A New Addition to the Layout - Part X - Blending everything together and an unveiling

The Mid-Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers meet (MARPM) concluded just over a week ago. As an aside this meet is proving to be a wonderful time and I strongly suggest you consider joining us in 2025! (details for MARPM 2025 haven't been finalized, but it will most likely be in the same hotel as this year (located near BWI). Keep an eye on MARPM.org). 

I once again hosted an open house at my layout and did a "Layout Progress" clinic. This was the unveiling of sorts of the newly incorporated "Northern SNE" section. A couple of months ago my friend Bill Schultheiss offered to build something for the railroad. At first I'd planned to rework the steel girder bridge that had once carried SNE rails up in Massachusetts into a road bridge. But as Bill and I went back and forth on what he could build I mentioned the one thing every New England railroad needs - that I didn't have - was a covered bridge. So he took a couple of measurements and a few weeks later he brought a wonderful model of a classic New England covered bridge. Thanks Bill!

And the extremely short tail track at the stub end of the northern SNE section always bothered me - it was barely long enough to fit a 4-axle diesel and one car - but even my small steam locomotives with a car were too long for the siding - meaning I needed to splice a section of benchwork onto the left side of the town and add about 10" of track. At the same time I extended the road from the diner to the end of the added benchwork.

As I've mentioned before there was a 3 or 3.5 foot section of benchwork we added to connect the Northern SNE section to the existing layout. The track required some rework to get the everything to make sense. 

With the track down I used my new Proxxon foam cutting table to slice enough pieces of foam board to the same thickness as the roadbed, filled any gaps with lightweight joint compound and painted and added the initial layer of tile grout and sifted dirt. This "first layer" scenery is hardly show stopping but I was determined that no pink foam be visible! 

I showed the installation of an old structure that seemed a perfect fit for along the mill run in a previous post (HERE). I wasn't able to complete a couple of things in time for the open house. I had planned to finish a new mill building (another South River Models kit) - but frankly wasn't in the mood to work on it for a few weeks, then realized it was close to the open house and I had to get serious about cleaning up the layout room! 

I did two last minute things in preparation for the open house. The first was to roll a coat of paint on the fascia. I think this really helped blend the Northern SNE section into the rest of the layout. 

I also found myself staring at an open area across the street from Streeters Store. 

I considered placing the feed mill (that was included in the same kit as the store) in that spot - but it looked just a little too tight. Besides, the fact that the feed mill is on a slope would have required some benchwork/fascia modifications and I didn't want to make a whole new mess!

What I needed was something that was quick to build that could then either be redetailed or replaced with something else in the future without feeling like a waste of effort. A little Scupltamold to level some undulations in the ground, brown paint, and a few spoonfuls of tile grout and sifted dirt, along with a small shed and a couple of pulpwood loads, and a pulpwood yard was born. 

Still to come is the aforementioned new mill building as well as a freight house for the large open area to the right of the passenger station. And of course, a lot of grass and other textures. 

Wordless Wednesday #279

 

Wordless Wednesday #278

 

CV Shops St. Albans, CV Photo, CVRHS Collection

Wordless Wednesday #277

 

Mill stream progress and filling gaps

As mentioned in my previous blog post I needed to fill the gap in the surface of the mill stream. Turns out a piece of Gatorboard that I had lying around was the right overall size - some quick work with a hobby knife trimmed it to fit the oddball shape of the opening. This was secured in place with a healthy bead of hot glue. One side of the building has a door and windows on the lower floor so I needed to have some open ground on that side of the structure. I cut more Gatorboard and added some Chooch cut stone material. The photo shows it being rough fit in place. 

Next, I cut a thin piece of foamboard to raise the mill building slightly above the water surface. Actually, it made the bottom of the building just about even with the "water" level. 

When I added the fascia the "Upper Road" (former roadbed on the Northern SNE) ended up with a gaping hole between the fascia and the plywood subroadbed. I trimmed several pieces of pink foamboard and used them to fill the gap. 

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 SC - 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.