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

[OldEastRR]

"The most photographed scene of the New Haven-ish Railroad"

Because it's the one that most looks at least reasonably scenicked. This factory has been slowly moving toward completion for years (decades?), mostly because I didn't really know what it was supposed to be. Plus it was a lot of work to turn a Model Power kit into something realistic and American.

And now that I finally managed to get a picture into the Gallery, I just have to post it in as many forums as I can. For all the work it took to get it in there. Some night when I have a few hours to spare that should be enough time to get 5 or 6 more photos loaded into the Gallery. then I can include some in this thread.
On non-scenery matters, I'm finishing up my last mainline route, got all the feeders in and hooked to the buss wires. Once I got under the layout I saw I hadn't connected all the feeders I'd installed last time (whenever that was). Aha! Balky loco problem solved! Still have a mainline realignment to do (just moving some track) and then it's a few spurs to lay and wire.
Shaped a lot of foam for ground then glued it down -- easier to work the foam on the workbench than when fastened to the layout. Laid out the millpond. Put together a Walthers house. Realized I had room for a small church so now I need to find a suitable one. What's a New England town without a church?
Got all my locos now DCCed (had someone else do it), one with sound. Because I bught an Atlas S-2 w/ sound and loved it so much. I'm not keen on having every loco with sound (a lot of them does get annoying) but a few here and there running around or working switching are certainly neat.
My major project the past 18 months has been building a factory complex for a customer, but now with that nearly complete and a lot of non-scenery done I can get to work making finished or at least decent-looking scenery. My downtown will be complete one-piece blocks of buildings, sidewalks, alleys, etc. Again, easier to make the whole thing at the workbench and then plop it on the layout rather than the usually uncomfortable positions leaning over the layout.

[OldEastRR]

Man ... another 20 minutes used to make this simple post including uploading a new picture to Gallery. Anyway, my previous message got erased because I have to shift back and forth akll over the TRW website to get words AND a picture printed together, so the short version is

 -- I like rectangular grids for laying out model towns. The long straight precise lines of streets, sidewalks, and building walls is my goal. It's the only realistic way to do it. Anything with looping roads and adjacent buildings sitting at odd angles looks like a Xmas tree village to me.

Here's a four-block straightaway of my town's "long" street, views from both ends. The NH S-2 is a reference point.





The big red fuzzy building flat on the RH side of the 2nd picture is the still-unfinished big textile mill that is the reason the town exists.
The road at the far end as seen in the 2nd photo doglegs into "the Most Photographed Scene on the New Haven-ish Railroad". On this end the town butts up against a river.

[wazzou]

Just open the photo upload or gallery in a new tab or window.

[OldEastRR]

Just open the photo upload or gallery in a new tab or window.

Aha! Thanks! But I'll still miss the old one-click-photo attachment we used to have for our posts. Isn't technology supposed to be making our lives easier?

[OldEastRR]

Once I got all the track (except a few spurs) laid down, wired and tested, I finally got to run trains rather smoothly. The plan allowed for 3 trains to run at once, tho they shared track at some points (the junction), and the double track was RH running. Theoretically I didn't need any reversing tracks since the trains automatically wound up RH running no matter which way they were routed through the junction.
And I had planned the scenery and trackage together so everything fit right and for the best use of space for both.
Funny thing about plans ..
After running trains and switching the industrial areas for a few hours, I realized it was rather limiting. First off, I could use a passing siding on the long single-track part. But I hadn't really left any space in the scenery for a passing track in the original plan. The only possible place for one had to be along the main through town, where it was crowded in by buildings.

I found a narrow lane alongside the single main



that made a long enough siding (the track rejoins the main just before the edge of the pink block)



 So, like a real railroad, I had to buy up the land needed and demolish the buildings in the way. At least, theoretically that's what happened... I had to narrow a truck loading dock, fill in a creek, eliminate a parking lot and get a much narrower building (the pink block) than I'd planned to make the space for the siding. Actually not in a bad place; it runs along the passenger station.
So, some advice: don't cram in track everywhere you can on a layout, even if you believe you've got the perfect plan.

