The JACALAR RR

I zoomed in on the picture a bit

 

The town of Laurel Gulch taking shape

I've (pretty much) finished the buildings for my mining town, Laurel Gulch. The new SP Depot still needs some finishing touches including the signs for the town, and touching up the shingle paint (where you can see the white paper backing).

Here's a shot of the town, with a heavy-weight UP passenger train at the depot:



Here's looking down the street:

 

Here are a couple close ups of the new SP depot





and here is a bird's eye view of Laurel Gulch

 

Absolutely! The buildings are just "placed" right now, and I still need to build up the ground, scenery, etc. This will look like a western town (well, maybe more like a "set", since it is only one building deep (strip-mall, indeed!). Stage coach, buckboards, horses (Mongo standing over knocked-out horse; or Kid Shelleen and drunk horse?) as well as passengers at the depot.

 

Not on the layout, but here are a couple shots of the completed depot (touched up, chimneys and signs added)



Close up of depot sign



While not the exact font match, I used Lucida Sans demibold, 4pt, for the station name, and 2pt for the side and elevation info. I couldn't easily do the half step registration to put the fractions in correctly (5/10), so just used the ½ character, instead. For comparison to fully restored SP depot, see: Centerville Depot (only about 4 miles from our house; Niles depot is a bit further).

 

A new arrival

Just received this new little addition for my railroad, SP #1514, a MDC/Roundhouse 2-6-0 Mogul.



Making his way around the layout for a test run (which went perfectly)

 

SP 1514 in the mountains

Here he is chugging along over the trestle bridge







I've ordered Lenz Silver mini to install, plus need to exchange the couplers at that time.

 

Thanks Mark - it runs beautifully! (just hope I don't screw anything up with the decoder install). Haven't really decided on what it will be doing, probably a mix of both. I'm betting it will see lots of mountain / mining time, too!

 

Laurel Gulch progress shots

The mining town of Laurel Gulch, and the Ariel Mineral & Mining Co. operations have continued to take shape over the past few weeks. Here, for your view pleasure, are some shots. I still have a lot of ground cover, grass, shrubs, details to add, but the basic town has now been "placed" (nothing is fixed, yet).

Here is a look down the main street through the small town. We can see that there are now some residents, as well as some visitors, parked in the parking area at the far end of town. (Yes, I know, all the residents are 4-legged at this point -- I NEED N-scale COWBOYS! Of course, they are probably all just in the saloon) At the far upper left, between the converging tracks across the road, is the old town cemetery.



Here's a closer view, looking down the street



This is looking "the other way" in town, into the mountains, at the tree which gives Laurel Gulch its name. The river bed is on the lower right, but I haven't started on the river yet.



Here's a shot of dusk settling over the town. There's still at least one set of visitors in the town, since their station wagon is still in the parking area.



and, you can see where my ballasting stopped

 

Laurel Gulch progress, cont

Here are a few more shots

Evening light, looking over the Ariel Mineral and Mining Co. tracks, as they join the JACALAR main line, coming out of the central mountain tunnel. You can see the access road crossing the tracks and leading to the mill



Finally, a couple of birds-eye wide angle shots of town

 

The little shed: North Eastern Scale Models Shed, STS Series (i bought from Fifer)

SP Depot: American Model Builders Kit 650 SP Type 23 (I bought from woo woo woo woo woo woo)

General Store: American Model Builders Kit 693 McCormak's Dry Goods (I bought from woo woo woo woo woo woo)

Assay Office, Two-Bit Saloon and Gunsmith Shop: Randy Brown Models (I bought from Fifer)

Three building unit (shop/hotel/small store): Model Tech Studios Logging Company Store Kit (I bought from Fifer)

The small brown Assay office I bought on ebay

How do I make the dirt road? All I did was use reddish/brown pastel chalk, and then some dark gray and black chalk, onto flat dry joint compound, which I had spread over the plaster cloth. Sanded it smooth. After scribbling the chalk on, I smoothed / smushed it with a 1/4" light brush, to even the colors. Once I had it as I liked it, I sprayed the area with Dull-Coat.