Where It Starts

The Lakeview aisle is on the opposite side of a serpentine backdrop from the scenes around Cedar that are now mostly complete.

There are two tunnels at the west end of Cedar, one for the main and the other for the Raft River Branch.  The branchline descends through a 1.5 turn helix, to emerge below the train order office at right.  You can see the branch just above the white warehouse roof.

The only track visible from the Lakeview side at left is the main.  The branchline helix is now entirely hidden by scenery, although there is still access from below.  Note that the scenery contours on either side of the backdrop do not coincide except at the very end that you see here.  I considered changing the height of the fascia at the backdrop but decided the appearance might be jarring.

Lakeview's yard appears at far left.  It's separated from the ongoing plaster work by an aisle.

Initial Progress

When you last saw the Lakeview aisle, it probably looked like this:

The branchline helix is visible inside the mainline curve at right.

Here's the same location today.  It now looks like the beginning of the sidehill grade planned from the start.  Scenery here is inspired by several places on the prototype WP, including the Cedar Mountains in Utah and the Toano and Pequop Mountains in Nevada.  Specifically, the curving cut in the foreground will (hopefully) look much like the approach to Flower Lake Tunnel at the summit of the Pequops, the highest elevation on the WP.  Downhill things will look more like the east side of Silver Zone Pass in the Toanos.

Above is how things look from the opposite direction.  There's a girder bridge to re-install over one dry wash, and a concrete culvert for the next one.

Closer to town is this lime plant.  There are several such industries on the former WP 7th Sub, and others nearby.  One of these is the (post WP-era) Graymont Pilot Peak plant between Wendover, NV and Silver Zone.

The Prototype

The following photos are from the Railroad Picture Archives site.  Click on each for a link to the original.

This is the east side of Silver Zone Pass.  The climb to the summit, like many such hills in the Great Basin, doesn't negotiate a canyon or watercourse.  Such climbs tend to occur on the flanks of the parallel mountain ranges that separate isolated drainage basins.  The railroad snakes up one side of the range and down the other.  On the opposite side of this valley in the distance is the Pilot Range.

Photo credit - Robert Jenkins.

Elsewhere on Silver Zone is this view of the sinuous grade along the alluvial slope.  Just above the lead unit is former US highway 40. The succession of cuts and fills on the model is supposed to evoke places like this.  Photo credit Rick Erben.

Alright, New WP 8th sub !!!

Got to make some popcorn, this is going to be fun to watch unfold

Steve

Good Progress

You're making good progress, Rob, and I'm also anxious to watch this unfold. The long, sweeping curves look great.

Tom Patterson

Thanks Tom and Steve

My goal is to get the plaster mess over with before next month's operating session.  I'll post progress as it happens.

Looking good....

As much as I sometimes think I can't even handle my room sized layout, I envy you with all that space and the large layout filling it. I hope to someday have something similar. I enjoy the progress pics so I'll be following this closely.

One question Rob...Do you have friends help or do you do all the work on your own?

Michael

Re: Michael

I do solicit help with some things.  For example, I had several friends over for a work night last week where we applied the drywall mesh tape and other scenic shell material, plus we brushed on most of the base plaster coat.  I've also received help building sagebrush (it's a good group activity and a few of us can crank out hundreds at a time), building benchwork, hanging fascia and backdrops, and certain other tasks.  I ask for help when extra sets of hands are useful, but usually work alone.

I like to control the process for anything aesthetically or operationally critical.  I do all the scenery base construction (i.e cardboard strips and other forms), plaster finishing, determining fascia contours, ground cover, tracklaying and so on.  Much of that is my desire to fit the results to my own vision, and I could probably accept a lot more help if I wasn't so intent on maintaining that.  Hosting semi-regular operating sessions is a good motivator, as I like to have something new for visitors to see.

Looking Good

Looking good Rob, Man are you a fast worker!  Can't wait to see the finished lime plant.  I like the way you've composed that scene.

Lance

Groovy

Those are some great, long scenes coming up!

Looking forward to seeing you work your "normal" magic, Rob!

Next...

With the shell up, my next step is to fill between supports.

Basic shell construction typically leaves alternating voids and ridges around the cardboard supports.  While the initial shell is built up from brush coats of thin plaster mixed about 1:1 with water, I mix the next batches half-again to twice as thick.  As the plaster starts to set, it can be poured into the low spots and/or applied with a putty knife.  I finish up by using my fingers to smooth the surface with whatever remains in the mixing vessel (I'm using old basketballs cut in half).

Common mistakes I see with beginners include a willingness to accept a lumpy, unfinished surface, or to complain the construction of the shell doesn't yield smooth contours.  The shell only serves as a base for further work.

Note that I can't get away with expecting tree cover to hide imperfections.  If I was modeling something like the Oregon Coast Range or the forests of Appalachia I might approach the process differently.

Here's another part of the scene showing a just-applied smoothing coat.  I used a putty knife to immediately remove any plaster that got on the backdrop.  Note how I'm not smoothing anyplace that will eventually be part of a rock outcrop or cut (where I will use separate batches to model the exposed rock and/or earth), or fill (where I like to build up the grade from dirt and rocks).

super models

Oh, so that's how you avoid having your terrain looking like an anorexic super model with ribs showing through. I found my cheesecloth sagged so badly once I painted it with the syrupy plaster I gave up on the method in favor of the cardboard mesh covered with masking tape and topped with Vermiculite and plaster mix.

Honestly though, your new scene looks pretty good! Love your eye for terrain contours.

Charlie (who needs to find some Scalosian water to get as much done on my layout as you do on yours) Comstock

Adding a Portal

Time to add the west portal of whatever tunnel this is.  I'll figure out a name/number later.

