Miskatonic Valley Railroad

[Guilford Guy]

I figure I might as well start my own thread, now that I'm fairly involved in the scenery process. In just over 2 weeks I go off to college, so I've been racing against the clock to make the 4x8 look presentable before leaving for months on end. The line is a fictitious branch line of the Rutland Railway running east from Bennington Vermont (where I'll be at school next year) to Harrisville. I've been trying to keep my purchases to mostly scenery items, thus there is currently but one piece of motive power, an RS3. The era is the early 1950s, soon after the RS3s arrived. But enough with the backlog, here's the pictures.

Here is the overall view taken from the top of the mountain. The three switches comprise Harrisville. The siding will host the freight house (scratchbuilt), and probably one of those neat coal conveyors to allow for a little more variety in the cars going up the branchline.



The next two pictures show the little bit of scenery in North Halifax. I tried to keep the mainline set back by about 6-12 inches to give the photographs a little bit more depth. As scenery progresses, a farm will appear here.

And a shot of North Halifax station (scratchbuilt) before receiving shingles. I have an atlas suburban station kit for Harrisville, which will get a new roof and paint like the rest of the company buildings on the layout.


All the masonry work on the layout I've been carving from spare bits of blue foam. In addition to the two sets of bridge abutments, I've carved 2 of the 4 tunnel portals.


Lastly is a shot showing progress on the river. I used wood filler mixed with gesso and water to spread along where the resin river will go. After reading David K Smith's Geordie & Daphne blog, I'll be sealing off the abutments from the pour somehow to prevent mini disasters.


I'm open to any suggestions or advice that can be given. I haven't fully decided on what structures will be where (I plan on including a few former online industries with ripped up or disconnected sidings) so any ideas will be considered.

Oh, and here's a short video.

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Alex

[Philip H]

Alex,
I remember doing the same thing when I headed off to school, and also trying to figure out what sort of projects to take with me so as to not loose momentum.  Of course, those darn classes kept getting in the way!

My only suggestion would be to look at your road grade in Halifax - the tractor/trailer seems to be leaning a tad bit in the wrong direction . . . .

[Guilford Guy]

Thanks Phil. Yes, I should probably go about leveling that part of the roadway. I wasn't able to test in this section, but was thinking that I could crown the road by putting strips of styrene beneath the centerline of the material.

[Philip H]

Mind you, I have seen real roads with that sort of lean . . .

[Guilford Guy]

Heh, yes. Western Massachusetts has some very precarious stretches of roadway, however I think a more level road would probably work better in the scenic environment of this corner of the layout. After all, no one wants a truck roll-over, in any scale.

[sirenwerks]

Alex,

Given the retaining wall's in place, you may want to move the station over a few yards. That eave corner is precariously close to the road for oncoming tractor-trailers.

Are you shooting for the 5th season look? The ground cover that shows has that dark wet look, you just need some errant snow.

[Guilford Guy]

I'll have to take an aerial view of the station because I think the proximity to the roadway is exaggerated by the low angle of many of the photos. Raising/moving the retaining wall shouldn't be too much of a problem either if all else fails.

The ground cover was still wet with matte medium when that shot was taken, so I expect it to lighten up. I do have some highlight colors that I'll work in when I get back to working on the layout on Friday.

[packers#1]

I would leave the roadway with the lean, adds character to it 

[Guilford Guy]

I dunno, I'd rather have something look "right," so I'd hope hope to minimize the lean as much as I can.

[Guilford Guy]

So I've decided to completely rebuild the layout from the Benchwork up. When I first laid track for the Rutland layout I had no real plan in place, and because of that, some of the scenes are strangely developed. I've also grown increasingly unhappy with the subterrain. So now, I'm working on something a little more artisticly designed (if I'm going to arts school for 3.5 more years I might as well be able to use it here somehow), and with a lot of John Allen influence. The layout is separated into 2 sections, that being the mountain area on the right, and the towns/cities on the left. I may ultimately bend the upper end of the line(bottom of image) to be a little closer to the lower one, but the main thing is I want the two to be modeled as one, which would allow photos to show off a lot of buildings and give a lot of depth. Trains are short (2 car passenger, 2-4 car freight, or a mixed train) but the power is small (a MP 4-4-0 for now, and probably adding a small 2-8-0 or large 2-6-0 in the future) so I'm a little concerned for the grade over the loop. Over the next few weeks I'll be disassembling the current layout, salvaging turnouts and flextrack, and determining how much more I'll need, so when Springfield comes around I'll have a good list to go by.
As always, suggestions/criticism is appreciated



Alex

[Guilford Guy]

Quick Update: I've been able to find a little time between classes and social lives to do some scratchbuilding. I picked up 100$ in Tichy windows and doors at the Springfield show, and was able to turn out a baggage car and another station (loosely modeled off the one in Lexington, MA). The station still needs a clock tower, though I haven't yet figured out how to go about building it. I also need to order some more styrene, shingles, and paint, but that's entirely dependent on when I next have money.

[Philip H]

Alex,
Nicely done on the station.  As an inveterate scratchbuilder, I'd love to see some more pictures.  As to your clock tower - what is its shape?  Over the years I have found all sorts of shaped objects to represent all sorts of shaped things - and towers are often easier then you think.  If it's square, wander over the Chemistry department (or Physics for that matter) and see if the TA running the supply store has any empty overboxes for GC or ICAP columns or dectectors that are square.  If so you may need to trade a latte for one, but you will then have a core to laminate to.  If you have a design school, they may  have all sorts of cast-offs in their shop area.  Again a soft approach, and an appropriate mid-morning beverage or two should get you what you need.

[Guilford Guy]

Phil,
This proto photo  shows the tower, which looking at it now must be a bell tower rather than a clock tower. I may try my hand at drawing a CAD version and having shapeways print it. I may build the base of it for the time being, but the top/roof looks a bit difficult. Supposedly we'll have resin printers here next term, but the quality I've seen from one of the visiting prints is not really suitable for n scale without a lot of filling and sanding... not that that's an issue.

[Guilford Guy]

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted in this thread. In that time I've torn down the old layout, and have started work on a new one, with a much better scenery to trains relationship. The towns are consolidated on opposite corners of the layout and trains run between the two, winding up a long valley running diagonally across the 4x8. Funny as I designed the trackplan around the scenery rather than the scenery around the trackplan, so hopefully it will play out nicely.


I've done a little work on structures, and have been playing with the trackage/buildings in the town areas. Here's a few photos over the coures of the last few weekends.







The remaining turnouts should be showing up sometime later this week, so hopefully I can have trains running by next weekend.
Thanks for looking!

[Guilford Guy]

I was able to get the main loop installed this week, including the trackage in town B. I'm waiting on one last turnout for the town A yard, but once that gets in later this week I should be able to start in on scenery. I'll be using "Great Stuff" in lieu of carving 2" foam. At work we use Great Stuff on vertical parts of the layouts where a masonite fascia doesn't make sense. When plaster clothed it's passable as rock, at least in larger scales. By the next weekend update I should be able to talk more about it. Cans of it are around 6$ at your local hardware store (help the economy, don't shop at home depot). I haven't yet used the "Big Gap Filler," only the "Gaps and Cracks" but I'll have my dad pick up a couple cans before the weekend.

By the way, if anyone knows where I can have custom n scale decals printed, that would be a big help. I'd like to start decalling the passenger equipment and locomotives (and all the milk cars in transit on USPS), but don't have a way to do so without an ALPS.

Thanks!
Alex