Meet the WALL o' TREES:



On this part of the layout three different mains came together to get through turnback loops --



To separate them visually, I used a double backdrop to run the center track (W the DL109) through, and a tall screen of trees between both it and the double track and single main (w/ the NH box).  The trees come right up to the edges of the backdrops and I'm going to have foliage over the top of the opening to the track entrance between the backdrops. It will look like the train is going into a tunnel of trees.



(the clutter of PAs and freight cars kinda mess up the illusion, but in this view the outside main (along the front edge of the layout) has already disappeared behind tall trees. The DL109 is about to vanish into the "tunnel".
This works because all three tracks are at slightly different elevations and grades, and a few feet past this end of the backdrops the center track drops down below both other lines and is hidden beneath them. That gives me plenty of space to divide the scenes between the other two lines.
The pic w/ the NH boxcar in it shows the beginning of the "Wall o' Trees" along the outside line. The trees go right down to the river's edge.
Right now I'm using long stiff wires to "fence in" chunks of WS Foam Foliage high enough. But I'm thinking blocks of florist's foam, shaped and those chunks glued or stuck on might work. I also have some O scale (or huge N scale) crafted trees that possibly, if planted in a row, make a good base for building the foam chunks on top of. That way there could be a little open space between the bottom of the tree branches and the ground, for low shrubbery.

 Here's that tree wall from the other side (sorry about out of focus)



The river separates the two lines pretty well on the right. I relocated my diary from the center of the industrial area it used to be in to the space between the double main and the center track, you can see it in the above pictures. All the cars and locos there are bad order and are not actually spotted there.
There will also be sloping ground both above and below the ROWs and the dairy spur, dropping off rather quickly from the dairy to the river. All the tracks will be on embankments or stone abutments on the approaches to the bridges. You can see part of one bridge in the lower RH corner, and the tracks in the other corner are crossing a double-track stone arched viaduct.

The second thing was I should have crossovers between the double mains, which means reversing loop wiring. As for that, those are still being evaluated as to where they'll go. 

[OldEastRR]

Lots of work done on the layout in the past 3 years -- mostly scenery, since almost all the track has been installed, wired and is working very well (NO ballasting wanted). I've got quite a collection of buildings now, the general construction done, mostly now needing paint, doorways, and window glass. Few of my buildings are "stock" -- kitbashing and reworking them to fit the scene is how I use them.

I wish to thank Mr Masking Tape and the Thumbtack Brigade for their assistance in presenting these pictures


Downtown from the "back". The buildings are now all fleshed out with walls and roofs (even if not totally glued together or painted). You can see the buildings on the other side of the tracks are sitting on a large sheet of styrene the size of a "scale" city block. I plan on having all my city structures sitting on such bases. I can build an entire block at the workbench then just set it in place on the layout.



The old Bachmann gas station has a great front and gas pumps, but all the rest of the structure was toylike. I gave it new side walls and windows, a roof, scale rollup doors, and will install an interior for the office. Still need details like a tire display, air pump box, oil can rack, etc.  I'll use the set's "Esso" sign as it is prototypical.  Again, this station and the building next to it will sit on a sheet of styrene.



View of one side of Main Street, which is very wide. Don't mind the jumbled cars, zombies have just left and they messed up traffic. The marquee is off an old HO scale Bachmann "Plasticville" art deco supermarket. With movie title signs attached to the canopy and the theatre name in separate letters down the vertical part it should turn out nicely. Oh, and praise for Rasputin and his huge selection of car models. The downtown will need LOTS of his fine products.



A view of "Second Street", a block over from the main drag. Left of the street is the area "down by the tracks".  The far track has crossbucks because it's now a dead-end spur that used to be the main line.



