Finished with the Ballast and The Scenery

 

The title pretty much says it all, doesn't it? I got a bag of Woodland Scenics Fine Cinders ballast. It turned out to be just enough to finish the yard tracks and the area around the roundhouse. With that, every inch of track on the layout, save for Pittsburgh Staging, is ballasted. Yay!

Once the track was ballasted, I turned my attention to the small pond in the middle of the loop. I painted the bottom with a mix of navy blue and black acrylics. Once that dried, I added several sizes of Woodland Scenics Talus to a side that came out too steep. I used Woodland Scenics Field Grass to make reeds. The canoeing folks were salvaged from my last layout. The water, which is still drying, is Mod Podge gloss medium.

With the pond done, I channeled my inner Bob Ross and added some happy trees. These are Woodland Scenics large trees. I've assembled hundreds of these trees for this layout and I have to say, they can be a bit of a PITA.  You assemble them by twisting a flat plastic armature into something tree shaped. Then coat it with WS's "Hobby Tack" glue. My mistake was putting the foliage on right away instead of waiting 15 minutes. This time I waited and had much better results.

Another thing about trees is they look best in distinct stands even as part of an overall forest setting. Further more, said stands look best with an odd number of trees.

With the tree planted, I went back into ground cover mode. I have a jar of fallen leaves, which I ground up into a fine powder a blender. I sprinkled this under the stands of trees and added a few pieces of Woodland Scenics deadfall.

With that, I can declare major combat operations over as far as scenery. Suddenly, the to-do list is looking very empty. Up next is the fine detailing faze. Now, detail parts can be quite dear and are best picked up en mass at train shows from folks liquidating their layouts. Unfortunately, the show isn't until February. 

I think it's high time I finally get serious about operation. I do have a phone system and am planning to use timetable and train order. But What I don;t know about operation could fill the grand canyon! Time to get researching!

Finished With the Ground Cover

 

I'm finally back at it. Today I knocked out all the ground cover. With that, every inch of foam, save for Pittsburgh Staging is covered with ground foam. That is a major milestone. I can kiss all this fuzzy turf goodbye until the next layout!

While I was at it, I worked on the lake. I painted the bed a mix a navy blue and black. Next I painted the bank burnt umber. One side of the lake came out a bit steeper than I would've liked. Rather than dig into the foam, I added some Talus rip rap. The next step will be to apply some Woodland Scenics field grass around the edges.

As You may have seen from the above photo, the yards tracks still require ballast. That's on order. Unfortunately, Woodland Scenics Fine Cinder ballast seems to be unobtanium. I managed to buy the last bag off Amazon. The big shakers are completely unavailable. Gotta love the supply chain issues.

Anyway, I imagine the scenery should be done by spring.

More Structure Lighting

All but one of the town building are illuminated. Dang, these LEDs are night-into-day bright! The gas station roof is glowing despite the black paint. In addition to the building lights, I took a Model Power Y-Shaped street light and bent it to resemble a 1980s-style gas station light.

As for what's going on across the street from the gas station, that's going to be a used car lot. The office is an old Nucomp Miniatures trailer. I'll elaborate on this scene more when it's finished.

Next thing on my list is finishing a partially-completed Model Power house kit. That will do it for the structures on this layout.
 

Finished City Classics' "401 Crafton Ave. Service Station" Kit

 I scored this long-discontinued kit off eBay. It's too bad City Classics didn't expand their N Scale line because this really is nice kit with lots of interesting details.

I started things off by spraying the inside of the walls with some cheap black spray paint. This is necessary with structures to keep them from glowing when they're lighted. Unfortunately, some of said paint bled onto the front of the building. I sprayed the front walls with Rustoleum white primmer. The door and window frames are Floquil "Conrail Blue." The roof? You guessed it, Floquil "Grimy Black."

The structure base and pump islands are painted Testor's "Flat Light Aircraft Grey," my go-to concrete color. The Pumps are Testor's Flat Red and Floquil "Coach Green."

The next step is to pain the parking lot, add some lighting and details and then we're done. After this, I have only one more structure to finish.

Wired Up Some Buildings

 You ever have one of those days where it seems like all you do is spin your wheels and get nothing accomplished? Yup, that was me today. I came up to the train room all fired up to get going on the wiring project. Well hit the first roadblock when my drill battery died almost instantly. That delayed my plans.

Unable to drill holes, I took a whack at wiring up the turn table. I had pre-drilled the holes years ago, so routing the wires was no problem. And the turntable didn't work. Stymied, I came back later.

