Wordless Wednesday #251

 

MARPM 2022 Open House

The current state of the Richford Branch

Well, the Mid Atlantic Railroad Prototype Modelers (MARPM) meet is in the books. 

And that was but one part of a whirlwind of stuff going on both in "real life" and model railroading over the last month. 

I managed to:

• Get a fair amount of scenery to "Phase 1" completion on the layout
• Stic Harris came by the week before the meet to at long last wire up the turntable and get some lighting installed in a couple of buildings. 
• Clean up the basement and layout (an almost overwhelming task considering the fact that I haven't had any kind of formal layout visits since pre-Covid!
• Finished up my Getting Real column for Model Railroad Hobbyist
• And that doesn't even include cleaning the garage, fall yard work, etc...!!!

I had a great time at the meet itself taking in some great clinics, looking at some great models in the display room, and reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. I even managed to run over to the Great Scale Model Train Show at Timonium and purchase a couple of goodies. 

I gave my Building and Researching Prototype Structures clinic on Saturday afternoon. It seemed well attended although I didn't get a head count. 

Once my clinic was completed I headed back home to make final preps for the open house on Sunday. For example, I remembered on the drive home that I had taken every piece of rolling stock off the layout. So I spent 30 minutes Sunday morning setting up a display train... I also needed to finish cleaning the track - and with all the scenery work I'd been doing there was a fair amount of dirt on the rails... 

I'd heard Iain Rice had passed away a week or so before the meet. So it seemed appropriate to have this locomotive on display. 

I didn't take any photos of people looking at the layout - but according to our guest book we had about 15 folks stop by - exceeding my expectations (we are, after all, located more than 70 miles from the hotel where the meet was held!) 

I really enjoyed visiting with everyone who stopped by here and the folks I spoke with at the meet. 

And thanks to Stic Harris for all his help both before and during the open house! 

LaFramboise Implement dealer needs some tractors and other farm equipment to display! 

The next goal is to keep the layout in its current state until after the next open house - scheduled for November 19. 

I'm pleased with how well the cannery fits in this spot (compared with the feed mill). 

Wordless Wednesday #250

 

More progress on the Curve

Please know that anyone impacted by Hurricane Ian is in our thoughts and prayers. Like just about every place else on the east coast this past weekend was a wash - literally - so I spent some time in the basement. My original goal was to get the track laid on the paper mill peninsula. That requires two custom curved turnouts. The track gods were not smiling on me - so after a completely frustrating several evenings and most of Saturday trying to build the fool things I pitched the bits of rail and nursed my burnt fingertips. Sunday was spent as far away from track laying as possible - adding an additional layer of scenery textures to Kempinski Curve. Nothing particularly unique - I used the same materials and techniques I've shared before. I still need to add a couple of more foreground trees to the left of the boxcar in the shot below:

I'm going to do battle with the track laying dragon again this evening - if success again eludes me I'll advance away from the enemy and regroup after the MARPM open house. 

Planning some foreground trees

See how the building and track look as if they're "floating" in the photo above? They look as if they've been plopped on top of the world and are not really part of it. What can be done to fix this? 

I've become convinced that one of the best ways to truly "set" a scene is to include some scale (or near scale height) trees. I've also found that by placing scale height trees closer to the foreground you can create the same sensation that forced perspective creates. 

I made up the base armatures out of Crepe Myrtle tips (For more detail on how I build up these armatures see THIS POST, or search the archives for "Crepe Myrtle") but haven't yet put the finer branch structure or foliage in place. But I dug those out yesterday and played around with several of them to get identify the best choice for the area around Kempinski Curve. 

I think even with the "basic armatures" you can see how it "blends" the track, and the building to the left, into the scene instead of having them stick out. I'm hoping the finished trees, properly colored with smaller branches and some leaf texture will really set the scene - late fall in New England. 

Tile Grout Pavement - Create a Road to Somewhere...

Sanded tile grout pavement in place. Note the subtle variations in color and texture in the "older" pavement on the left. This was done by "stirring in" small amounts of darker and earth-tone grout when still dry.  

Since I built the basic benchwork going on three years ago, the town of Enosburg Falls, which is right up front when one comes down the stairs into the basement, has remained a partially scenicked, half done repository for stand in structures, surplus rolling stock and an assortment of tools and modeling supplies. And that's on top of the layout!

Getting the underside of the layout looking presentable was step one. The next item on the to-do list was to get the top of the railroad cleared off and at the very least ballast the track and install the roads. 

I won't elaborate on ballasting the track. I used pretty standard techniques. One thing I'll add about ballasting - a little ballast goes a LONG way, and too much ballast can reduce a well running layout to an engine stalling, derail inducing, mess. So when you ballast track use about half the ballast you think you need - and be especially careful with it around turnouts! 

I've tried all types of methods to make roads in the past. For smooth paved roads I think styrene may make be the best choice. But in this case I was looking to create an older, faded somewhat rough road. I tried Ceramic Stucco texture - which I've used with some success on building foundations - but that stuff is pricey. I also tried AK Interactive asphalt and concrete texture. I found the texture just a little too gritty for HO scale (it's great in larger scales) and if you think the artist medium like the Ceramic Stucco is expensive, just wait until you see the price for a very small tub of the AK stuff!

 

Oyster Gray - much lighter
than it appeared on the label. 

I use tile grout as a base earth texture since it's easy to work with and inexpensive. I use sanded tile grout (for those who don't know, there are two basic types of grout - sanded, and unsanded). The sanded dries with a slightly gritty texture as you may expect. 

I went to Home Depot and ended up with two bags of sanded grout - one was a light gray color called Oyster Gray, the other a very dark gray (almost black) called Charcoal.  

Since neither color looked right I started combining them together. I worried I'd get a "salt and pepper" effect but frankly the stuff is fine enough that it really blended into a single color. 

About a 70-30 blend of Oyster Gray
 and Charcoal produced a faded
pavement color. 

Applying it is simple. I put masking tape to mark the width of the road and create a sharp transition from paved to unpaved areas. After mixing the grout to the desired color apply it dry to the area of the layout you want to pave. Then use a disposable foam brush to smooth the grout. I noticed the lighter gray grout tended to have clumps - these were easy to break up during the smoothing process. 

You can introduce subtle changes in the pavement color by manipulating the dry grout with the foam brush. You can also add more dark or light gray grout as desired. I even tossed a small amount of earth toned grout into the mix to warm up the pavement slightly. 

The last step is to secure the pavement in place. For this mist the grout with a mixture of alcohol and water (about 25% alcohol/75% water). Start with a gentle mist to "lock" the grout in place and then completely soak it. The next day it will be rock hard. 

In other news, I also started working in the basic landforms in the Berkshire area. Old magazines make great weights to hold the foam in place as the glue dries! 

And I've gotten most of the basic landforms in place around Kempinski Curve. It's ready for grass, foliage and some trees. 

More updates

In my update on Enosburg Falls I forgot to include a shot showing the Standard Oil dealer. The basis for this is the old Grandt Line kit - truly one of the most versatile structure kits ever offered in the hobby! The tanks need some additional weathering - I'm thinking a light wash to highlight the seams and perhaps some rust streaks. 

Another area where I did a little "tweaking" was in the East Berkshire area. There was one spot in this rural New England town where the railroad was four tracks across - the main, a double ended siding, and two spurs one in the foreground the other in the background. 

I opted to remove the spur closest to the backdrop, and  I may still remove the foreground one. Photo shows the turnout and spur removed. The gap ion the main track has since been filled!

Next step in this area will be to install the basic landforms in place, but I'm hesitant to hide my modern art painting on the plywood!