Some motivation and free time led me to the train room this past week. I had a local historical group come for a visit so the room got a deep cleaning and the layout got some much needed maintenance and repair. Afterwards, I decided to take some updated photographs of the layout and room.

 Here's a shot of the family area of the room. During planning, i wanted to fill this area with a helix for more main line run but I'm glad I didn't. We're really enjoying this shared space.

 I turned around after taking the photo above and got a shot of the rest of the room. I'm holding off on carpet for this part of the room until scenery is done. You can see the Port of Greenville above the stairwell and the Artesia yard on the right lower deck.

 A GP10 creeps out of the interchange at Ackerman, MS. This is a proto-freelanced scene. There is an old IC/GM&O interchange at Ackerman but no street running. I borrowed the street running scene from the town of New Albany, MS just up the old GM&O line.

A North bound empty grain train passes TXI cement as it enters the yard at Artesia, MS.


Now that I have some motivation, I hope to get some work done on the layout soon.

Back in the train room again!!!!

Over the weekend, I made the time to get back to work in the train room. This time, it was work on the room itself making it more comfortable to be in. Like most modelers need to do, I spent several hours CLEANING out the room. I've got tons of boxes of stuff I know I'll never use so it's got to go. After a little cleaning, I hung the rest of the underlayout curtains and started installing carpet squares. The better half has been on me to get the room usable by the rest of the family so that was my weekend project. Here's a before and after pic of the carpet work.

GP10s on the way!!!!

It's been WAY to long since I've posted an update. Things here have been busy so I've had little time to work on the layout. Hope to change that soon.

In the mean time, I wanted to share some of my new excitement in the hobby. After decades of wishing, HO scale GP10s are on the way from a factory!!! Intermountain Railway Co has announced the release and are now taking pre-orders for their GP10. They're releasing them in eight different roadnames but I'm only going to focus on the three I've preordered: Illinois Central, Illinois Central Gulf and MidSouth.

I've been curious about the correctness of the upcoming models and have seen others ask the same question. So, I thought I'd post a photo here of Intermountain's drawings along with photos of the prototype for comparison. I'll let you be the judge.

Street running 2: Paving

I'm making some progress on the street running scene. Here, the main street is painted and mostly weathered as is the side street with the rail down the middle. The styrene streets were painted with several layers of a Ralph Lauren textured paint then lightly sanded. The stripping was added with some white and yellow paint pens. Next followed another light sanding then an over spray and lane spraying with a alcohol-india ink wash through the air brush. More to come!

Street running.....

While waiting on some parts for the Georgia Pacific plant, I decided to start working on the downtown area of Ackerman. I strayed from the prototype slightly here as I wanted to have some street running somewhere on the layout. There wasn't any along the line I'm modeling but there was along one of the branches off of it. So, I used the scene on the branch as inspiration for the street running part of downtown Ackerman.

The scene I'm modeling is an interchange between the ICG and the Frisco where the interchange track diverges between two buildings along Main Street to where it connects with the other railroad that runs down a side street. Unfortunately, it won't be a functioning track as the benchwork was too shallow to create a working interchange. So, I've got the interchange track modeled running between the buildings as in this photo.

The second photo shows the Frisco line running down the side street.  The interchange track would connect in just beyond the tan building on the left.

This was one of those scenes where the scenery intimidated me. I wasn't sure how I was going to actually build the roads. I wanted to use styrene because I liked how it looked once painted. However, I wasn't sure how I was going to cut the styrene to match the curve of the rails. I put off and put off attempting this scene until today when I just decided to give it a try with the plan to start over when I messed it up.

To make the cuts on the styrene, I first put some paint on the rails then pressed the styrene to it. That left the mark of the rails on the styrene. I think just used a sharp X-Acto knife and hand cut the styrene. I normally can't draw a straight line but I got lucky and the cuts turned out well. So, I'm happy with what I have so far. The foam base beneath the styrene is just a hair too tall. So next comes a light sanding then some paint on the roads!

More backdrop work....

Lessons learned on my first couple of photo backdrops. First off, I wasn't happy with the look of the backdrop behind the Southern main because of the dull coat I'd sprayed on it as you can see from my previous post. So, I had the photo reprinted and I re-hung it without any dull coat. I also was more careful with the airbrush in feathering in my backdrop sky color. I like how it turned out!

Next, I made a change in direction. I'd been working hard on the scenery and structures for the lower deck between Meridian and South Artesia such as old town Meridian, Crawford Grain and TXI Cement. I then realized that I'd be doing some messy scenery base work on the upper deck above. So, I figured I better stop on the lower deck and get to working on the messy part of the upper deck. One part I've really started working on is the Georgia Pacific Particle Board plant in Louisville. I started with a photo backdrop of the plant then added a 3D warehouse, some tank car loading platforms and some stand in tanks. So far, I like how the scene is coming together. However, it is hard to photograph because of the contrast in colors. I think once I get the white foam covered with dirt and ground cover then it'll be easier to shoot.

More photo backdrops

 I've done some more work with photo backdrops. My practice one is this first image that's behind the Southern main approaching Meridian. I took the photos of the tree line behind my house and merged them in PhotoShop then had it printed 11" by 48" at my local art shop. Before I applied the image to the backdrop, I coated it with two layers of Dullcoat thinking that it would seal the paper for when I feathered in my backdrop sky color. The Dullcoat caused the image to fade thus giving it a more distant appearance and was not my intent. The original print was much more vibrant and blended better with the model trees. To feather in the sky color onto the photo, I used an airbrush with thinned latex interior paint. I put the paint on too think the first time and the moisture in the paint caused the paper to wrinkle. Lessons learned. Click on the photo for a larger view.

My second print was for the TXI cement plant. This time, I left off the Dullcoat and when I feathered on the latex paint, I did it in VERY thin applications allowing each to dry before the next. I got a much better result. Learning through experience! After looking at this photo of the scene, I think I need to rearrange my models as they are blocking the view of the structures on the backdrop photo. I think more of them need to show through at least between the spaces of the models. Click on the photo for a larger view.