This evening, armed with a fully-charged battery, I drilled holes and snaked the wires through the table top, one of my least favorite tasks. I managed to get everything hooked up to a barrier strip and - nothing. I tired switching the polarity, no change. With nothing else to try I switched the polarity again, and tightened down the screws, this worked. 

One building is sitting on a wooden base so I glued it down. In very fitting end to this day, it warped! So yeah, today was a bit of a battle, but Altoona is one step closer to the finish line.

Finished With the Backdrops

 I knocked on item off the to do list tonight. I finished mounting backdrops. I took the section I'd mounted to foam core board last night and blackened the edge with a black magic marker. Then I stuck it to the wall. Next, I carved the final section of mountain with my hot knife, painted it and glues on the remained of the lichen. I added turf around Alto Tower and the area between the wall and tracks was done. 

While I was turf slinging mode, I decided to go ahead and cover up the area behind the roundhouse and the area where the two sets of tracks diverge. The upper photo really illustrates the difference between the new ground cover and the stuff that was put down in 2014 (on the left). The latter has become quite dusty, dull and lifeless looking.

Roads, Backdrops and Turf, Oh My!

 I've been stuck in this "I don;t know how to finish Altoona" quagmire for what seems like years. Oh, wait, it has. But I', turning the corner on it. For a while, I've been dreading finishing the roads, but today, I was determined to get it done. And wouldn't you know it? I found a much easier alternative.

In one of the massive boxes of crap under the layout, I found two sheets of brown Creatology foam I'd purchased years ago. Turns out these foam sheets are the same thickness as Woodland scenics paving tape! So rather than do my roads out of plaster, I simply cut them out of foam. I used this for the parking lot under the shop powerhouse and the the road leading out of town.

In the town itself, I really took the coward's way out. I painted the roads directly on the base. It definitely passes the "good enough for government work" test. However, I did use a foam sheet to create a sidewalk layer for the buildings to sit on.  

Doing the roads ended up crystalizing my needs for the town. I decided to add one more building, a gas station. and that's it. After all this supposed to be the outer fringes of the city. The city proper lives off the layout.

I also applied more turf to some areas around the shop complex. Since it's industrial, I went heavy on the dry grass turf.

The last thing I did was mount the final section of backdrop to a piece of foam core board. All that's left is painting the edges black and it's ready for prime time.

Despite the work I've done, there's still quite a bit on the to do list. to wit:

-Wire all roundhouse tracks and turn table

-Finished the remaining mountains.

-Mount remaining backdrop section.

-Assemble final building

-Wire building lights

-Install street lights

-Ballast remaining yard tracks

-Finish turf

-Add trees.

-Add details

Once this is done, I can declare major combat operations over for the layout. Stay tuned.

My Layout's Got 99 Problems and a Switch Ain't One

 Well hello there! I know, it's been forever since I've posted. But I've been working on the layout in fits and starts. As you can see from the above photo, I've gotten most of the Altoona yard tracks ballasted and am starting to apply ground cover. 

My most recent project involved my turnouts, chiefly, the double crossovers at each end of the layout. My trains were consistently stalling on them. Nothing kills my enthusiasm faster than balky trains, so I finally attacked the problem.

The Achilles heal of these Peco Electro Frog turnouts is their reliance on the points to ferry current to the rest of the turnout. If you point rails don't make perfect contact with the stock rails, your turnout becomes a dead spot. Painting the rails and ballasting, no matter how careful I am, tend to gum these turnouts up. 

It took a few hours of careful cleaning with Goof Off and tweaking, but now my trains run around flawlessly. It was well worth the effort. 

The main fruit of my labors was being able to teach my son Victor to run the trains with the DCC throttle. Talk about a proud papa moment!

Started Building the Embankment and Mounting the Backdrops

 The title pretty much sums it up. I started things off by taking a long strip of white Styrofoam roughly 3/4 of an inch thick and two inches wide and beveling it with my hit knife. Next, I painted the whole thing raw umber and glued it along the backside of the Altoona peninsula with white glue.

Once the paint and glue dried, I broke out the lichen and started gluing down. At first, I tried using Elmer's spray adhesive. Turns out, this stuff isn't meant for Styrofoam. Oops! So after melting some of the embankment, I switched the white glue. 

With the lichen glued down, I moved on the the backdrop. I tried gluing one section to the wall, and it looked all wrong! The white edges of the foam core board stuck out like a bunch of soar thumbs. The solution was to painstakingly paint the edges with black acrylic paint. Once mounted, they looked awesome.

I'm pretty stoked about how the backdrop is turning out. I have about one more section to mount and that project is done.

Improved the First Train Show Building

This building is jazzed-up DPM Otto's Auto Parts. The seller added a base, interior LED light, signs and some roof details. A lot of the detailing is quite nice, but some of it had to go.

