Birds District, Gorom

The area between Loveland and the I-25 overpass has been languishing in painted construction paper for quite a long time.  My recent discovery prompted me to get cracking and update this area.  Posing in the new scenery is the Fall stock train, bringing cattle and sheep from the Colorado mountains to the fertile pastures in Northern Colorado.

The Wards Industrial Park is across Madison Avenue from the Loveland beet factory.  The train whistles for the street just before passing behind the HP warehouse, scaring the stuffing out of the hapless workers.  I worked for 32 years at the Hewlett  Packard Loveland facility as an electrical engineer. The rumor was that some vendor actually addressed  a large, heavy  box to “Heavy Packing Company”.  I had to use that, true or not.

The train goes through a deep cut as it heads towards the eastern prairie.  The second cut hides the C&S interchange track that runs parallel to the GW on the layout but not in real life.

The rail line runs parallel to County Rd 20E a little further east and crosses the access road leading to the Gorom stock area.

Gorom is named after the first plant supervisor and is a nondescript spot on the prairie.  It holds a small cattle pen and an old box car used for feed storage.  It’s a facing point switch heading east and causes no end of problems for switch crews.  The usual method is to run to Officer Junction, turn on the wye and haul the Gorom cars back towards Loveland.

Past Gorom, County Road 20E drops into a valley while the railroad stays flat on a fill behind farmer Birds prosperous farm.  Most of his land is on the other side of CR 20E. 

CR 20E comes out of the valley on the outskirts of the Birds farm and crosses the railroad.  This leads to the I-25 overpass. The area takes its name from farmer Birds as does the beet elevator across I-25.  The curious mound in the middle is a local landmark that takes its name from the odd rock on top.

The local kids call it “Skull Rock”.  The high school seniors believe that if you cuddle with your sweety in the small parking area, you will “get lucky”.

The “artifact” in all its glory.  It’s an actual prairie dog skull I found while taking a walk one day in Colorado. The “coprolite” mound was made from Sculptamold colored with Woodland Scenics earth colors.  I love putting my tongue in my cheek!

Windsor District, Gove

Once I had a batch of Sculptamold mixed up, all my mixing tools and bowls were dirty but accessible.  So I decided to continue on with the other side of the layout in the Gove area of the Windsor District.  It was also still in painted construction paper  and was becoming a sore thumb.  I had envisioned a cliff scene since Gove is at the bottom of Oklahoma Hill on the model (geography alert – it’s at the top of Oklahoma Hill in real life).

I already had the top of the hill finished with a beet field and a road leading down to Gove.  All I needed to do was make some cliff-like things and add ground cover. The cliffs were made the same way as the coprolite mound.  The rough dirt in the area is sifted decomposed granite from the local landscape supply company, $2 for a five gallon bucket – enough for a lifetime.  The finer “packed” dirt is a nice color of grout sifted over wet “dirt” paint then vacuumed after the paint dried.  This is the first time I’ve tried this and it worked out very nicely.  

The background area is updated but the foreground is still painted construction paper.  A river scene with a low trestle is still unfinished to the left side.  Once that is in, the rest of this area will be updated.

I need to update the backdrop.  This was my first attempt at painting trees and they came out poorly.  Also, many more Scenic Express SuperTrees need to be constructed for both this area and the Birds area.  The current trees here are from my old layout and are a bit crude (old school techniques).  

It was a real pleasure

meeting you seeing your layout last night.  These are some great shots.  I hope you will continue to post more for all of us to see.  George has a fantastic railroad with many really nice scratch built structures.

Thanks

Thanks Michael.

It was a pleasure showing you and Mike the layout.  I appreciate the compliments,.