A stylized version of the NYNH&H in eastern MA, mid-'50s

[wm3798]

I love that kit.  I can't see paying what Walthers wants for it, but I love that kit!

The bash looks great.

Lee

[OldEastRR]

The bridges all congregate in the same area -- by the river, of course.



 That's only a feeder creek coming in under the big truss. The river goes off to the left. The piece of cardboard behind the 3rd bridge is will be a highway bridge maybe of stone arches. The big blue area at the back represents the mill pond -- the mill dam sits between the hiway bridge and 3rd bridge. To further crowd the scene there's going to be an abandoned store arch RR bridge across the millpond. Apparently (in real life) those bridges were too expensive to tear down once a RR abandoned them.

The farthest bridge is just a placeholder made of a Kato bridge. Not decided on what to put there yet, but that route is of another, younger RR than the abandoned one, so plate girders may be the answer. I want something early 1900s-ish but not another truss. Any ideas?

Two clearance heights under the big truss bridge:



Just illustrating what I described about this a few posts back.

[OldEastRR]

With the first circuit of the mainline almost complete, it was time to get some building reworks done and make them into preliminary assemblies.
Front wall - Dimestore (?)


Side wall -- faces the alley where a track runs through, so no attempt at perfection



Rear wall -- some windows blocked in w/ two wall sections joined, large freight  door added



Other side wall -- adjoining building covers cut-out



I notch out the interiors of the cast-on chimneys (and the glue-on part) with a square file so they look hollow when assembled



A 3-story building - corner restaurant, apts above



Side wall faces a street, with more large windows for the restaurant, and another entrance



Rear wall - Unwanted windows on kitbashes can either be bricked in or made half size: the small opening will be covered with fine mesh for an exhaust fan opening. Air conditioner mounted over the door.
Fourth wall butts up against a larger building, so not needed.



Hmmm. need some putty work yet on a couple walls.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Dat's some nice DPM bashing right there!

[wm3798]

The dime store looks almost exactly like the old Woolworth's in downtown Cambridge, MD.  You can see that it was originally two buildings that were combined.  The only difference is that the 2nd floor doorway is on the left, where you  have it on the right. 

Next you'll have to do the art-deco sign board across the whole facade above the show windows... 

Throw a couple of downspouts and some ivy on those seams on the back, and don't forget to put a little elevator head house on the roof in proximity to the freight door.  Maybe paint a faded Coca Cola ad up on the side if it's visible from the street.

Lee

[OldEastRR]

Yeah the Woolworth's sign may be tricky. Be hard finding solid letters of that style. A printed color sign wouldn't be the same.

[OldEastRR]

I've always been intrigued by abandoned ROWs, but you don't see them much on model layouts. The town has part of the old mainline in it, but it's abandoned beyond the river. The new mainline is on the left. 

Here's a wider view

Looking at how to portray the abandoned bridge, I thought about a stone arch one but decided that the RR used Howe trusses way back when it came to town. I'll do cut stone abutments and two piers. I'll probably make the road crossing a stone arch.

I finally got the "sears store" assembled and ready for final paint and detailing. It's a much modified Hilltowne Hotel, with added plastic structural shapes to smooth the reassembled pieces together



Back in the day some big downtown stores had a smaller but still classy exit at their back, which I duplicated here. There's one display window for goods. This door will open onto the store's small parking lot. The big hole is where the building shares a wall with another building.



Front view



This wall fronts on a railroad track in an alley, so no windows on the first floor. There is a half of a display window at the corner as part of the front window display.



I need to start naming places on this thing. How does Burlen, MA sound?

[Chris333]

Just abutments for the bridge should work, maybe a pier out in the middle.

[OldEastRR]

A bad thing about working on layout and rolling stock and kits and kitbashes and job projects, though all in N scale, is never enough time to keep these layout reports updated.
The major benchwork and track support frames are basically done. This was the last area to get worked out.



Plus feeders installed in every "block", or every 3 feet whichever comes first.

Then I was fooling around carving foam to try for terrain effects. Not exactly Chris333 level skill but it gets rid of the pink and blue. And yes there are no steep cliffs in Massachusetts along the N H.



And as part of the ongoing work for putting buildings in the town I got two Walthers Cape Cod houses and built one per instructions and made a larger version out of the other. I've seen pictures of CC houses that were bulkier than average, so I copied one.



Each of these has a blank styrene wall (they'll be up against a backdrop) so with the extra walls and roofs that come with the Walthers kit I can make another half-CC to put against the backdrop.

[OldEastRR]

After several hours of back-straining work I got the other end of the dogbone loop on my NH layout finished. The track with the passenger cars will be hidden, the other two loops are exposed. So now all the homasote roadbed and supports are fastened down. No more carpentry!



