CSX Cumberland Division

[Bob]

After a very long break I am back to modeling Harpers Ferry and am excited about getting back to things.  I drove to HF this past Friday - a beautiful fall day that reminded me just how interesting I find this historic town.  Here is a quick photo of the Harpers Ferry General Store that I built this weekend.  Bad lighting (it is more yellow than it appears) and I need to add the stone foundation and some details, but at least I have gotten started again!

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[Cajonpassfan]

Good to see you back, Bob!
Looking forward to more...
Otto

[Spades]

Bob

Nice work.

In Saratoga CA.  John Brown's widow is buried.  How she got here. https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2...ohn-brown.html

[Bob]

Wow!  Great story Spades about J. Brown's widow - I knew nothing about this!  Thanks - Bob

[Bob]

I've made more progress on m Hall, a circa 1833 building that, along with the immediately adjoining Harper House and Tenement Buildings, forms a 4 building complex that looms over the lower town of Harpers Ferry.  I constructed the porches (tedious) and have completed half of the roof.  I used etched brass railings for porches and RS LaserKit shingles for the roof.  I need to make dormer windows, chimneys, add details, do some weathering and complete the roof structures. The birds-eye photo of Harpers Ferry shows the buildings I have constructed (black text) and buildings indicated with blue text will also be built.  Not shown is the HF train station that will also be built.  I hope to start installing the town around the holidays on the styrofoam base.

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[Bob]

I posted the wrong birds-eye view of HF.  Here is the correct one showing what buildings have been completed and which remain.

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[wm3798]

May I suggest creating a master for the dormers and then resin casting them...  That's how I solved the riddle of multiple dormers on my Cumberland WM station.


Well, DKS actually did the castings, but I built the master and did the final paint and installation.  From the looks of the photo, most of the dormers are pretty similar, and you could use colors applied to the siding and roofing to make it less obvious that they are all the same.

Lee

[Bob]

That is an interesting idea Lee - I'll look into it.  I started on the first 6 dormers last night, and they are a pain to construct as they are so darn small!  I've got to read up on this - the buildings in HF have lots of dormers!

[Bob]

Is DKS a company?  I just took a look on the web and couldn't find it.

[John]

Is DKS a company?  I just took a look on the web and couldn't find it.

David K Smith - a member of this forum and outstanding modeler ..

[Bob]

I finished building and installing the 6 dormer windows on Marmion Hall. Lee (of Western Maryland fame) suggested making a master dormer window and then making resin-cast replicates which I think is a very clever idea that I may pursue.  These things are pretty tedious to make, though I now have a pretty good system to producing them.  I am using Grandt Line windows; the porch railings are etched brass. The walls are photos that are laminated on sheet styrene.  I cut the window and door openings in the styrene before laminating on the photo, which makes it possible to cut the openings more precisely but as you can see things are not perfect, but certainly good enough.  The shingles are from RSLaser - they have an adhesive backing and you lay them on the styrene in strips.  Takes a while, but I think they look good.  It would take forever to do this on all of the buildings in Harpers Ferry, but Marmion Hall, Harper House and the adjoining two tenant buildings are iconic structures for the town, they are large relative to the other buildings, and they are at a higher elevation than the lower town.  Therefore, I think the eye will be drawn to them, so I am going to spend some extra time on these structures.  I next have to build and install the chimneys, put in down spouts (which I tend to use to mask corner seams), and apply more weathering powder after which I will finish the two tenant buildings.  Whether I build Harper House (which adjoins Marmion Hall to the left as you look at it from the lower town) will have to wait until I start installing the roads and structures on the styrofoam base - I am not sure how much room I will have left.

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[Bob]

Marmion hall is now mostly done - because it will such a prominent structure in the town of Harpers Ferry, I am going to do some more weathing, add two more chimneys to Marmion Hall (building with the porches) and add a few more details. I need to make 3-4 more buildings before I start to install everything.  The Stephenson Hotel will be complicated, but the other buildings should not be too bad (I hope). [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[Bob]

Fooling around with Helicon Focus and Luminar Neo. [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[Bob]

Well, I have decided to take a break from modeling Harper’s Ferry in painful detail and turn my attention to a more rural part of the area I am modeling: North Mountain and Cherry Run.  Progress on the town is just too slow, largely because I obsess about scratch building structures based on real buildings in the historic town. As a result, the activation energy needed for me to start a new building is relatively high, so time for some rejuvenation – I am hoping that more rapid progress on about a 12 foot section of the layout will get me going again.

After the CSX mainline goes north from Martinsburg, it comes to the site of the former Cumbo yard where the single track ‘low line’ (the former main line) leaves the double track main in a more northerly direction, eventually rejoining the main line at Cherry Run, WV, which is the end of the modeled portion of my layout.  The current main line is shorter than the low line but has steeper grades. I explored the area several weeks ago and there is a good-size cut close to North Mountain that the main line runs through.  I’ve decided to model this since the track is close to the backdrop at this point so I could use some steeper terrain. Further toward Cherry Run there is a road crossing I will model, some hay fields, a bridge over back creek, and then there are a few structures at Cherry Run I will model.  Another reason to model the rock cut is that I need experience casting, carving and coloring plaster rocks – I am tired of the giant, pink, Styrorfoam Maryland Heights that looms over everything, but no way I am going to tackle those steep rock faces until I get some practice. 

This weekend, I cut and stacked Styrofoam and made two batches of SuperTrees.  Then I’ll shape the Styrofoam hillsides and get started on the scenery.  In the photos you can see the rock cut, then the layout where the low line departs the main at Cumbo.  The final image is looking from Cherry Run back to Cumbo, which is around the bend.

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[John]

I'm sure you will do that new scene justice - Harpers Ferry is a beast - those structures are awesome .. but you have to make progress