them so they won't become mouse food.  I've never had a problem with Super Trees and mice, but Jeff Wilson had an entire ridge of peppergrass trees clearcut for him by little four leggers - they at least left some "texture" behind, but it wasn't a pleasant sight, or smell 

After the armatures have soaked in the ground foam I take them out, let the matte medium drain, and then hold the tree upward in my hand while sprinkling on some ground foam from above.  I DON'T "dunk" the tree in ground foam since the foam will stick to everything and the tree will loose all the lacy branch structure, in effect creating expensive and hard to make puff-ball tree. Once flocked, I'll hang the tree upside down on a clothesline to dry.

As I'm flocking them I'll identify the "stand alone" trees - the ones that would look nice in front of a structure or in the front row of a wood line.  If any of the armatures are too crooked I'll clip a tweezers (I have some Scenic Express sells for the purpose, but a clothespin with a fishing weight taped to it also works).  This pulls the tree straight and it will lock in that position once the matte medium dries.

One of the "secrets" (I guess) is to use a variety of earth-tone ground foams for flocking the trees.  I must have 20 different colors of Scenic Express ground foams.  The other secret is to pick one color "tone" - be it green, brown, or orange - and do about 1/2 of the trees in that family.  The remainder should be about 10-20% or so in other color tones.   That way you'll get variation in the colors without having a "polka dot" effect.

When I'm planting the trees I cut the large armatures apart to "N Scale size" - I keep an N scale vehicle and figure nearby to help judge the scale.  Since most model railroad trees are horribly undersized as a rule I tend to make mine a little taller than "normal".  Since my eyes are so attuned to HO scale I usually make my N scale trees closer to typical HO trees - which seems about right.

The only thing I need to do when planting them is to make sure I don't put all the orange trees together, followed by the red, followed by the green since doing so creates a "multicolor Dreamcoat" effect that's at least as bad as the polka dots!!!

I could swear I wrote a short article on making these trees that appeared in MR years ago, but I can't find it.

Marty

[CVSNE]

Woah! very cool. More pics!

Would love to, but I gotta get more scenery done first. I've been working on structures for the last three weeks - hopefully things will start coming together this week.

Marty

[CVSNE]

So finally made a decision on where to go with the new book? Is this an all-new layout plan or a variation on a previous plan?

Looks good so far. Can't wait to see it develop.

Thanks.

This is an all-new layout plan - the book will be a "new edition" of the older N scale book. What I'm going to do is use this layout to "hold together" the discussion of the various aspects of model railroading (so, for the benchwork chapter the benchwork design for this one, and the old Carolina Central will be shown and explained) and then wrap up with a "planning-building-operating" section on building this specific layout. Although this is a new edition of the same title, I expect most of the material to be different (with the obvious exception of some of the tables and basic diagrams up front).

Marty