Heading down the road

In the last few days, among many other things I've been working on I made a small but pretty significant start on a project that will lead me towards making a second pass at my Engine terminal which has sat dormant for quite sometime. It's just an intersection  and a small stretch of road leading towards the terminal area but it's important because the terminal and the coal  mine are the last two areas that have only base level scenery and now need a rough detail pass. Since the coal mine was the last area I did base level scenery on and the terminal has been sitting much longer, I chose it as the next area of attention. Here's that modest little start of road...

A little further down it ends up near the sandhouse and I decided to build up a little small ridge to give some visual separation to the the "0-5-0" interchange track. It's just some wadded paper quickly covered in plaster cloth and then a little bit of lightweight spackle to fill the mesh holes and give a light carving surface. It turns white as it dries and you can still see a bit of the pink color it goes on with.

Finally we get to the Engine terminal area itself. This is what it looked like when I last worked on it...

This is where it sits now after having received zero attention in quite sometime. The shelf in front used to hold my Digitrax Zephyr system but now it's just become a convenient piling place for paints and tools and such. The DCC signal is now being supplied by an Arduino running DCC++ and it's temporarily located at a point nearer to this PC where I can make a USB connection and run JMRI. I eventually plan to move everything over here again with a dedicated Raspberry Pi running the system. If you look closely, you can see the wire nuts over the main DCC feeders to the buss.

Finally, here's the view of the roundhouse. Still got to cove that last corner and paint the backdrop as well as clean up from the recent neglect and do some more scenery work. This might all take longer to come together than my past work because of the waning motivation and spring/summer moving in but it's still time to try and get it done. This engine terminal is probably a little out of place and ambitious for a little backwoods mountain line like mine but I dreamed of having one for years and it is what it is.

AWESOME

love your scenicking

I'm working my way towards your level of detail and appreciate your artistry

seeing layouts that look like photography of the world is inspiring

really like the 3d blend to the 2d background and mist

thanks for sharing

A rare view

Thank you for the kind words.

Here's a rarely seen view of the access to the curve behind the turntable. The first order of business after removing the TT bridge was a good dusting and vacuuming. It's amazing how much lose scenery material finds it's way down to all the nooks and crannies especially if the layout sits dormant and unused for awhile. I really need to work on aging and weathering this pit...

The interchange

Working my way towards the terminal, I decided to devote a little time to a simple but important scene. This is the "0-5-0" interchange where a lot of traffic comes on and off the line. With my very limited staging, it's an important and busy place. I feel like I've given it a little separation from the rest of the layout with this bit of work.

Seems like every time I go to take a picture "Harry the Horse" finds a way to show up in it somehow!

Had To Smile

When I saw the 'tool shelf'. Even on my little ten-square foot layout, fully 20% was taken up by supplies until I finished that particular scene. I am making an effort to 'keep the scene clean' on the current project. 

Michael, in looking at your

Michael, in looking at your engine terminal it has the right feel to it. The cars in the scene suggest a high maintenance requirement due to the time period and the equipment one would find in service. It does not look like it is more than what is needed to keep the railroad operating. It is also quite striking from a scenery aspect and looks like a great addition to a layout.

Love it

Michael, you always do great work and I love to read your articles. They have so much color. I wish I could do scenery like yours. I'm more of a Plywood Pacific artist level. Really nice engine terminal and it actually looks appropriate to me. I hope to take some thoughts I got from your photography to use on my layout, especially the interchange. Oh, and say hello to Harry the Horse for me.

ART

Hey, man,

You got your weathering down to a fine art!

WOW!!

I really enjoy pic's here in this on-line better than mag's.

All seam to inspire many like my self to keep pushing for that prize behind the curtain of the small world we want others to believe in.

Boudreaux,  B.C.E.

Paint sure dries slow in cold weather!

RIP

At one of the tracks in the foreground in front of the roundhouse, it would be great to have a highly detailed repair in place scene, e.g., a company boxcar being rebuilt. A detailed foreground scene would contrast nicely with the relatively undetailed brick wall of the roundhouse, which would become an intermediate backdrop.

Once again, I appreciate all

Once again, I appreciate all the kind words folks. I can't seem to help the clutter that occurs when I start working and get in one of my creative moods. I sort of zone out a bit and just start grabbing the various stuff I need and it ends up piled up on the pike or nearby and then I end up having to move it later.

I also tend to get going good and don't always regard covering my track so along with the fact that things sat dormant a few months, the track was really dirty and gunked up in places. It's been a bear but I can almost run trains from one end of the line to the other again. Just a little more hidden track to get to in the tunnel and clean. "From Furlow to Fugate" with the Westcott terminal and the small mountain hamlet of Blackwater located right in the middle. Actually, in reality Furlow and Fugate are just a single track and a  double track staging yard respectively but it works for the story of the railroad.

There is lots to still be done, one thing I want to model is air and steam lines coming out from the roundhouse and supported overhead over the external tracks so some kind of outdoor repair scene is a definite  possibility.