Life under a "Highway bridge"

Well I couldn't stop a just building the highway bridge, I had to put the scenery in under it so I could install it. Well one thing lead to another and I built a bunch of structures and scenery around it. It is still not finished but here is what I have so far. The bridge was built to hide a hole in the side of a row of industries along the back drop. The hole is for a track to staging for a connection railroad. I had to block all the views with some taller buildings and the bridge. If you look at the post "Highway Bridge" you can see the pre-scenery shots and the track that I am trying to hide.



here is the view you have of the west side of the bridge and how the storage tanks block the hole. The building with the trangle wall hides the turnout to staging.



here is a small local gas and oil company that I built to hide the view of the hole. The loading shed and fence are scratchbuilt and the tanks are from Campbell. The weeds around the fence, tanks, and between the tire ruts are made from Silflor. If you have not used Silflor yet you are missing out on the best thing to hit the scenery world sence prepackaged ground foam.



Here is a shot of the ally behind the storage tanks. The building to the left is the main office of the gas company. I know it is kind of big for such a small industry but it helps block the view of the hole and the turnout. Again the weeds here are Silflor. The weeds inbetween the tracks are Silflor glued on top of the ties. The weed closest to the turnout are strips of Silflor placed between the ties. They are hard to see in the photos but the effect is awesome. I am going to load up my film camera and take some close ups with a macro lens. You can't bet the standing fibers for grassy weeds, something you can't do with ground foam. Not to knock ground foam, I still use plenty of that.



here is the east side of the bridge. The gray plastic sheet under the bridge on the right side is being fitted to represent the other abutment. When it is installed it won't be sloped. In the photo it is sitting on the track that I am trying to hide. The short piece of fence here is used to help draw the eyes away from the hole the track runs into. The large industry that is hiding the track is Sherwin-Williams Paint factory and is build from two Walthers Hardwood furniture kits (one full and one background kit).



Here is a shot of Sherwin-Williams. I am building a laser cut sign kit of the Sherwin-Williams sign for the roof to go next to the water tower on the roof. This building lifts out to access the staging track. There will be one more smaller, but still long, building to the right of this building to hide the rest of the staging siding.

There is still more work to do in the area, but I'm getting there. Just thought you would like to see the progress.

 

Coaltrain- nice pics man! It's nice to see pictures that are large and clear. It makes the details stand out.

Speaking of details- that wood fence that you built (in the 2nd photo) is awesome! I like how the short sides slope up to match the profile of the hill. Nice touch.

Also in that second photo, the tracks in the top right part of the picture- those couldn't look more like a real photograph if you tried! That's really neat. What kind of turnouts do you use? They look really smooth.

I must be missing out, because I have no idea what Silflor is. What is it, where can I buy it, how do you apply it... basically tell me everything you know

The weeds between the tracks- that is one of my favorite touches.

You've got so much nice stuff going on that if you hadn't even hidden the hole, I probably wouldn't notice it. But consider it hidden.

-Dave

[ 01. May 2003, 21:31: Message edited by: daveheinzel333 ]

 

<font color="336633">Wow, thats some great modeling, and great pics too

 

The track is mostly hand laid except the stuff along the back wall that was too hard to reach.

Silflor is sold by Scenic Express. Their web site is new and they don't show it but I bet if you emailed them they would send you a catalog. They have some really scenery stuff. You'll want to see the catalog before you order any because it comes in a ton of different colors and height. If I could take a higher res close up I would, but the digital camera I'm using is old.

http://www.scenicexpress.com/index.html

also see this site

http://www.trains.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/002/503vravl.asp

If you do a search for Silflor you will see some other layouts that use it. You will see that many of the sites you find are from the east side of the Atlantic. And that is because Silflor is made in Germany.

 

Dave
I saw on your website that you had a picture of a skate park. I really like this and would like to know how you went about making it. Thanks
Matt

 

Man, that modeling and photography are fantastic! That's really nice work. As mentioned, the fence looks great, also the weathering on the shed and the goundwork. Your trackwork looks great too. And the overall composition of the scene is wonderful. Can you tell I really enjoyed the photos?

Gary