Between the old and new mains, next to the railroad station, next to a dirt alley (the cardboard), sitting precariously at the edge of a small marsh, is Grady's Shed. Nobody knows exactly what's in it, or what Old Man Grady used to do in there when he was alive, but it's been called Grady's Shed for so long by townspeople it's now a landmark.  "Go a block past Grady's Shed and turn left to get to the tavern". (this picture taken before I removed the taped-on wall and permanently attached it).



And the main railroad area. The marsh will be in the depressed area between the two tracks behind Grady's Shed. The long white cardboard piece in the foreground is the mock-up for the full-length station canopy of the new train station, built on the now main line. I'll use the Atlas Station Platforms cut in half lengthwise, on their half-supports, with a scratch-built ticket window wall as the only part of the station modelled (because it's right on the edge of the layout).



Against the wall is the transition area where the smaller businesses on the fringe of downtown give way to a residential area. But I've had enough "fun" for today dealing with getting phots uploaded to TRW's gallery, so the picture tour will continue at a later date.

[wm3798]

That's really coming together nicely, Al.
Your dime store is perfect.  It looks exactly like the old Woolworth's in downtown Cambridge, which is actually itself an amalgam of two buildings.

The urban clutter and the tracks criss crossing the linear street grid smacks of Eastern railroading.

Lee

[OldEastRR]

You've mentioned the Woolworth resemblance before. I'm going to have to find a Woolworth's sign to match -- tho where I'll find the bas-relief gold letters who knows.  God help me if I have to detail the interior. And add a soda fountain. Maybe I should put "The Lee Weldon Building" chiseled on the cornice.   

[sd45elect2000]

You've mentioned the Woolworth resemblance before. I'm going to have to find a Woolworth's sign to match -- tho where I'll find the bas-relief gold letters who knows.  God help me if I have to detail the interior. And add a soda fountain. Maybe I should put "The Lee Weldon Building" chiseled on the cornice.   

Bar Mills used to make the Woolworth signage.

[peteski]

[OldEastRR]

Thank you Pete!

[OldEastRR]

Continuing on the pictorial on current state of the layout, now on the outskirts of the downtown  and along the RR old station/passing tracks area, I'm installing a coalyard trestle. The scalehouse is the Walther  Goldenflame CoalYard kit one but I rearranged it's geometry. I've since glued the rails to the trestle, installed the end bumper,  and attached wooden ties between the PC ones. Installing a plexiglass shield was pretty much a given with elevated track on the edge of the layout.
You can compare the yard now with the version shown in the picture at the top of this page.





The factory with the red doors sits on a corner of the layout, as shown here while still being assembled.




Directly across the tracks from the coalyard is my mini residential area, with modified Blair Line church, stock Walthers Cape Cod house, modified AMB company house (expanded) and enlarged duplex walthers Cape Cod house. I build a mini-diorama for each house at the workbench, mounted on a styrene base which I'll glue to the styrene foam subgrade. Making a multiple-level lot for the duplex is my next project for this area.



The streets will eventually be cut from large thin styrene sheets, painted and detailed at the workbench, then installed in large sections.  Right at the property line between the green house and the duplex the pavement changes to asphalt from a poured concrete slab (with tar lines on the cracks) the county built into what was then the town limits (many years ago). I also had the houses not aligned -- the old wooden one in the middle was there first, before the city grid was laid out and both newer houses aligned to that -- one on the bias. This scene marks the end of the city scenery on this end of the layout.

Around the 180 degree curve we'll get into the heavy industrial area, but this is the proposed junkyard that sits inside the curve and behind the town backdrop. I'm looking forward to having fun building it. Again, it's a lift-out section I can do at the wqorkbench. It's themed to be a railroad equipment scrapping company plus usual junk yard, thus all the heavyweights in pieces. Since I've done many kitbashes of heavyweights I've got lots of cut-up pieces of them.



Next time, the industrial area.

