CSX Cumberland Division

[Bob]

I like the way your described Harpers Ferry, Lee - I'll keep this advice in mind.  I cut the styrofoam yesterday and will post the 'wedding cake' view next week.  I won't shape things until I have enough buildings completed.  By the way, loved the lighted merchant's row you posted on weekend update - when I was a kid, I just loved turning the room lights off to see the train's headlight and building lights shine!  Bob

[wm3798]

That shot is from Harpers Ferry Then and Now (now was about 40 years ago).
If that's the primary viewing angle you have for the town, you can force the perspective by reducing the depth of the buildings a bit, so you can fit more of the view into your scenery.

For instance, if you scale everything out, then St. Peter's might not fit into the space you have.  But what is Harper's Ferry if you can't see St. Peter's hanging on the side of the hill?

You may have to sacrifice some of the viewing angles, but I bet there's ways to work around that.
Perhaps what would be helpful is to stand in the aisle in a couple of locations around Harpers Ferry, and take some pictures of the actual physical plant you're working with.  Then we can come up with a way to condense everything so you know exactly where you are, and whether you're looking at photos of the layout or the layout itself, you've captured the essence of the town.

Lee

[Bob]

Great photos Lee!  St. Peters will be there for sure.  I'll take some photos and post them, showing the area I have to work with and also with the Styrofoam cut and in place, but not yet shaped.  Will be interested in your advice on how to best reflect the key features of Harpers Ferry.  Boy, Google maps street view is so helpful - I'll be using this constantly to model specific buildings

[Bob]

Maryland Heights, the Potomac River Bridges and the historic town of Harpers Ferry will be the signature scenes on my Cumberland Division N scale layout.  For the past year, I worked on scenery from Duffields to Shenandoah Junction, with about 8 linear feet now fully scenicked.  Well, there are always more details to add! I now feel comfortable enough with my scratch building and scenery skills to tackle the town – Maryland Height will have to wait until I have experience casting plaster rocks.  While Maryland Heights is modeled 1:1 and the 1932 B&O bridge is 90% to scale, the historic part of Harpers Ferry has to be compressed by about 40%.  My first task was to fit a topographic map on top of a Google Earth view of Harpers Ferry (photo 1).  Then, as I did for Maryland Heights, I projected this on to a large sheet of paper onto which I had drawn the precise location of the layout back, front and the position of the tracks. The main roads (High Street, Shenandoah Street, Potomac Street and Hog Ally) were then positioned – I reduced the distances between them by 40%.  Thus, the corner at Shenandoah and Potomac is 200 ft. from the corner of Potomac and Hog Alley in real life and 120 ft. on the model.  Once this was done, contour lines were drawn and so I had an accurate representation of the shape of the hill upon which the town climbs up. Next, I cut squares of paper depicting key buildings, using Google Maps to figure out their dimensions.  I then reduced each of these by 20%, except for some of the smaller buildings.  I then positioned these on the large sheet of paper and was able to determine what iconic buildings could be constructed, which needed to be further down-sized, and which would not be built (photo 2).  I now had a working plan for the town.

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

So far so good – the amount of compression really is not too bad.  I decided to start with the road network.  Using a larger piece of 0.03 inch black styrene, I cut out the roads in a single piece.  I then cut and glued strips of 0.03” thick styrene to the bottom of all roadway edges– these I decided would be the supports for the curbs, sidewalks, low stone walls, and along Potomac street a strip of stones set in concrete at the edge of the road.  I then repositioned my building cut-outs, and discovered that I had not taken into account the width of the sidewalks, so out came the scissors to do a bit more trimming of buildings (photo 3). The plan is still in place, just a touch smaller!

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

Next up was painting the roads – I used two shades of gray paint from rattle cans to reflect the variation one sees in HF, splitting Hog Alley down the middle as one half of the road was more recently paved than the other.  Once this was dry, I misted the dark gray roads with a bit of the light gray and vice versa, then followed this with an air gun, lightly spraying everything with a bit of off-white, a bit of black, and a bit of a different shade of gray (photos 4 and 5).  At some point I will use some weathering powders and detail the roads, but this has given me some pretty good color variation and speckling.

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

After initial painting was complete, I started on curbs and sidewalks.  I downloaded some brick and stone floor images from Texture.com, printed and laminated these, then gave them a good shot of dullcoat.  Curbs are 0.04 x 0.08 strip styrene standing on edge.  Given the thickness of the road material, the curbs are 0.05 high, or 8 scale inches.  I tried somewhat lower curbs, but they did not stand out enough.  I then sanded out some driveway and street crossing cuts in the curbs, painted (including the red curb in Hog Alley), and glued these in place.  Next came sidewalks, with the courses of brick being interrupted by stone every once in a while. This work is in progress, and everything will have to be dulled down and weathered, and I have different shades of brick to use in some areas to add realistic variation (photo 6).  Then I need to make some low stone walls that are next to some of the streets – not sure how I am going to do these yet.  Any ideas out there?

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]


   

[Philip H]

getting close to spot on for HF.  Spent many an afternoon there during my DC decade, as here was a federal training facility in Shepherdstown that I used to go to twice a year for classes.  Easy enough to go down and knock around for an hour after class.