The corner where the RDCs are sitting has yet to be finalized. The reason is because:



I am striving for a nice clean split here of a double track main into 2 separate routes - one continues straight on off the bridge to the dogbone loop while the other curves to the left (note the same RDCs) and ...... goes somewhere? I really need a yard or staging tracks somewhere and the LH route has enough space to curve back off the layout. Plus what's the point of building a nifty double junction if one leg is a dummy?
Complicating matters is a single line that branches off past the junction. (curving right, past the RDC). Shown is a possible solution but to add the other main I need to start the junction on the bridge (I asked about that a while back). Which apparently is fine prototypically and there's room for the geometry. but I'd have to put the turnouts/crossing on a plate girder bridge, not just to look right but to be able to hand-throw the Pecos. That means shortening the customized Walthers through truss. I put a lot of time and effort to lengthen it and make all the girders see-through latticework! (was an article in RMC) Ironically a stock Walthers bridge would fit exactly.
Sooo... anybody wanna buy a bridge? (it's not in NYC)

[OldEastRR]

Plastruct has a sale of trees, fairly decent prices for excellent tree models. I wouldn't do a whole hillside of them even with the lower prices, but in a forest of mostly foliage clumps they distract you from noticing the "tree" globs. I tried the mix here where an abandoned line once crossed my main. Still lots of foliage to add, including weeds growing up between the ties where the track was torn up. I might even put a small tree in the middle of the old ROW. The dead tree is a Plastruct "skeleton".

[OldEastRR]

Yipes! A mass of Osgood Bradley coaches arrived at the layout, which means real train ops can begin. Except no head end cars ready, so a crash program is begun .... and pix are taken even of the unfinished ones


Not exactly "head end" but  there is a baggage section on this work-in-progress very-crude representation of a NH streamline baggage-lounge. Yes, the DL109 is riding on "ghost trucks" because the frame is being fitted with a decoder.


 At least the wheels are on this full baggage and the body is complete -- no lettering, but it's painted (even weathered)! I switched the door openings around on one side of this WOT car so to match the NH door arrangement. Had to cut new slots in the floor/roof for the wider door slide. Still needs doors backdated, too.



A converted troop baggage car, actually finished. I need a batch of NH REA letterings sets for the other 3 of these yet to do. Threw in a R50b because I finally finished it ... well, except I lost  the roofwalk.


No paint and invisible couplers, but I got the trucks weathered! The MTL RPO is an easy conversion to a NH car by plugging windows and cutting a new one. Then I need more RPO decals ...

I added some fascia and glued down more homasote for roadbed, and I got a batch of track spikes to finish up laying all the track. Time to switch from rolling stock projects back to layout building.

[OldEastRR]

After way too much time involved in other RR projects I managed to start building and installing the stone arch bridge for my double-track main.
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 I've got the pier height right and have to build the others, and I solved the problem of a deck by using a piece of Homasote laid on top of the arches inside.
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 The depth is almost perfect, and with cork roadbed I get that "built up a little higher than the arch sides" look that the old bridges got as the RR improved roadbed, ballast and track over the original stuff.

I really need to get the last small pieces of roadbed support down, put down cork, and finish laying all the damn track.

[OldEastRR]

I decided that instead of doing little bits of everything all over the layout and upgrades in my rolling stock collection, I'd try get get one small area of the layout semi-finished enough to look decent.

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I wanted a diamond somewhere but not the main crossing itself. So I made a abandoned line crossing my main with a still-working spur just beyond it as an excuse. The switch is a very crude handmade job I clipped the unneeded rails from. Abandoned ROWs are kind of neat but rarely modeled. The rest of the track is commercial stuff.

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Since I rebuild, kitbash, or scratchbuild almost everything I use on the layout (except track) it takes a while to get an area done. I do it because rarely does the stock kit fit into or orient right for the location I want it to be. The factory is obviously reworked, but also the coal yard office in the background had the driveway/scale door moved to the opposite end because of the silo placement. The bus is stock but if you look at the MTL PS-1 you'll see I lowered the roof to prototype height, too. I'm infected with the kitbash bug!!

[OldEastRR]

Holy cow, all my old pics have been PhotoBucked!! Time to put in updated versions of those scenes anyway.
Been working so much on John Colombo's factory haven't had much time for my stuff. However, since I had cataract surgery on both eyes last month I now don't have close-in vision anymore, so no more factory building until I get new glasses (or an OptiVisor).
Luckily, don't need close-in vision to carve Styrofoam or spray paint buildings.
My monochromatic and somewhat jumbled downtown North Middling is getting some color.
Before:
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Lately:
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The open-roof job is the in-process Sears Auto Center.
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The west end of town is taking shape -- meaning the slopes of the hilly ground between the various buildings:
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Hard to see the contours but there's a creek running through a small valley and the track follows it. Once I get the ground slopes all the way I want I'll be gluing down the foam and adding some color.
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Some color here - you can see the land slopes down from the houses to the coalyard, how they used cuts and fills for the track, and the creek running along lower than it. Except the fallen coalyard fence is covering the creek.
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