For the Birds

CP 8892 leads a westbound of autos and seacans by an Osprey nest at Gap, Alberta.

Andrew

lighting

Layout lighting has moved to the front of my project list. Here are a couple of 'night time' pictures..

Progress at the E. Nishnabotna River

Yesterday morning I was able to finish installing the backdrop photos behind the East Nishnabotna River bridge scene.  Below are a couple quick pics of the progress.

Once I've completed the scenery base, I plan to cut a new section of fascia to hide the foam used to build up the higher-than-expected river bed.

Station at Ruphe

I'm more or less finished the station at Ruphe. There are a few little details yet to do, but I couldn't resist setting it in place and taking a few pics.

The first thing to do is to weather down the copper roofing, it looks like it was applied yesterday... Which, for the most part, it was 

That building is

the culmination of a lot of excellent design decisions coupled with superb craftsmanship. Congrats.

Great depot. I really like

Great depot. I really like that standing seam copper roof.

Casual saturday...

...

Rick!

That station is OUTSTANDING!!! 

Station at Ruphe

Rick,

Your station is really quite amazing. You should be VERY proud of it and yourself. How about more details on how you designed and built it. What types of materials did you use, how did you do all of the intricate detail work etc.

Richard

Thanks Guys

Thanks for all the kind words everybody.

Rick  -  I really had fun with this one. I don't know if my craftsmanship is superb, I'm just good at hiding my mistakes.

Ray  -  The copper roof was a tad repetitive but was one of those things that just sorta' worked. I'l bet it was much easier than carving an endless amount of rocks into the side of a station.  ; )

Bill  -  THANKS!!!

Richard  -  (lots of Ricks here) I am very proud of it. If you want to know more about it's construction you can follow along on my blog.

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/20377

The Ruphe station starts on page 26.

Dry Creek

Piru Creek bridge has been given new life on this N scale freemoN module.

Not for the purists

This one will make the prototype modelers twitch but I'm so happy to finally have some running trains i snapped this one quick on my iPhone. I have found that my Walthers well cars and BLI Niagara are very sensitive to track imperfections so they make the perfect "test train" to run over newly laid track. My track work is usually good but I have a few tight radius curves in this one section. If this doesn't derail then nothing will. 

One more

I thought I would share one more this week. I was tinkering with camera settings outside and took this one of my kitbashed tie crane. I have a dedicated gon with ramp for the crane as well as 3 other gons and 2 old hoppers. I guess that makes a decent MOW train for picking up old ties..I hope..

An update to my update

Outstanding work on that depot Rick!  Beautiful craftsmanship!

JP, I never would have guessed your models to be N scale.  Very well done!

Tony, I love your lighting!  What a great effect.  And terrific work on your MOW crane and gons!

Jappe, how can the UPY 1465 be on your layout?  I just saw it about 20' away from me on my own!   Beautiful scene as always.

I made a bit more progress on my East Nishnabotna River scene this morning, finishing the basic land forms.

Shooting Apples

I just finished building and installing the 'apple tree' into a VERY small diorama. Everything is in HO scale and this diorama will feature in my next video tutorial.

It will focus on the construction of the tree itself (twisted wire) and will have a short demonstration at the end to show how you can install the tree into the scenery.

Due to the roots being visible it's not a simple as drilling a small hole or poking the truck into the foam base. It actually takes some pre planning!

The birds are a little harder to spot in this photo But they ARE there! (you might need to click on the image to bring it up to full size)

Cheers
Luke Towan

The EMD BL30 Demonstrator

There are no known photographs of the prototype.  My dad and I have been making goofy BL2 kitbashes for years now.  This one combines an AHM BL2 shell with various Athearn diesel parts.

SP freight at the pass

The locos are Athearn Genesis GP9's with tentative weathering so far.  

Progress

Joe

You are making great progress.I love bridge scenes. Yours are beautiful I can't wait to see it finished.. I am only going to be able to have one so I hope it will look half as nice as yours.

                                                                                                   Ray

Ray

Thank you Ray.  These bridge scenes I've been finishing of late had been long-standing gaps in my scenery, so it's really nice to finally be putting them behind me.  It's amazing how we can walk by an unfinished scene for years and we (or at least I) just grow used to it looking that way.  Yet the payoff for a finished scene is huge.  I expected the satisfaction of the accomplishment, but didn't foresee the extent of the positive impact that this progress has on the enjoyment of operations.  It's really nice being able to run trains with fewer plywood pacific areas to jar us out of the illusion we're trying to create.

Some shots while restaging for next operating session

Almost finished another project

This has been on my want to build list since I took the photo of the prototype about 1987 or so:

Yes, it really existed on West Patapsco St in the Brooklynn Park section of Balmore (spelled incorrectly intentionally).

Still needs a few details. Upper floor is part Smalltown USA and Design Preservation company house, street level is scratchbuilt.

Haven't posted anything in a while.

Thought I'd throw something in for this week.  It's been a while for me.  I took this shot looking down the tracks from the Kewanna end of my layout.  Tom Johnson

WPF

Great job on the "tavernacle" Fritz!

Tom, great to see you back here.  Beautiful modeling and photo, as usual.

Unusal perspective

Tom

 Very unique photo of your layout,but very much like a railfan's perspective . 

                                                                                                            Thanks for sharing

                                                                                                                         Ray