[OldEastRR]

A month ago or so I presented a series of pix of the medium sized downtown and nearby areas of houses and industries. The next thing was to present a photo display of the heavy industrial area. However, looking at the downtown pictures of unpainted and unfinished buildings, cardboard streets, exposed blue foam, etc etc I decided to get a lot of finish work done in the series of pix for the industries. At least it looks close to a finished layout now!

This shot is of the first big factory once the lines curve around the end of the layout (past the junk yard under destruction). I should have taken the picture from a little bit higher so to show all the vents and stacks coming out of the roof. Any factory with a completely clean roof look is odd-looking -- for anything before 1960, anyway.



The other side of the first plant (I haven't gotten around to naming the industries). I still need to make a finished parking lot/dock access pavement to replace the piece of cardboard. It will all be larger than the stand-in. There's also a stand-alone loading dock on the center spur. A NH streamliner led by two PAs is coming by on the RH main.



Taken from the truck drive of the first factory. The grass and scrub came out pretty good for a rush job. The white buildings are a grain elevator and siloes, the gray one beyond is the Walthers milling facility. The small shed under the viaduct is a scale shack.  The "scale" is a rerailer track section.



The milling facility and the elevated highway separating it from the printing plant. The track plan here has the double track from the inner circuit of the layout (it's a doughnut) being joined by the single track circuit that runs through the medium size town. The single track is seen joining the mainline under the NH lounge-baggage car.   



Looking from the printing plant side of the overpass. The building behind the milling plant is (I'm thinking) a coal-fired power plant.



The "old" part of the printing plant -- a Heljan brewery which has been assembled, taken apart, kitbashed, rebuilt, and modified I don't know how many times.  You may notice the embedded ties in the RH corner of the pic. Again, this is one of my "past history" touches: when this was a new factory, the siding came in from the left (beyond the tank car) and ran to the embedded ties. But when they added on a new section of plant, they put in a spur to serve that which took out the original switch, and they had to swing in a curvy lead from the other end. The bare ties are remains of the old end of the spur.



Here's the printing plant addition with its spur. The BAR car isn't unloading potatoes, but carries rolls of paper, which was its assigned job during the summer months. (You can see the tie-installing crew hasn't gotten to filling the gaps in the tracks here). Beyond the bridge, a spur runs on to a canning plant (yet to be built) served by reefers.



What I like about N scale is I can build factories that LOOK like they need boxcars in and out to match their production. By using blank styrene for rear walls and/or combining two kits make for the big buildings that dwarf the track and trains. Then of course I run into the opposite problem: how can a single spot handle the large number of freight cars coming and going from a big facility?



I'm coming to the sad conclusion that tho I hate it, I'm going to have to ballast the tracks. I'll start in the industrial area, which has sparse ballast, and see how bad I mess it up. That'll determine if I continue with the mainlines.

One last photo of still another unfinished project: another built, cut apart, rejiggered, modified, kitbashed, remake of a kit that will someday be a electric motor repair shop, a good small business in an industrial district.

[nickelplate759]

@OldEastRR  - please say more about how you did (or are doing) the NH baggage-lounge!

[OldEastRR]

It's long-running project that started way back when I figured I could make the round-end NH streamline cars out of RDC shells from KATO.  I was grinding along with that, not getting very close, when Rapido brought out the correct 8600 coaches. I took the best try out of the KATO kitbashes and was going for the baggage-lounge. Then I bought another Rapido coach, used the frame to sit the KATO shell on, and realized I can cut out the Rapido car's window section, leaving the roof, one end vestibule and the car sides below the windows,?.. and graft that onto the baggage section w/o vestibule I did manage to get built somewhat prototypically. So have that last step to do. I'll then have to position the windows correctly and add new vertical posts between the panes.

Thing is, Rapido has or will be making 4 different car types of the NH streamliner in HO, and hints around they might do the full parlor car in N. If so, that'd be an easier conversion to a baggage-lounge. Is this a case of if I build it someone will make it?