They Paved Paradise, Put Up a Parking Lot

 As you can see from the above photo, I went ahead and plasterized the parking lots for Superior Paper and the Bralick Building. Now, I am not a huge fan of paving wide areas like this because it's almost impossible to get everything level.

Rather than use Woodland Scenics' Paving Tape, I decided to use weather stripping of about the same thickness. This turned out to be a big mistake. I don't know if I got a bad batch or if it just sucks, but that stuff simply would not stick to foam base! The solution, or a least a solution, was driving small finish nails through the stuff to hold it in place.

With my enthusiasm already flagging, I started dolling out the patching plaster and smoothing it out. This part wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but wasn't without it's problems. As usual the surfaceis anthing but level and will require a lot of sanding and fine tuning to look right.

While I was at it, I sucked it up and installed the turnout for Pittsburgh Staging. Normally, this wouldn't be that bad but, it's in a really hard to access part of the layout. This also required adding a new feeder for the outside rail. I don't plan on wiring up the staging lead until the actual staging area actually built. I can't have any of my locomotives rolling off the end of the layout and bouncing down the stairs.

The Cassandra Crossing

No, not the abortion starting Burt Lancaster and Ingrid Bergman, rather the crossing of the Little Conemaugh River at Cassandra PA. Anyway for this first post of 2017, I thought I share the progress on this project.

I stared out by using my hot knife to dig out the river bed. Next I used plaster-soaked paper towels to smooth out the banks. The bridge itself is one half a of a Monroe Models stone arch bridge kit.I painted it with some inexpensive grey acrylic paint. Then I added some Plastruc C Channels painted Floquil "Rust" to simulate the steel reinforcements the PRR added to it's stone bridges after WWII. The actual tunnel under the tracks is a PVC pipe coupling cut in half and painted black. I added a Plastruct Handrail to each side of the bridge and painted them Floquil "Grimy Black."

As for the river bed, I painted the whole thing raw umber to give it and earthy undercoat. Then I used all three sizes of Woodland Scenics Talus to create the rocky bottom and added some "Dead Fall" to simulated fallen trees and submerged logs. With that done, I used some WS field Grass to simulate reeds and bulrushes.

The step I'm currently on is adding water. This phase takes forever because it must be done in multiple layers. For water, I use Modpodge Super Gloss Medium. It's basically the same stuff as Woodland Scenics Realistic Water only it's cheap and readily obtainable at Wal Mart. Once the water is done, I will be adding turf to the banks.

 

In between coats of water, I've also been working on weathering rolling stock. Nothing too special to report here. I start out with an India Ink wash followed by a coat of Acrylic Matte Finish. Next come the chalks and then another coat of matte finish. All in all I think these cars turned out pretty good.

I've also been working on some structure projects but that's another post for another day.

Mountain Construction and Some More Weathering

After a month of foot dragging, I finally got around to finishing the remaining mountains inside the tracks between Horseshoe Curve and Gallitzin. Plaster is a lot of messy work and I don't often find myself with the energy to do it. But tonight was one of those rare nights when I did have the energy and now the large mountains behind the tracks are complete from Altoona to the east portals of the Gallitzin Tunnels.

I also got around to weathering my Kato C30-7. That takes care of most of the Conrail fleet.

More Weathering

With my fleet of Pennsy hoppers looking sufficiently grungy, I've turned my attention to my Conrail fleet. The first locomotives were my Atlas SD35 and Atlas SD50. I think they might have turned out almost a little to grungy but they still look good.

Weathered Some More Hoppers

Well, it looks like I'll have something for the Model Railroader Forum's "Weekly Photo Fun" thread after all. I weathered the last few Atlas hoppers that were looking a bit too pristine. Basically the same procedure as the last batch so nothing new here.

I haven't really done any work on the layout itself for almost a month. Well, it's been a busy month. For one thing, I took a much-needed vacation to Vero Beach, Florida. Then the following weekend, I had a houseful of people as my wife's side of the family stayed with us and went to the Clemson - UNC football game. Throw in a heaping helping of schoolwork and late night classes sapping my energy, it's no mystery as to why this layout is taking forever.