[mu26aeh]

@AlkemScaleModels just posted on their FB page they are now offering the Harpers Ferry tunnel portal. showing HO scale but other scales upon request.

https://alkemscalemodels.biz/tunnelportals?fbclid=IwAR317b7t9uFYcLQ79Gzrs65EbkQ0rfZYUfY6JyytqH9_6lYSFI9fjg8PUb0

[Bob]

Thanks mu26aeh!  I had seen that, and they were nice enough to make an N scale version for me.  In fact, They made tunnel portals for all four Magnolia cutoff tunnels in case if I ever take over the rest of the basement!  I very much appreciate you pointing this out - it is really easy to miss things from the smaller producers, or sometimes to know that they even exist!  Bob

[Bob]

I've started constructing buildings for Harpers Ferry, and started with White Hall Tavern as it is small and very simple.  I've decided (I think) to take the photograph approach whenever possible.  I took some front and side shots of the Tavern, brightened these up a bit with a photo editing tool, and printed these out on glossy paper, and also printed a second copy made on matte paper.  I took the glossy photo and glued it to 0.02" black styrene using 3M spray adhesive.  I then cut out the doors and windows, which is always harder to do than I think it will be.  I then painted and installed a Grandt Line door in one of the openings, and for the larger second opening I 'framed' it with strip styrene as during the day these doors are open so that visitors can peek inside.  I then glued the matte photo in the back, thus providing the window grills and providing a bit of depth.  I painted and glued on a pair of shutters for the bottom window, and also some strip styrene framing just below the roof.  I painted a N Scale Laser chimney that was left over from a house kit and added mortar, and glued these on top.  For the roof, I printed out an image of dark shingles on matte paper and glued this to 0.02 black styrene.  The first building I made using this approach (the Shenandoah Junction post office), I laminated the photos with Avery laminating sheets.  This makes everything thicker and imparts a plastic sheen which I think can be toned-down with Dullcoat but not entirely eliminated.  This time, I just sprayed Dullcoat on the glossy photo.  I hope that the colors do not fade over time since I did not laminate this time - anyone else have experience with this approach that they can share?  I am also using black sheet styrene so that I don't have to paint the interior walls so as to prevent light-leakage for the buildings where I will install lights. [ Guests cannot view attachments ] Thanks!  Bob

[Bob]

I've constructed the brick building that is next to the White Hall Tavern, and that sits at the corner of Potomac Street and Hog Alley.  I again used the photograph technique, and it went more quickly this time.  I used thinner styrene for walls that require multiple window/door punch outs as I think it is easier to cut square openings, but then the thinner styrene warps, so I have glue bracing on the back.  I still struggle with the corners of buildings, and have taken to installing downspouts on the corners to hide the seams.  I used pastels and chalk to weather everything.  There is a bit of touch-up to do, but this is largely done.  Next up are the large brick buildings that front Shenandoah Street, facing John Brown's fort.

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[Cajonpassfan]

Dang, I just LOVE this thread! Nice progress, Bob!
Otto

[Bob]

Thanks Otto!  This photo technique is working out pretty well.  Lance Mindheim told me that he thought that this approach works well in N scale, and I think he is right.  He had an article published in MRH that I am following - he comes up with all of these clever approaches.  To give some depth, he prints the image in duplicate, cuts out the windows and doors from one of the images, and pastes the second image behind the first.  I do this, then glue on shutters, the signs and some trim, and it gives the walls a real three dimensional look.  Bob

[Bob]

The next building to be constructed in the John Brown Museum (not to be confused with the John Brown Wax Museum on High Street).  This is the third and final building that faces Potomac street on the block delineated by Shenandoah Street and Hog Alley.  I reduced the footprint of the building by about 20%, and decided to mock it up using pieces cut from index cards to see if the proportions look OK.  I think this is pretty good - the building, at least the two faces that you can readily see from when standing in the aisle, is pretty much just solid red brick with windows.  To capture the flavor of the building, I'll need to construct a number of dormer windows which I am not looking forward to, but perhaps I can mass produce the pieces once I make the first one.  White Hall Tavern and the Meriweather Lewis museum are modeled at full size, the John Brown Museum at about 80% of full size, though you can see that the buildings are closer together than they should be, but such is life.  What I am aiming for, of course, is an overall impression such that anyone who has been to Harpers Ferry will recognize the town on the layout.

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[SAH]

Overall impression indeed.  A layout visitor is going to get hungry for some ice cream as they virtually walk up Potomac Street!

I've considered using photos for building stock numerous times but never dove in.  You've set a high bar with your first efforts.  Well done.

Steve

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Don't forget to include the scent of BBQ. There's a place in the hill there that smells way better than it actually is.

[Bob]

I've completed the third Harpers Ferry building, and this completes the block facing Potomac street between Shenandoah Street and Hog Alley.  White Hall Tavern and the Merriweather Lewis building are modeled at full-size, while the John Brown Museum is probably about 80% scale size.  The buildings are closer together than in real life, but I had to compress the distances between the streets by about 40%.  I posted some photos on Weekend update, and I tried Focus Stacking On line, but this free software does not seem to work that well.  So, I renewed by license to Helicon Focus, used the same images, and got a much better result.  So, it it Helicon focus from here out for me!  Tonight, I decided that the next three buildings will be on the same block, but facing High Street.  This will enable me to complete an entire block, install the streets on the styrofoam base, and then add details like street lights, etc. A dilemma I face concerns the other two sides of the buildings you can see in the photograph.  The angle from which the photo is taken is how they will look on the layout.  Now, if you move down the aisle and look at the town from the vantage point of the Potomac river, you can see the sides that face Shenandoah street.  I guess I am going to have to detail these building faces, or at least some of them - they are blank walls right now.  It is harder to see the backs of the buildings, and I think I am just going to leave those blank - this is going to take enough time as it is!

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]