View attachment 51933 View attachment 51934 View attachment 51935 I am a new member and am trying to figure out the forum, and how to post. These are a few pictures of my Logan Valley Railroad. It is a freelanced railroad set in 1957. It is a point to point railroad connecting to the NP at one end and the Milwaukee Road at at the other. The first picture is a local coming through town. The second is a borrowed Milwaukee switcher picking up a car at a scratchbuilt freight station. The last is the turntable at one end of the line in Gallatin Junction. The layout is all code 70 track, mostly handlaid.
Welcome to TrainBoard! Nice looking scenery! If you have more photos, those would be a lot of fun to view. By some chance do you have a sketch of your layout track plan?
I will post more photos as I figure out the sire. As for a scetch, that's a no. It was started over 20 years ago from just a rough scetch. I am getting ready to start the last town and am trying to get supplies together. There are no hobby shops in the area and I have to rely on the internet.
Just simply outstanding! Love the back yard swing set and other play ground fixtures. Trees are awesome!
It's always nice to come on trainboard and see a beautiful, new to us, railroad. more photos.. YES PLEASE!
Welcome to Trainboard looks a very nicely detailed layout, looking forward to seeing more photos. Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191 using Tapatalk 2
Great looking layout. I love the trees, are they handmade, kits, or...? Would love some as good looking as yours!
Thanks for the comments. The trees are hand made. They are quick and cheap, using sagebrush for armatures. The stuff grows pretty much everywhere out here. It's nice with the bark detail already there. They take maybe 45 minutes to make. Ince the sagebrush is trimmed to haw you want it, I use a razor saw to cut the bottom of the stump straight. Using Woodland scenice clump ground foam, it is glueed (I use a hot glue gun) to the "branches". Another way is to use Woodland Scenics green polyfiber, and stretch it over groups of the branches. A bit of glue can be applied to hold the polyfibre if you want. Then I spray the polyfoam with the cheapest hairspray I can find, usually spray net. Finer ground foam from Woodland Scenics is then sprinkled onto the poly fiber, and the hair spray will hold it. I re apply a few more times as needed until I like the look of the tree. It usually doesn't take long for the hairspray to dry. To mount the trees, I drill a hold into the bottom of the tree trunk with a small drill, usually smaller than one sixteenth of an inch. A piece of brass rod, close to the same size as the drill bit is then super glued into the mottom of the tree trunk. A hold the same size as the brass rod is then drilled into the layout where you want the tree planted. I do NOT glue the trees to the layout.If any track maintenence or additional details need to be done, the tree can easily be removed to keep from damaging it and easily replaced when done. I figure that these trees cost me less than a buck considering that the sagebrush is free.
Many thanks for the method explanation. We do not have sagebrush here, but I will search for suitable alternatives in the woodland across the road from our house. If I can get anywhere near your realism I will be delighted! Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
Too bad we're so far away. I sent some to a member of another forum who lives in British Columbis, Canada and it took over two months for it to get delivered.
Two months from Montana to BC? Someone was dragging their heels! Although I have heard the term 'snail mail', that is a bit too snail-like! :teeth:
More Logan Valley View attachment 51962 View attachment 51963 View attachment 51964 View attachment 51965 The first two pictures are showing some Logan Vally Diesel power. I have this thing about first generation Alcos. There weren't many out in the western states but that's what's nice about freelancing. nit pickers can't find too many nits. These are early Atlas locomotive I custom painted probably over 20 years ago. I prefer to have everything weathered, but not too heavily. I tried to keep the paint job consistant to keep everything looking like it belonged tothe same railroad. The first three pictures were taken in the yard at Gallatin Junction. The next picture is about as good as passenger service gets. I do also run a gas electric, and if things really get bad, we'll throw a drovers caboose on the tail end. The last picture is a Logan Valley train passig the Van Dyke farm. A little more about the railroad. It is of course HO scale. It is a pointto point railroad, but does have the capability for continuous running as I have three hidden staging tracks. Track is code 70, mostly hand laid, except for some gode 83 for the hidden trackage. Minimum radius is 32 inches with a max grade of 2 percent. The grade was done on purpose to either limit train sizes, or to require helpers. This layout was started in the late 80's when I got a little fed up with N scale at the time. I had over 16 scale miles of mainline and scenery was installed. Back in the late 70's and early 80's N scale was no where near what it is today. Locomotive performance was marginal for most manufacturers, and the available road names were few. I ripped it all out and started over with HO which I now really appreciate as I get older and my eyeballs don't operate are well as they used to. I enjoy scratchbuilding and custom painting. Unfortunately, the layout isn't completed as I usually only work on it in the winter. With 2 acres of lawn to keep up during the summer and being an avid NASCAR fan, time for working on the railroad is slim. I also enjoy retoring classic cars which also lessens the time for working on the layout. One last town has to be built, which will contain a small yard, turntable and roundhouse for the engine facilities, a passenger station and around 6 to 8 industries for switching. All power is DC only. Being that I am a lone operator and the expense of the DCC system, converting well over 30 locomotives, I chose to keep with DC. Unfortunately, there are no hobby shops in the area at all. In recent years, internet dealers have been a great help to me. Not being able to get the supplies that I needed was a big hinderance to making progress. It was just too expensive to have to pay full retail at most outlets and deal with the cost of shipping of the constant reports that what I needed was "out of stock". Being that I am using code 70 track and turnouts, I find that the availability isn't the best but I do prefer the look of the lighter rail. I will have to learn more about the forum and hope to be posting a lot more.
