Repainted Johnstown Depot

A project that's been long on the Johnstown to-do list was is painting a Pennsyizing the depot. This building is a refugee from my last layout. It's a Model Power kit and obviously a knockoff of Lionel's Rico Station kit. The prototype is the former Rio Grande Southern Depot in Rico, CO.

The building looks nothing like the real Johnstown Station which, is a magnificent brick building. Anyway, it was already close to Pennsy colors. I simply repainted the bottom trim, doors and windows Floquil Tuscan Red. 

When the outside painting was done, the real fun started. Since I plan to light this building with an LED, I painted the inside walls black to prevent them from glowing. Well, back when I built this kit, I noticed none of the pieces fit together quite right. As such, there were plenty of gaps through which the black paint could escape. And it took advantage of every one of them! So yeah, A lot of touchup.

With the painting done, I really upped the anty and decided to lop off part of the structure base. However, the freight loading docks are part of said base. The result was a lot of precision razer saw work and a whole lot of hair pulling, teeth gnash and bad words. Good thing my kids have gone to bed for the nigt!

I fashioned a new platform out of another Model Power structure base resembling concrete. No, the irony isn't lost on me. I finished things off by adding a few figures to complete the scene.

Aircraft Warning Lights for Superior Paper

Two entries in one night after a long dry spell, talk about a 180! Anyway, I'd been kicking the idea of adding aircraft warning lights to Superior Paper for a while. I have a bunch of 3mm flashing red LEDs laying around and used them for the same purpose on other buildings. However, in this case, adding them to the tops of the stacks would have been too obtrusive and also a monumental PITA.

My bright idea was to run fiber optics through the stacks and under the layout, where the blinking LED would be located. I started out with running the fiber optics through the stacks and CA'd them on each end of the stack. Them it was simply a matter of drilling through the table and connecting the fiber to the LED. That was no easy task, but I got at least one stack blinking.

The effect is pretty subtle but I think it works and the fiber is nearly invisible when the room lights are on. Now back to that drainage ditch...

A Long-Overdue Entry

Wow, two and a half months since my last entry! I know I pretty much dropped off the face of the earth after December, but life has been crazy around here. That said, I have made quite a bit of progress on the layout. I just haven't found time to blog about it. So brace yourself for an extra-long post!

 First and foremost, I completed the small mountain in the back left corner of the peninsula. It was the usual procedure of building up a mountain out of styrofoam, cover it with plaster-soaked paper towels, paint it "raw umber" and cover it with lichen.

What made this project a challenge was the lack of accessibility. There no way to climb up on the layout to get to it. On top of that, the left side of the peninsula borders the stairs. What ended up doing was balancing precariously on the half wall between the layout and the stairs. I had about eight inches to sit on and do the work. Nerve-racking for sure, but I didn't fall and break my neck, always a plus. 
 

 Next up, I finished off the house on the hill.  This project was dead simple. I brushed the entire hill with Mod Podge matte medium and applied the various layers of turf.

The next step was to add some Woodland Scenics trees. And this is where the trouble started. See, I've never had much luck using WS Hobby Tack to affix the foliage to the armatures and I decided to try something different. While browsing the craft aisle at my local Wally World, I ran across some Gorilla Spray Adhesive and thought I'd give it a shot. Well, I tried it out on one tree and ass soon as I stuck the armature in the bag of clump foliage, one of the branches broke off. Undeterred, I tried out a second tree. Again, several branches broke off. 

After having several trees lose branches, I had to stop and scratch my head. At first, I thought I'd gotten a bad batch of tree armatures. But just to be sure, I went ahead and assembled a tree with Hobby Tack and guess what. No issues what so ever. As it turns out Gorilla Spray Adhesive is not safe for plastics. Good to know.

As I near the end of the heavy lifting in Johnstown, I'm starting to get going on the detailing phase. This involved purchasing a bunch of cars from eBay seller "Chuckthprinter," who offers not only a nice variety of 1940s and 50s vehicles but also a bunch of other nifty N Scale details.

The cars I bought were five packs with some assembly required. First, thing I did was glue the wheels on with CA, always a fun experience. Three of the four wheels would go on without issue but the fourth? The wheen and car would repel each other like two magnets, usually getting my finger stuck together in the process.

Once the cars had their wheels affixed, I took a pencil and colored in the windows. Then I used a silver Sharpy marker for the bumpers and other chrome trim. This being 1956, cars can't have enough chrome, right?

I've been slogging through Johnstown for nearly two years now. I can finally see the light at the end of that particular tunnel. I have only one really big project left to finish, carving out a drainage ditch beside Superior Paper.