Putting the mill stream back together - and a farewell too soon

 After a couple of weeks of not wanting to do anything having to do with model railroading (see below) I forced myself down to the basement this weekend. After about 45 minutes of "puttering" - defined as wandering about the basement trying to figure out exactly what to do - I settled on trying to plant a structure I salvaged from my previous layout into the new river/mill scene. I have plans for another mill building alongside the upper mill pond but wanted another element between the two falls and this old BEST kit seemed to fit the bill. 

Of course the first step was excavating the plywood and foam I'd installed a few weeks ago to make room for the structure. The result was a cavernous hole in the earth - which I promptly filled and patched with a "box" made from Gatorboard hot glued in place to the underside of the layout. The lead photo in this post shows how the building will fit into the scene. 

When the building was pried out of my old layout there was some plaster and other scenery materials that got stuck on the foundation blocks - and some of the blocks popped out. I replaced those blocks, soaked the leftover plaster with alcohol for about 10 minutes and carefully scraped it off the surface. 

I never really liked the coloration of these block so I took the opportunity to repaint them with a variety of Vallejo shades of gray and earth-tone paints. And it looks like some scenery material got on the clapboard siding at some point - I'll do something to cover that up or minimize it. 

Farewell Too Soon

Almost two years after loosing our Basset Hound Beau we once again had to say goodbye - this time to his sister Molly. You'd think this would get easier - but it never does. When we adopted these two clowns we thought Beau was the outgoing one and Molly didn't really have much of a personality. Boy were we wrong! Molly was an endless source of amusement and truly brought joy to our lives for almost 16 years. And, like her brother, she was truly a perfect dog. They never destroyed anything, obeyed every time we told them to do something, and greeted everybody who came through the door with a mixture of unabashed joy and unbridled enthusiasm! 

The photo above of Molly was taken the day our new furniture was delivered to the new house. The movers unwrapped the plastic from the ottoman and within seconds Molly decided this was her new throne. And it remained so until a year or so ago when her legs were just too weak and stiff for her to jump up there. 

When my dad was sick we made a lot of road trips to South Carolina - here's Molly on one of those trips. One stop to stretch her legs between Virginia and DC - and then she'd sleep the rest of the way. 

She was, and always will be, our sweet princess. Rest easy girl until we meet again. 

A New Addition to the Layout - Part IX: An upper mill pond

When we removed the Charlton Branch section from Jason's layout we had to cut through the river. Although it went pretty well, the water did chip slightly and a couple of "chunks" of scenery separated from the subbase. I suppose I could have tried to blend it and add a new layer of Envirotex to blend everything together, but I wasn't sure that would even work and if it didn't work I was concerned it would mess up the remaining section of river and falls near Martin Machine that was in good shape. 

A logical - and easier - solution is to not try to patch the river but instead add another fall and a mill pond at a higher elevation. This has the added advantage of allowing for another mill building/complex. 

I did some rough measurements the other night and mocked things up. That seemed to go well enough that last nights "30 minutes a night" was spent cutting a mill pond surface (the leftover fascia piece - hence the color!) and the "land" - currently some 1" pink foam. 

Wordless Wednesday #276

 

Wordless Wednesday #275 ... Decisions, Decisions

 

Yes, I'm still here

I realize it's been a long time - from March 20 until now - since I've posted anything to this blog. I'm not certain, but that may be the longest hiatus ever. 

There are of course the usual excuses I could offer - I was sick for a week or so (back in April, so I'm not sure how valid an excuse that actually is!); I've had some more significant health issues that I've been dealing with; we had out of town visitors for several weeks, etc... 

But the real issue is I simply didn't feel like doing much model railroading - and therefore didn't have anything to share here. 

But on reflection I have done some stuff over the several months - they just haven't lent themselves to interesting blog posts. 

For example, I got the CV boxcar decals completed - although I have to cut the large sheets of decals apart before officially offering them for sale. 

I've also managed to get make progress on the Autumn scenery book ... I'm still hoping it will be done sometime late this year. 

On the layout, I've completed the vast majority of the track - and have even gotten most of it ballasted. The one spot where I still need to ballast the track is in the paper mill complex (which will be rough ballast at best) and the track connecting the main layout to the Northern SNE Charlton branch section (see photo above). 

One thing I need to decide is what to do with the fairly large open area across the street from Streeter's Store in the photo above. It seems to be begging for an industry (and I have allowed for a siding there) - but what should that be? 

I've considered putting the Clear Brook feed mill in that spot. Or a different feed mill I have a kit for. The advantage of the Clear Brook mill is that it's already built! Another option is a propane dealer or a pulp wood yard or bulk material yard - that would of course be the easiest approach to getting some that looks "finished" in that spot. 

Wordless Wednesday #274

 

A New Addition to the Layout - Part VIII: Setting up the Connection

Hit another bump in the road in the process of incorporating the Northern SNE's Charlton Branch into my layout. Luckily this bump was not the same as the literal bumps in the road I experienced driving the Northern SNE section from Massachusetts to Virginia last summer! (see my blog post: https://centralvermontrailway.blogspot.com/2023/07/a-new-addition-to-layout-part-2-voyage.html for more on that part of the adventure. 

In this case the latest challenge was an intermittent short somewhere in the track or wiring. In the end I traced the issue to one or two of the turnouts - and/or their switch motors. Attempting to fix the issues with the turnout would require working under and over all the detailed power lines and the like I opted instead to simply replace one of the turnouts. The turnout I really think had an issue was simply removed and will be replaced with a section of straight track. The turnout led to a very short stub-ended spur - I'll heavily weather the "cut off" spur to make it look like the industry is no longer rail served. 

Removing the two turnouts wasn't easy. After soaking the track in an alcohol and water mixture in order to soften the ballast and ground foam I worked a putty knife in and around those overhead power lines and managed to carefully work the turnouts loose. 

While I was in a track prying mood, I went ahead and removed the track that had crossed the bridge over the river - after scraping off the ballast I used to a sanding block to smooth the area. I plan to use the roadbed this track was on as a basis for a street - more on that in the future. 

The next step is one I've been dreading - cutting a swath out of the finished scenery on the main layout to accommodate the track connecting the mainline to the new layout section. That is going better than I anticipated. 

And although not shown in these photos, I've essentially replaced all the original wiring for both the track and the switch motors. All in all, these it's been a lot of effort integrating this section into the railroad. 

But I keep telling myself I've rounded the corner on "destroying" things and can finally start putting stuff back together - I truly hope that's the case!