Artistic Liberty

I have been working on the background portion of the layout trying to incorporate the use of a mirror to give some depth to the scene. But after much thought and trying to make it work I have only a very small portion of the mirror being used.  But I do have a bit of the red rocks and a canyon with steep walls similar to the grand canyon.  So the artistic liberty has come in since the VT&S never did go any where near the red rocks.

Puzzling until my puzzler is sore.

After giving it some thought over just how to model the Hopewell portion of VT&S I have decided to just do a couple of switchbacks and this will allow for trains to move from one point to the next without having to have a bridge or duck under in the door way.

 This will be the first switchback I will install a Fast Tracks #6 turnout that will be mounted on 1/8" masonite. There is Woodland Scenics Foam roadbed glued to the foam board.

I am working on using old geodesic foam scenery peaces as part of the scenery as well as painting the backdrop so it will look as mountains in the distance.

I am not sure if I will use this as it is now, it's not coming together as I want.  I have just used foam board as a support and glued the geodesic foam to it. Having to get this corner done before the roadbed and track is installed.

Once I get the scenery completed in this corner I will get the sub-roadbed installed for the track that will lead to the transfer beens at Hopewell.

Foam Vinyl and wrong paint?

One of the advantages of using extruded foam board is it's very moldable. I am using the foam board for the base level to allow carving for scenery as well as the sub roadbed for the uphill grade to the Hopewell section. I am using Liquid Nails for Projects to glue the foam board to the benchwork as well as the sub-roadbed for the uphill grade to the Hopewell section. The background has been painted as well. I used Karen's blue denim paint she had for painting an accent wall in or house by mistake. I then had to paint over it with two coats of the light blue paint I had already used for the sky on the original layout. But hey the blue denim has given a good outline for the mountains in the background. I'm lucky Karen is a very understanding wife.

Here I am using steal weights to hold the foam board in position until the Liquid Nails sets up. I use round toothpicks as nails to also help hold the foam in place. There are two 1" halves of foam board cut at a 2 % grade as well as cut every three to four inches about half way through on the vertical to allow it to bend around the radius of the curves. Once the glue is set I will sand off the top to make it smooth and then glue cork roadbed to the foam board. Then the track will be glued to the cork. I am using the same peaces of foam board from the original incline on this new layout so I will have to sand the top smooth before glueing the cork down to it.

This will be the final curve on the incline which will be five inches above the original level. I have made one circle around the layout to get to grade. From here the transfer bins that were at Hopewell will be the main focal point of the layout. I am very happy so far with how things are progressing.

New Benchwork taking shape

The new benchwork is installed and almost complete. It is 48" from the floor with a shelf 19" above the main level which will be where the railroad will be. I have installed vinyl flooring as a backdrop that I will paint with scenery. The lighting is rope light that is going to provide light for operations when the layout is completed

This is the new brackets for the benchwork. The horizontal boards are 3/4" cabinet grade plywood screwed to the wall where the studs are. The shelf brackets are also made of 3/4" plywood with the bottom bracket 22" deep and the top bracket for the shelf and lighting valance are 18" deep.
The sub layer is 1/2" plywood that will be covered with 1" blue foam. The background is vinyl flooring mounted with the back facing outward for painting.
Here you can see the vinyl flooring as it is clamped as the glue dries.

The background will be painted blue and have scenery painted to give depth to the scene. The white line in the backdrop is where the vinyl is spliced. I have used vinyl spackling to fill in the seam and it's sanded and ready for painting.

The shelf is 22" deep and will be covered by blue foam which can be shaped for scenery. The white line is the vinyl spackling that needs to be sanded.
There will be a valance around the top that will hide the rope light and finish off the shelf.
One of the reasons for redoing the layout was to allow for the desk I use as a workbench to be in the same room as the layout. This allows for working on locomotives as well as rolling stock and building structures for the layout in a climate controlled room.

Starting over

After several days of thought I finally decided that the layout was not going to work the way it was being built. There was not any real purpose to operating and after deciding to do away with helix there was no real purpose to having the incline that ended up going no where.

Here I have removed the track and DCC control system. Getting ready to remove the section of benchwork so I can start installing the new benchwork.

After cutting through the foam board this section is ready to be removed. All of this section will be removed and the new benchwork will be installed in it's place.

This is the new benchwork design. The lower shelf will be 48" in height and 24" deep. The upper bracket's are 18" deep and are for the valance to mount the lighting for the layout as well as a storage shelf on the top.

Fascia for the Railroad

Some progress on the railroad with the fascia installed.

I am going for a rusted metal look for the fascia. So I have the bottom coat of orange on and I will put some dark brown to give it a rust color when I am done.

With the base coat on I will let it dry then add the dark brown in layers to give it a rust color. This are was where the helix was going to be but with it removed I have a small yard for switching cars.

Building a swing gate with bridges.

It's been an interesting year and I realized this is my first post in quite some time. With Karen's mom passing away very unexpectedly in February most of my railroad time was used in trips to AZ with family business.

But I have managed to get some work done on the layout this year all be it time consuming on building a swing gate for access into the train room without having to duck under the section of track in front of the door.

This first photo sows the gate in the closed position. I used the same general construction that Charlie Comstock used in his model railroad Bear Creek & South Jackson. I have one bridge in place with the start of scenery underneath the bridges.
When the gate is in the closed position it's held in place with the brass road in the back just to the right of the bridge end. The small micro switch will be used for cutting the power to the tracks when the gate is opened. Wouldn't want a nice brass locomotive or any loco crashing to the floor when the gate is open.
I have removed the second bridge for now to allow for easier access to complete the scenery for the river bottom. The black paint will be where the rive water will be after I finish painting some more detail before adding the resin which will give it the final look of water flowing down the river.

With the gate fully open it allows easy access into the train room with out having to duck under a rather low bench work. It's been fun getting to this point as I have spent most all of my time working on this gate and building a second through truss bridge. The one on the left is just sitting in place for the photo and is the second one I have built. Once this section is completed and operational I will get back to working on the helix.