Looks good to me. Especially the track buried in concrete (?). I hope you will share your construction method/materials. Ben
Sure, it was actually not too hard. I use Kato Unitrack, so the track is just straight Unitrack white glued to the foam base. The concrete is made with Woodland Scenics stuff called "Smooth-It," which is designed for just this kind of thing. It comes with some flexible tape that you use to create a form or outline with. When the tape is built up to match the height of the rails (took 4 layers in this case), you just mix the Smooth It with water (2:1 per the instructions) and pour into the form. Don't worry about it if the rails get covered at this point. Use a popsicle stick, piece of plastic, ruler, credit card, whatever to smooth the mixture and let it start to set up. Once it is firm, about 20 minutes, use a hobby knife to cut the grooves for the wheel flanges and scrape any excess material off the rail tops. This takes a little patience and a few tries, but isn't really hard to do. I used a car with big pizza cutter wheels as a tester to be sure I had big enough grooves. Then, I lightly scored the top of the "concrete" to simulate the gaps between blocks. I let the Smooth It set up fully over night, then sanded it with 120-240 grit to make sure there were no high spots that would catch a coupler, cow catcher, etc. It sands really nicely. Finally, I painted and weathered the concrete using Woodland Scenics concrete colored paint and a light black wash, with extra black between the rails. I found that it was really easy to drill holes to stand the fuel, sand, and water fixtures into the cured material, and it was also easy to scrape slightly wider rail grooves as needed. I still want to add a lot of details to this scene (people, barrels, tools, lights, etc.) but it's a good start. Thanks for asking. Mike
Sounds great, I tried something similar with an intermodal yard and got royally scr****d though! Just keep in mind for an intermodal yard that 1) many of the modern Gunderson style well cars ride quite low to the track and can drag on spots where trucks brush against "pavement" or there is insufficient clearence that might have been fine for an old box car and 2) that many of the intermodal cars are very light and are easy to get knocked off track or to ride up in tight spots. I found that even after I re-did the yard with styrene "concrete" around the tracks I had to cut the styrene back farther than I originally thought on the outsides of the rails to allow the intermodal cars to run smoothly through. Just a warning regarding intermodal yards. LOVE the look you got though!! my best, Jan
Cool stuff Hemi and Dave.....I'll try another photo today but I've been having upload problems.... This is from a friend's layou-Joe Corsetti in Moreno Valley,Ca;
A hot Santa Fe pig train: GP60Ms engineered by Jerry DeBene Private ownership by William Cowie Railfan photos by John Sing 2007 For more on these N scale custom painted locos, see: GP60M's across the system - TrainBoard.com Take care, all!
Just playing with video I have never tired this before so here goes. Not a very smooth video but I am having fun. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyGMIYkayZ4"]YouTube - MVI 2791[/ame]
