Portola Valley RR

[Chris333]

Rocks look good to me as well.

[Noah Lane]

Not a lot of progress to show, but here is a sample.



Hopefully I'll have more to share in the coming weeks.

[tappertrainman]

Neat shot there.  I like the texture of the ground underneath the bridge.  You've got a nice mix of different layers and debris.

[Noah Lane]

It's been a long time since I've posted here, but I thought I'd throw out an update. I'm undoubtedly still a newb, but I'm continuing to learn as I go.

Here are some of the projects I've been working on:

I finally started putting down some ground cover and static grass. I still have more shrubs and trees to add. Also, the ROW needs some detail and weathering.


This is the pad for the future lumber yard.  I'm using the N-Scale Architect Long Valley Lumber kit, but it'll just be used as a lumber yard, not mill.


In this photo you can see the semi-major retaining wall that was required for the lumber yard pad.


I placed the first trees on the layout just last week. Of course, I will need many more!


For the main road through the layout, I used foam board. I failed miserably with styrene roads, but I think this is turning out okay.  I will likely do another coat of paint, then striping, and then re-weather it. The pad for the lumber also needs to be re-painted/weathered. The existing color sucks, and has too much sheen.



Hope you're all doing well!

Noah

[Mike C]

  I think your roads turned out very well ! Not sure if I would add more paint or not . Many of the back roads in Pa. were I grew up were paved , but did not always have center lines painted on them . They were often repaved in the summer with what looked like tar covered by small gravel . Looks good to me !

[Noah Lane]

Here are a few more photos. I really need a backdrop -likely a printed photo. And I would mount it such that it'd be easily removable. 

I also need some better lighting. However, when the layout is finished to a point of putting in effort towards photos, I can move the layout below a large window that gets great natural light. It is especially great for afternoon key light.

I got these tail tracks for the lumber yard "buried", and removed the grade xing boards from those Kato extendable track pieces. I previously didn't know you could do that.

[Chris333]

That scenery is coming out very nice. Couple thousand trees should finish it off.

[Noah Lane]

That scenery is coming out very nice. Couple thousand trees should finish it off.

Seriously!  What kind(s) of trees should I go with? By that I mean, what scratch building method?

I've made a few of the Fujiwara oak trees, but they've since gotten destroyed in storage. Those turn out very well, but they take a while to make.  I don't know that Super Trees would work very well for this layout, but maybe? 

[Philip H]

Remind us again what part of the country you are modeling?

[Noah Lane]

Phillip- It's freelanced. But originally, I was going for a Northern California golden summer hills look.  That has kind of changed to Spring green. I suppose.

I am planning on selling this layout once it's mostly -we need to redo the floors in our townhouse, then either sell it or keep it as a rental property. So part of my reason for going with Spring colors, was thinking a greener layout is more marketable than honey/golden hills.

Once we have a new house, I will start another layout. I'm thinking the next one will be a shelf, switching layout.

[Noah Lane]

I decided I would need several "fill trees" for my layout, so I put a little extra effort into the cheapie Woodland Scenics armatures.

One nice thing about the WS Premium trees is the nail base for sticking into foam scenery base -rather than those awful stump bases. I found an easy way to mimic the nail system; I bought some aluminum tubing at Hobby Lobby:


For each tree, I snipped a 1/2" to 3/4" length of tubing, and glued it to the small plastic 'nub' on the cheapie WS tree armatures:

This can be done rather quickly...


This is nothing super innovative. But I think it's rather handy for making these crummy back of the layout trees, a little better.

Here are a couple other random layout shots:


Here you can see a clear shot of one my next main projects: the grade sing, and road striping/detail.




Happy Thanksgiving Fellas!

Noah

[Philip H]

Coming along nicely. I do most of my trees with dry brushed WS armatures with WS foliage clusters cut carefully and glued on. Gives an almost super trees appearance if you work it right.

[nscalemike]

Here are a couple other random layout shots:





Happy Thanksgiving Fellas!

Noah

Two very nice pics.  Good work!

Mike

[davefoxx]

Noah,

First, you no longer qualify as a "newb."  Very nice work that you're doing.

Now, if I may make a suggestion, in the picture above, you might want to consider filling in the "notch" in front of the abutments, which will help bury the abutments and look more realistic.  On the prototype, that earth would help anchor the abutments.

Hope this helps,
DFF

[Noah Lane]

Phillip & Mike- thanks guys.

Dave- I appreciate your thinking I have graduated from newb status.  I think of model railroading so much like my career in real estate development; the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.  However, I suppose I have developed a decent foundation of N-scale basics.

You're absolutely right about those abutments -the engineers on my team would be disappointed  . But it's an easy enough fix. I'll add that to my 'to do' list.

- - -

The ghetto tree assembly line was about all I got done over the busy five day Thanksgiving vacation. I slightly switched up the process: apply poly fiber > spray grimy black/dry > spray rail tie brown/dry > manicure poly fiber > add metal rod/stake > apply ground foam.