First and foremost, the styrene base was glued to a larger balsa wood base. The latter made a rather unconvincing. The first thing I did was pry the sucker off, remove the vehicles and toss it in the trash. 

Next, I pried off the plastic base and drilled a hole through the center for the light wire (the were regionally routed out the back wall). While the base was off, I re-glued the window inserts and drapes.

Not a bad little 30-minute project.

In other news I've started building the embankment along the back edge of the Altoona peninsula. More on that to come.
 

Why Didn't I Think of This Sooner?

 I've been moving forward with the Altoona end of the layout for better part of a month and a half now. Today, I had one of those eureka moments normally reserved for waking up at three AM or sitting on the toilet. 

As I've mentioned previously on this blog, my main concern with scenicing Altoona was said scenery hindering operation and getting damaged in the take. The solution to this concern is dead simple, make the middle of the peninsula a lift out!

With a lift out, we have functionality for operating sessions and nice scenery for show. Implementing this may be a tall order, but well worth the effort.

Started Mocking Up the Altoona Backdrop

 As mentioned previously, I ordered some urban photo backdrops off eBay (seller a.b.b.r_81 (link). What I got was a sheet with five two-foot long sections of generic urban building printed on sturdy paper. Ultimately this gives you a roughly 10-foot backdrop. Not bad for $32!

I started by rolling the section up the opposite way from which it came rolled. This allowed it to lay somewhat flat. Next I cut out the first section and mounted it to some foam core board with Elmer's spray adhesive. 

The next step was to painstakingly cut around each individual building with a razor blade. A good bit of work for sure, but nothing I can't handle. As of right now, the first section is temporarily in place with a bit of masking tape. 

At the moment, I'm not sure if I want the buildings at track level or raised up a bit with some kind of retaining wall. I do know I have to somehow fill the gap between the wall and the layout, a task I am dreading. We shall see.

Finished Blair Line's Green Door Lounge Kit

 Wow, more posts this month than all of 2020! Suffice to say, my enthusiasm is rekindled. Anyway, on to what I actually did.

Today's project was building Blair Line's Green Door Lounge kit. I thought this kit would look right at home by the Juanita Shop complex. I'm sure the guys who work there would appreciate a place to grab a few brews and let off steam after a hard day of keeping K4s and I1s on the rails.

I went with Floquil "Reefer White" on the walls, "Coach Green" on the windows and trim, and "Grimy black" on the roof. Assembly was a tad tedious but much easier that the Railroad Rooming House. 

One thing I love is the assortment of old-timey bill boards that come with this kit. I have a feeling a few of them may end up on some of my other buildings.

Now I need to scavenge some more buildings. There's train show coming up on the 11th. Perhaps I'll find some there. Although the Delta variant, I'm not sure I'll go.

Finished American Model Builders' Railroad Rooming House Kit

 My first structure kit in quite some time. As with other laser-cut wood kits, I painted everything prior to assembly. I went wit Tamiya "Linoleum Deck Brown"on the walls, Floquil "Reefer White on the doors, windows and trim, Floquil "Grimy Black" on the roof and Floquil "Caboose" on the chimneys.

As is typical for an AMB kit, assembly is a bit tedious. Each window contains three separate pieces. Truth be told, I left off the upper sashes on the back windows since they won't be visible. 

They way the paint turned out, I think the building doesn't really require additional weathering.

Finished Ballasing the Mains

I'm proud to report every inch of main line track on this layout is ballasted. All that remains now is  the Altoona yard tracks and the tracks by roundhouse. Then I can kiss the ballast goodbye until the next layout. However, that will have to wait until I can get to the hobby shop.

In other news, the Pittsburgh Staging yard has gone from procrastination purgatory to almost finished. Five of the six tracks are glued down. To honest things weren't as smooth as I expected. I must have gotten a bad batch of rail joiners because I had more than a few that simply would not go onto the rail!

If you're wondering about the white blotch in the middle of the otherwise brown table top, well, the soldering iron had something to do with it. I used a bit of Dap patching Patch'n'Paint to fill the hole Talk about a bone headed move.

Full Steam Ahead!

 

 

 Today was a productive day on the layout. First and foremost, I decided to try and return my I1 to service. It had stopped responding to the throttle and then one of it's tender trucks fell apart. I put it on the programing track, addressed the decoder and, when tested, the locomotive moved! Thank God! with ongoing chip shortage (damn pandemic) getting a replacement may be a tall (and not to mention costly) order.

After the I1, only my T1 and Alco FB remain out of service.

 

 

 

 Next on my list was ballasting. Now, all but about ten feet of main line are ballasted. That just leaves the yard and a few tracks in the Juniata Shop. That will have to wait until I get to the hobby shop.

