SNFF 2007 1 28 I mean, from a Santa Fe railfan's perspective, it just doesn't get too much better than the elegant PA1s in Warbonnet.
I hate to break the steam trend, but here's a pic of progress on the new layout, with some stand-in sectional track At least I didn't post a diesel pic:angel:
This was my solution to one of the problems of a nolix that does not circle a room, but loops back a number of times. This causes the decks to converge on each other (vertically) in some locations. I could have put a tunnel here, but Murphy's Law made me leery. Instead I built the housing for an eight-foot long linear accelerator. At the right end, it plunges into the mountains. I felt this would distract the viewer's eyes. Our train is on the back wall of the east side. I designed the nolix so that all climbs would be on the back wall. At the end of this climb, we'll be at the High Bridges, and the entrance to the second deck.
Here we are about to cross a model of one of the DelMar feeder bridges. It's the entrance to the second deck on the west wall of the layout. It's the obscured back bridge. The front bridge is based on one span of the Eads bridge in St. Louis, with the deck lowered to become a through arch.
This shows the entrance to the High Bridges as it actually exists today. I just haven't got around to finishing it yet. The near bridge was nearly destroyed when I fell last summer. I had a cut up N scale P-51, so I've used that as an excuse for parts of the bridge not quite lining up again. This bridge was built from wood. As it dried out, it became very fragile. I couldn't repair it fully, because the dried wood just kept breaking away. I'd replace one stick only to break four others nearby.
We're crossing the DelMar High Bridge. That's the Linear Accelerator in the middle left, which we've just climbed past. Above the accelerator is deck three on the east wall. There is no deck 2 on that wall. We'll return, after a long while, going the other direction on the Eades Bridge, just to the left of the DelMar. The wall to the right is only a few inches away from the bridge. The bridges were supposed to be a foot away from the wall, but I got lazy: it's easier to build against the wall than free-standing. Live and learn. I'll probably Photoshop it out in the future. To the lower left is the East Harbor, the Navy base.
Here's my newest structure......I spotted this on Jon Grant's layout pics and had to copy...It's a kitbashed Atlas signal tower.....The brick and mortar look is from using a base of concrete paint and then after drying applying the brick color with a Tuscan Red pencil (article was in the last Model Railroader and Fotheringill gave me the pencil)....I weathered with powdered black charcoal....
After months of putting off this project I am finally moving forward. Here is an SD90MAC Demonstrator in process for IvoUP. It is a little bit of a masking challenge. It is fun though!