You know what though? Rome wasn't built in a day and this is a hobby, not my life. Sometimes it's more fun to do things other than model railroading. I've adopted the whole "journey of 1000 miles starts with the first step" philosophy. If I have the time and energy to do something on the layout, great. If not, oh well. Slowing down isn't a bad thing at all. Model railroading for me is very much about the journey instead of the destination.

Weathered some Hoppers

I had to watch an hour-long video for one of my classes today. It was material I'd already been over, so naturally my eyes glazed over after about 10 minutes. However, I did have a quartet of Atlas 55-Ton hoppers, three fish bellies and an offset side to be exact, that needed new coal loads. So don;t tell my professor this, but I was weathering these bad boys while the video played.

Anyway, after removing the trucks and couplers, I started things off with a coat of weather wash (a few drops of India Ink added to a bottle of 70% rubbing alcohol). Once that dried, I applied the first round of Dulcote. For my next trick I took some black, white brown and gray chalks and mixed them together to create the perfect grime and soot mixture. I brushed it on liberally before sealing it with a final coat of Dulcote.

With these hoppers, weathering is only half the job. See, I've never liked the look of the plastic coal loads that come with them. They don;t look like coal; they look like molded plastic. However, there's an easy fix, which I'll explain here:

1. Use an Exacto knife to gently pry each load from the hopper.
2. Take the coal load and brush on a coat of Matte Medium. This can be obtained Michael's or Hobby Lobby.
3. Place the loads on a sheet of office paper then take some Creatology black and (also available at Michael's) and dump it over the load.
4. Pick up the load and turn it upside down so whatever didn't stick falls off.
5. Put the load back in the car and you're done. Dump whatever sand didn't stick back into the jar for later use.

It honestly took me longer to type up those steps then it did to actually execute them. This also works very well for steam locomotive tenders.

Here's a video I made to demonstrate my coal load making:

A Culvert For Kittanning Run

Kittanning Run is one of two small streams to pass beneath Horseshoe Curve, the other being Glenwhite Run. Kittanning passes under the northern half of the curve through a stone culvert. The Woodland Scenic stone culvert isn't an exact match, but it's a close enough stand in. I painted it Tamiya "Red Brown" and hit it with a coat of weather wash.

For installation, I cut out a portion of the hillside, glued the culvert in with some foam tack glue and filled in around it with some flex paste. Rather than cut an actual tunnel under the four tracks as I did with the Scotch Run bridge, this time I affixed a piece of black foam core board to the back of the culvert. Is far enough away from the edge of the layout that it isn't really noticeable.

I also decided to go ahead and weather this BLMA gondola.

More Rolling Stock Arrives

No, I'm not going to post every time a buy freight car. Heck, the would get tedious after a while. But I am sharing these three recent eBay scores to show off some of my weathering techniques.

Here's a "before" picture of the three cars:

See how pristine and shiny looking they are? How many real world freight cars look like that? Not very many. I start of weathering by brushing on a black wash made by adding a few drops of India Ink to a bottle of 70% rubbing alcohol. Once that dries I spray on a coat of Testors Dulcote.

After the Dulcote has dried thoroughly, I take some pastel chalks, grind them up and brush on the dust. I start off with a coat of white to fade the paint a bit. I follow that up with some brown for rust, a mixture of brown, black, white and yellow for dirt and black on the roof to simulate soot from steam engines.

After you apply chalk weathering you have to seal it with a second coat of Dulcote. Usually this makes about two thirds of the chalk vanish. 

Chalks Before Dulcote:

Chalks After Dulcote:

As you can see it's always important to go heavy with the chalk. A car my look to decrepit before Dulcote but look just right afterwards.

Here's an "after" photo of the three freight cars:

 

And a better view of their rooves:

Anyway, that's all I've got for tonight. I'm still working on the track plan and I have a few structure kits I'm working on as well.