Another project, painting the fascia burnt umber. It looks so much better in a neutral color.

 

 

I finally started laying track in the Pittsburgh staging yard. About damn time! The track is the old Atlas code 80 stuff.

 

 

Lastly, I added some turf to a small area near Altoona with some help from  Victor.

This is about all I can do until all the stuff I ordered arrives. I swear waiting is the hardest part. Didn't Tom Petty write a song to that effect?

More Buildings for Altoona

     I stuck with my Altoona plan for a whole ten seconds. I was going to leave the whole area inside the Altoona loop undeveloped. Well, the more I thought about, I realized there were some structures I really wanted to include.   

    To wit, I have ordered up American Model Builders' "Railroad Rooming House" and Blair Lines "Green Door Lounge" kits. Both should lend a nice seedy, wrong-side-of-the-tracks vibe to the area. I've always wanted to include the former on a layout. Perhaps I'll add a few more structures and make a few blocks long area. I'll add a few businesses and a few houses.

    I've also realized I goofed when it comes to the mountains. The shops are south of the tracks and the city is to the north! Um, oops! I guess I'll need to hunt down some generic city backdrops. On that same note, I went ahead and moved Alto Tower to the north side of the tracks.

    Lastly, I thought the shop complex needed a power house. Thankfully, I had Model Power's "Coverall Paints" building sitting under my layout. This was salvaged off my last layout. I previously removed the base, painted it Floquil "Boxcar Red" and did the mortar effects. So all I had to do was pull off the "Coverall Paints" signs, plunk it on the layout and call it a day. Eventually I will add roads and parking areas.

Ballast and Backdrops

I managed to paint the backdrops last night. The project took all of about 10 minutes. I took some Apple Barrel "Holly Branch" green paint and mixed in black until I got the real dark green of distant mountains. Then I mixed up a darker batch for contrast. I slathered onto the wall with a big old paintbrush and that was that.

I've managed to ballast about half of the mainline tracks around the Altoona loop. The process seems to be going smoothly, so I can't complain.
 

For my last trick, I resoldered the feeder wire seen in the bottom right corner of the photo.

The Altoona Endgame

 Hey everybody! I'm back and boy do I have a lot of excuses for all the tumbleweeds blowing through this once-active blog. Want to hear them? Well, I'll tell you anyway (I know I've used that joke before).

First off, for a good little while, my wife and I were seriously considering putting our house on the market. This would necessitate removal of the layout. And there's no point in working on it if you;re goning to tear it down. But, the good news is, we decided to stay put.

Also, as mentioned elsewhere in this blog, I was just getting kind of burnt out on the whole thing. Part of that was not knowing how to finish Altoona and having a lot of unpleasant items on the to-do list. And that, my friends is the subject of this entry.

My plan for Altoona is to finish the shop area, paint some backdrops on the wall, build a bit of mountain along the wall, add turf to the flat areas and call it done. I know, that sound like I taking the easy way out, but hear me out.

I'm building this layout for operation. That means operators in Altoona will be reaching over things and any building in the way stands a high risk of damage. Hence the minimalist approach.

In service of that goal, I painted the rails in the Altoona yard. Normally, rail painting is something I can only stand to do a little at a time. But today? Baby I was in the zone! I knocked it all out in a few hours. And let me tell you, it came down to the last few drops in my bottle Polyscale Rail Brown.

With that, every inch of track on this layout is painted save for the Altoona yard turnouts. I'm not going to bother. In the past, when I've painted them, no matter how careful I am about cleaning them and avoiding the contacts, it results in some very balky turnout operation. Looks may suffer but, I'll take reliability over aesthetics any day.

Now on to ballasting!

Johnstown is Finished

 I finally sucked it up and tackled the last Johnstown project I've been dragging my feet on. I strung the rest of the the high-voltage transmission lines. I'd been putting it off because the lines runs through very difficult to access part of the layout. But, I persevered and got it done. 

I was going to run regular telephone polls too, but decided that would be overkill. It's reasonable that a smallish city like Johnstown would have underground lines. 

So that's it. After three long years, Johnstown is done. That leaves Altoona as the last bit of heavy lifting. Speaking of which...

I dug out my jar of raw umber acrylic and painted the Altoona end. As you can see I've relocated all the scenery supplies and assorted junk formerly residing there beneath the layout. 

As of right now, I'm still not entirely sure what the game plan is for Altoona. Since this yard will be used for operation and there will be a lot of reaching across, I will probably limit structures to the backdrop.  may even cut a hole in the middle of the loops to better facilitate switching. We shall see.