Here's the rough opening.  The portal is left over from my previous layout, and was scratchbuilt from styrene following a prototype on the WP in the Feather River Canyon.  This location won't leave as much of the face visible.  Note that I used extra splines inside the tunnel to increase the width of the roadbed.  I'll build a liner against those to restrict the view.

I cut away any plaster shell that interfered with the portal, and added some cardboard supports with hot glue.  Once I had everything lined up where I wanted, I installed the portal itself with more hot glue to tack it in place.

Next, I tore some pieces of paper towel and fit them around the portal.  I mixed a small batch of 50:50 plaster:water and brushed over the towel chunks to secure them and provide a base for carving rocks.

More progress

Progress on the Rocks

Plastering continues through the cuts starting with the tunnel and moving downgrade.

This area is starting look much more like a combination of the cuts around Flower Lake Tunnel and the summit at Silver Zone.  There's rock with varying amounts of compacted alluvium on top of it.  Where undisturbed by excavation, the slope is mostly smooth.

As with other scenes on the layout, I want the hill to look like it was there first, and the railroad was built on top of and through it.  The dry wash to the right of this cut will receive a culvert, and the fill across it will be built up entirely from dirt and rocks.  The wash to the left of this cut receives a bridge.

I test fit the unfinished styrene abutments into the scene after cutting through the plaster shell with a utility knife.  The bridge is a Micro Engineering deck girder, with wood ties.  There's a continuous piece of flex track across the span to help everything stay smooth.  I removed the plastic ties in the bridge location just now.  They had remained in place until plaster was complete as the bridge wasn't ready to install so it could fully support the rail.

Wow thats a lot of progress

Rob you are just pounding this out.  Looking really good.

Steve

You make it look so easy....

You make it look so easy.... Great job!

It is Easy?

Well maybe...

There probably isn't as much time in this project as you might think.  I'm familiar with the materials and techniques involved, and have various recycled items on hand, so I can make things happen without too much fiddling around.

The cut in the middle photo in my last post is one batch of plaster worth, so around half an hour.  The long cut approaching the tunnel is about four batches; roughly two hours.  This work was spread out over a few days.  I already had the bridge and abutments, although I did add the ties a couple days ago, which wasn't a lengthy task either as I already had the stained ties and stripwood for guard timbers and just had to pull them out.  I finished the bridge deck in the span of one evening news show on TV.

One of the things I hope to show with my blog entries is how scenery doesn't have to be intimidating or tough.  Once you get used to the process, you might be surprised what you can do too.  Anyway, thanks for looking and commenting.

Bonus Prototype Photos

I stumbled on some shots on John Carr's CarrTracks site at http://www.carrtracks.com/nvwp806wp3008.htm.  Era-appropriate WP photos in Utah and Nevada are tough to find.  They can't be embedded here (or at least I couldn't figure it out), but click on over for a look.  There's a train at Wendover (the UT/NV border), which is a major inspiration for the town and yard at Lakeview itself, and a couple of the same train on Low Hill in UT showing the Cedar Mountains.  The photos are dated from August, 1981, so the appearance of the scenery is right for what I'm modeling.  Check out the lush vegetation at Wendover!

Bonus Photos

John Carr's website has a large number of photos from the 60's, 70's and 80's, and there's a great section on bridge photos. I stumbled across his site back when I did the article on kit-bashing a CV bridge. I had planned to use one of his photos in the article, and John graciously gave me permission to do so.

Rob, your comments regarding "Is it easy" brought to mind some observations I made recently when re-doing a small area around Logan on my layout (see http://cwerailroad.blogspot.com/2012/11/ch-ch-ch-changes.html).Once you have established a method of construction that you are happy with, scenery can go pretty quickly. You find that you have the material on hand, if you buy in large enough quantities, or you can quickly get more. And you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. Just get out the stuff and go. And I've always been amazed at how different things look with even the basic land forms in place.

I think I may have asked before, but it would be great to see some more panoramic shots of the layout. And it's going to make a great feature spread in MRH someday.

Tom Patterson

I love scenery construction

Scenery is my favorite part of the hobby, I can really get on a roll with it. It's the other things like bench work , track work, and wiring that I find tedious and time consuming. I've often though that if I ever had a large enough space and the financial wherewithal to do it that I'd have someone build a layout for me up to the point of being ready for scenery and then spend my hobby time building scenery, structures and car kits.

It's looking really good Rob and count me as another one is really enjoying seeing the progress as you go.

Michael

Sky?

Rob,

Am always excited to see your scenery posts! Your scenery is top notch and is having a definite influence on me as I begin scenery work on my own layout. 

I'm currently working on my backdrop, and debating about what color blue to use for the sky. I really liked what I saw in your pictures. What color/kind of paint was it you used?

Keep up the great work! Can't wait for future installments.

Paul Krentz

N&W Pokey District, Sub 1 3/4

Re: Paul

I used flat latex from WalMart called "Song Blue Sonata."  It looks OK, but sometimes I think it might be too light (although I'd rather have that than too dark).  I detailed more about color selection and such here https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/ready-for-prime-time-backdrops-on-the-8th-sub-12188620.

More Happenings

Finished plaster continues downgrade...

After crossing the dry washes from a previous update, the main enters the biggest cut between Cedar and Lakeview.  The rock is carved from batches mixed somewhere between 1 part water to 1.5 or 2 plaster, plus a handful of paver sand thrown in for texture and to slow setting time.  My 10-year old says the mixture looks like ranch dressing gone bad.

Here's a wider shot for Tom.  Everything visible is ready for color, but I think I'll wait for the rest of the plaster to be completed for that.  All the ups and downs of the 3-D scene will seem more cohesive as part of a mountain range once the backdrop's blocked in.