Went to see 1:1 scale steam in action this morning. SP 2472 at Niles Canyon Railway. Sunol CA. 09/13/2009
This is only a test. “This is only a test. If this had been an actual post...” Actually this is the post I intended for atlasrr’s SNFF but I hear it is not running at the moment. This weekend, I cut up some blue posterboard to make a test fit for a background to be free-standing and curve around a corner of my rollaway causeway section. Actual background is 8 feet long, 16 inch tall and on styrene. I cut a 28 inch long piece of posterboard to 16 inches tall and experimented to see how much I would need to cut into it to go around a corner. The background will be hanging on walls on 3 sides of the layout. On the causeway section, I want the bottom of the background to fall one inch below the waterline. One inch foam raises the layout “ground level” to 2 inches above background bottom. To cut background to go around corner, I will need to cut 2 inches from part that will be over land and 1 inch from part over water. A little over a foot length in all. I C-clamped some sticks to the layout frame and taped the posterboard to sticks for my tryout. Think I learned what I needed to learn. Awfully tight for the scene I want at “Bay Point”, my version of Virginia Point, the mainland end of the Galveston causeway. I want it to look windswept and sparse. Some stilt houses, maybe 2 modeled and several 2-D printouts glued to BG. I used an old New England church bought from a “used kits 2nd hand table” as a stand-in for Bay Point Inn, an old derelict hotel with long porches like they built on the seaside 100 years ago to catch the sea breezes. My stand-in is too deep for the space and too tall. Makes things look crowded rather than sparse. I have hope though that I can build a Bay Point Inn with 2-and-a-half Model Power Grandma’s/ Bella’s farmhouse kits with a shallower roof . A week ago, I showed the background being painted for the causeway-across-the-bay scene. Onward through the fog! With a little confidence from the mocking up…
I like the sky! Chad those electicity wires are a very nice bit of work. They add a lot of atmosphere to your great-looking layout. Mike
First post on Trainboard. Lots of familiar names and layouts... After my article published in N Scale Magazine, I was contacted by a modeler who had several more of these cars he wanted to unload. He offered me 5 cars at no cost, provided I did one up to return to him as a Laurel Valley car. The original car in the magazine article is in the rear, two of the newer ones are in the foreground featuring loads I built from scraps I had around the workbench. I used actual scraps, bits of sprue, leftover MT shim plates, some wheels and springs and other crap I had laying around. I glued the pieces to a styrene base, then sealed it all with a wash of clear matte acrylic. Once that dried, I went over it with a few washes of black, brown and oxide red to give it a good junky look. The load is removable and also fits in my MT gons. Even the ones that are lowered! Also made with actual scraps. To get the effect of shreds of sheet metal, I scraped along the edge of some styrene with a sharp X-acto blade to get some "curly cues". These were stuffed in and among the sprue bits and other scraps I had glued to the base, then brushed some Plastic Weld over it to crinkle it all up and bond it together. Followed by multiple washes of black, brown and oxide colors to "flavor" it. I need to get more decals run so I can do the rest of the gons. Lee
I zoomed in and was able to determine that it was a large wad of bearing waste used to wipe down the locomotive.
My daughter and I were just driving through Niles Canyon, and saw this, plus the regular Sunol train. Had the camera, but we weren't stopped, and heavy Sunday traffic. If I had known.... :tb-sad: Did get a picture of the Amtrack passenger train, crossing Alameda Creek at the end of Niles Canyon:
Hey Lee, Welcome to TB!! I'm glad you found us. Great article in N Scale this month. :thumbs_up: Really good pictures this week everybody.
Deluxe Innovations 53 foot Scratch and Dent trailer with home made Panther II Transportation decals. I learned that you can use too much fixative to seal the decal. Hopefully some flat coat paint will make the decal edge less obvious. Either that or more weathering.
