Layout Pictures

This is my first try at this so hopefully this will go well. At the suggestion of Matthew Curtis, I would like to share some pictures of my lay out and models with you. I have to give Matthew a lot of credit here for doing an excellent job of making ready to run models of his dad's products. The 89' flats, 28' pups, Finger rack car and CNW gon were done by Matthew. He also custom painted the CNW loco's for me. I custom painted and decaled the 45' trailers. I have been a big fan of them for a couple years now. I also have to give my wife Jill a lot of credit.....she did the back drop painting, scenery and water. I am trying to convince her to continue onward this winter.

The bridge is modeled after the old ex IMRL/ex CPR/ex Soo/ex Milw/ex Rock Island Iowa River Bridge at Columbus Jct IA

Let me know what you guys think.

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Doug. That is a great photo, a fantastic weathering job on the bridge. Do you have any more photos of your layout?

 

Greg, Welcome to the TrainBoard. Thank You for sharing your photos, your layout is very impressive. Your Wife did a great job with the water. I especially like how she tilted the boat to compensate for the fisherman's position in the boat. What did she use to create the water, the ripple effect is excellent.

 

Excellent. You all should be very proud of this work!

 

wow !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

You've done a fine job so far. Makes me want to work harder on my new layout. How was the water done? I'm creating a large lake and am considering various options.

John Adney
Marion, Iowa

 

Thanks all for the positive feed back.

I wanted to answer some of the questions that were asked.

First....this is the only part of my layout that has been "developed". I currently have a couple other other areas in progress. I do have a CTC system installed and operating controlled with two home made CTC pannels.
I will post pictures of this later.

There were questions asked about the bridge. The bridge was constructed for me by my good friend Art Danz, who was also Trainmaster for the Milw/Soo around the time of the Soo take over in the area that this bridge represents.

The bridge is basically a piece of wood with parts of Micro Engineering 80' and 40' Deck girder glued to it. It also sports ME's Bridge Flex track kit on the deck, and the railings are Arnold's Bridge Railing Kit #6125, of which I can no longer locate for future repairs. The abutments/piers are made of wood also. All consturcted by Art. He painted the bridge black, then weathered it. He and I installed it, the scenery was finished and then I did the final weathering job on the bridge.

I am running on short time here....but I will tell how the water was done since there were some questions about that....it's an interesting story since it almost got me divorced not once, but twice!!!

Later,

Greg

 

Welcome to the club Greg!

Robert

 

Great modelling Greg. It's all impressive but I particularly like the shoals and water so can't wait to hear the rest of your story on its creation.

 

I especally like the SP piggyback train. It reminds me of the PCX (Pacific Coast Expiditer), which ran between Seattle & LA via the Tehachapi route. Lots of May 28' & 53, as well as SP golden piggyback and other lease trailers.

Excellent modeling indeed!

Brian

 

Now that I have a little more time I will tell you how the water was made since I have had quite a few inquiries about it.

I had used a slurry of wood putty to form a more suitable base for painting than the plywood it's self. After this was completed, Jill had painted the river bed. Then Art and I decided to pour the river. Art had not much expierence in this, and neither had I.

My first mistake was to use Castin' Craft Clear liquid plastic casting resin. This was a major no-no. It shrank very badly, it also did minor damage to the bottom of the river, I attribute this mainly to giving Jill some cheap acrylic paints. Neither Art nor I were pleased with this, so one day he and I tore it out.....it did some minor damage. Art made sure he was gone before Jill got home for work....enter divorce threat #1....I ruined her 'Monet'.

A little patching up of the river bed, I begged Jill to repaint it. Eventually she did. We were ready for river #2. Art came to help again. This time we used Envirotex. Much easier to use how ever I still encountered some major problems. When the Envirotex set up...it had trapped pockets of tiny bubbles. These were suppose to all disappear. Come to find out after talking to the manufacture of Envirotex....I should had poured it in my basement when the temp was above 70 degrees F (we did this in the winter when the temp is around 65) I also should have warmed up the Envirotex to a warm room temp of 75 or so before I had used it, which I did not do. Art and I were again dissappointed with our results and thought about remove this again. Jill said no way or else....threat #2.

Jill and I did some major discussion on how to fix this. We referred to Frary's "How to build Realistic Model RR Scenery". She and I came up with the idea of using gloss medium over the Envirotex, hence the ripple effect. But in order to hide the bubbles.....she put several coats of the gloss medium on with a tint. I believe she used cobalt blue among a few other colors.

Art, Jill and I were all pleased with the results. Hopefully we will take what we learned and apply it to the next major water project....the Mississippi River over by my version of Muscatine Iowa. We shall see....

Later,

Greg