When I first started watching the progress of this railroad I was wondering where you were going with it. Now, I am amazed. The scenery really adds a lot to the feel of your modeling. Well done.
I appreciate the comments...bear in mind that the southwestern scenery process hasn't even begun....the hill/butte you see in the background is just a test piece I built and is sitting in the area That will have a hill, roughly, the same height as this one....and the unique Kingman Canyon rock structure along it's base is , also, a test piece...temporarily tacked in place, acting as a prop, to give me a visual of what i want to do... Soooooooo much to do, but it will have to wait until the track is detailed and painted. Thanks, ~Bruce
Hello all... spare time has been spent continuing work on building cars for Santa Fe's Nos. 7 & 8, the Fast Mail....Horse Express is almost ready for painting; next are 2 NYC express boxes-converted troop sleepers-then a fishbelly baggage, 3 more 70' heavyweight baggage/express and mail storage. Trying to model a representative consist from 1957-anywhere from 10-15 cars, with some foreign road cars thrown in here and there-Erie, NYC, Pennsylvania..with express reefers making their appearance as the seasons dictate. As I work on a car, and before painting, I test it for coupler height, tracking, etc, by adding it to the train, in every location. I don't want to have to put a finicky performer into a permanent position in the consist. Another thing I'm doing is adding working diaphragms to all the cars that would have them (I've gotten over my fear of them-truth is, they really do add to the look of the finished car-REALLY add to the look of the consist as a whole, and are not nearly as oversized looking as I had originally thought). This job has necessitated repositioning of some of the coupler lengths on previously built cars to allow the diaphragms to work and look properly, and to allow the car to track correctly. I added the unpainted Horse Express to the consist to check these things and decided to take some pics on the layout-unscenicked and all..removing the color really lets me look back to 1957 as I watch the consist for tracking issues... ~Bruce
Bruce, just curious. Is this the side that the layout will be viewed from primarily? I'm wondering why running from right to left would be eastbound and not the other way around? I always imagine viewing from the south making the East on the right side.
this side is, indeed, the 'main' viewing side, but the other side will be just as scenicked, although representing an area in the canyon, where the canyon is a little more narrow... the lower track the the area of the canyon I'm representing is the westbound track...you're viewing the tracks, at this point, from route 66...which is north of the trackage through the canyon...all viewing points of the layout are from the north (roughly) ~Bruce
Got it! Thanks. And...beautiful work so far. Living in Southern California and having to travel to Colorado about every other year, the scenery is quite familiar. You really have a grasp of the actual landscape. Was just through there this summer on our way to and from Durango, CO. Looking forward to further developments.
Hello all... I have a little extra time to model this weekend, and I thought I'd mock up an idea for the backdrop/divider... i printed a photo of a sample that I had running through my minds' eye, then enlarged it enough to tack it into place to see if it would 'work' for the scene.... I'm happy with the look...enough so, that I'd love to figure a way to use a photo rather than painting the feature onto the backdrop.... anyone have any experience with photo enlarging services? I'm thinking I can just cut out the mountain and apply it to the backdrop; I already have the backdrop painted to the sky blue that I want... Thanks, ~Bruce
Wow Bruce, this is just so awesome. I just can’t believe it and I wish I could get mine to look so good. I just can’t say enough about how fantastic it looks. THUMBS UP!
Hello all... printing that mountain and mocking it up on the backdrop, motivated me to take the backdrop down to the garage and improve the sky....I mixed my 'sky' color with even more white, then lightened the sky even more near the horizon/vanishing point on the backdrop. I blended it darker and darker as as i went up, until the last two to three inches are the original blue color. I cut the 'mountain' from the paper and it's just laying in place, against the backdrop, in these new pics. I like this look...I don't want clouds...a nice crisp Spring, Fall, or Winter Day in 1957....I'll get a nice quality copy of this scene, then cut the mountain out, then glue it in place. Thanks for looking, ~Bruce
a couple of videos to 'bump' this thread (quite frankly I didn't know if the thread still existed-far too long since I posted on it) The Santa Fe room layout is about to start getting the attention it deserves; work will slow down on the Swarmtrak T-Trak modules after the fall... not seen here is the completed wiring...all the droops are now connected to two bus wires by terminal blocks... even though the scenery still consists of simple painted foam shapes, work will soon start in earnest on carving the actual basalt formations, inspired by the recent article in N scale magazine. And fabric has been purchased to make a skirt for the entire layout.... here is a recent, horribly edited video (for some reason 'moviemaker' didn't save the edits...)
NIiiiiiiiiiiceeeeeeeeeee !!!! I like the background mountain. The trains disappearing around corners of mountains is a nice effect The old movie 'scratchy film' effect just added something great to the video
Thanks for asking...not much progress on the scenery as the T-Trak modules have been taking up my building time, but, now that i'm just about finished with my contributions to the club's modules, I'm just about ready to get back to it (I run trains on it constantly). First order of business is to replace all the ties at the soldered joints, paint, and weather the rail and ties...then I can start creating eroded basalt rock formations from foam... Bruce
Great layout. You really have nailed it as far as the rock formations on this. My first glance at the shots and I was like. oh man that looks like new mexico. And the change to flex on cork is a huge difference as well. Those signals you are using, what brand are those?
Your work has always had my attention. Wow! That's nice. I'm looking forward to do some scenery on my layout this summer. Hope you don't mind a copy cat. Grin!
