MC, That looks fantastic. Great details. There never is enough when it comes to pictures. Keep them coming. JSL
You are creating a terrific looking layout! Went through the steep and deep Columbia River gorge last summer, and man, those mountains of yours are going to be terrifically realistic! I made a small layout like this one once, and used a steak-knife and slashing motion to create some cool rock strata effects, but that may not work out in your more volcanic rock area. Anyway, keep posting photos. You have a great imagination and this layout sure looks like FUN!
Wow! I had read only one page of your long thread when I made my previous comment. You are truly a master model railroader and photographer!
Thanks! The best part of building this layout is when I showed some photos of it to my 92-year-old Grandmother. I hadn't told her where I was modeling, but she immediately said: "Hey, that's the Columbia River!" (She lived in Vancouver, WA across the river from Portland, OR from the late 1930s until about 4 years ago). And the layout picts sparked a bonfire of memories from the 30s & 40s, most of which I had never heard before. Also, turns out her uncle drove for the SP&S for many years. Thanks for the compliments. I'll try to get more photos as I finish stuff on the layout. Cheers!
Got some 23W 4100k CFLs to light up the light box I just made out of foamcore board & poster paper, but they help with the layout picts as well: I'm just happy to have a light box. Tried out some (unfinished) models in it today: Funny how the camera "exposes" all the things you still need to do (like weathering trucks). Still need to fiddle around with the lighting & exposure combos, but on the right track. Thanks for looking.
New photos are looking great! And you'll get the hang of the exposure stuff eventually, just keep experimenting. A little tip, read up on setting the white balance manually (man, why does it always gotta be about color?). Meanwhile, some simple quick adjustments in a photo editor (I use Gimp, the open-source PhotoShop alternative) and here's what your little hoppers look like: I simply adjusted the levels (using the auto levels feature), then pushed the saturation and contrast a little bit (+5 to +10). So, if you get the settings wrong in the future, that's a simple way to fix up your photos. And now, back to your regularly scheduled boxcab action...
Cheers for the GIMP action I've already figured out to go a couple f-stops beyond what the light meter calls for. I'll try the white balance thing as soon as I find it I've tried GIMP for putting background photos in, but just couldn't figure it out (in the 5 minutes I worked towards it). But now that I'm getting into the faux-toes, I really should figure all this stuff out. Thanks!
Chris' Harlem Terminal trackwork inspired me to get off my a$$hat and rebuild another turnout fixture, this one a 4-turnout fixture with two curved, one wye and one ??. The goal is to rip out the current fixture, which works probably 90% good, and replaced it with improved turnouts with powered frogs. Before the BlackenIt bath: After the BlackenIt: Checking to make sure it actually "turned out" the correct curvature: Next steps: Build styrene bases for handthrows / slide switches (they go under the throwbar in a pocket) Gorilla Glue bases / install handthrows & slide switches Wire frogs Test all works, electrically, BEFORE I rip out the old Install new fixture Slip replacement ties under the rails Re-scenick & re-ballast If this one turns out anything like the 2-turnout fixture I already rebuilt on the left side of the layout, then it's gonna be sooper-smooth railsailing from now on!
Still playing around with my new camera & lightbox, though also trying to finish weathering these 20T coal cars: Almost ready to replace those turnouts, too.
To morph into a shutterbug? For the picts, I'm basically ignoring my camera's light meter and opening the aperture a couple more f-stops than I think. So I guess that's not ignoring it, but compensating. I also take about 50 picts with different f-stops & shutter speeds and then axe most of them. Yeay for digital cameras!
Excellent! That's called bracketing, btw. For close detail shots with good depth of field, you'll want to close up that F-stop in aperature-priority mode, then add brightness to compensate (typically you can add brightness a half a stop at a time. look for a +/- icon when adjusting your F-stop). Digital cameras make all of this soooooo much easier. I remember going to the camera store and getting my film developed, then picking the one or two shots that actually came out decently out of the 24-36 shot roll. On top of that, I had to pay for all of the prints! Yikes!
This is really looking awesome! I really can't believe this layout is not even a 4X2 (and it's actually 7" shorter than 4 ft. - jeezzz) I love the wood braced coal hoppers. The photos look great too... it's really nice to have a light box - my scratchbuilt one got ruined during shifting, gotta build a new one...
Been mocking up the cannery, mainly because 1) I'm tired of looking at an empty lot & 2) it was too hot to work in the garage the last couple days (over 100 inside) and cutting cardstock in the air-conned kitchen felt much better (even remembered to use a piece of scrapwood underneath while using the xacto at the kitchen table). At first I thought I'd go for a nice wide, massive cannery: But somehow it didn't quite do it for me, plus I was at a loss to figure out the funkey roof angles. I'm sure I could have Picassoed it together, but then I came up with a better design: Which I'm liking a bit better. There's room for three car spots: two at the loading docks and one almost a team track at the rear delivery door. I have proto-photos of either size & style, so it's really what fits the layout. As it's the central structure / industry of the whole layout, it'd be nice to get the massiveness of it across: big wide wall of fish. But the big one is a little silly, too. I'm debating about putting a second story on the smaller one to give it some mass / shape. I'll mock it up tomorrow & see how it looks. A second story (smaller, like the offices the canneries had up there) might be too much & crowd the already crowded track that serves it. We'll see!
Here's what it looks like from a wider angle so you can see how it fits in the scene: Any comments, thoughts welcome. Thanks for looking.
My vote is definitely for the second one. I really like how the "addition" to the building runs smoothly up against the siding. Are you going to have a platform or will this be trains butt-up-against building with freight doors (like the Bronx Terminal building)? Also, instead of adding a second story, what about having a taller flat false front with a sign on it, like this building? I think that will give you the massiveness you're looking for without overpowering your massively-non-massive layout.
I was thinking about having cars just butt-up against the loading doors, but I'll mock up a version with a dock & see how that looks. As is, the cars are almost "lost" in the crack between cannery & mountain, and a small dock might help. On the other hand, I kinda like how they're tucked in there, and then the end of the track comes out to the distribution door. As for the false front: good idea - hadn't thought of that, mainly as I haven't seen any photos of canneries using that on the water side. Any upper addition wouldn't be much, mainly to add some mass and make the structure look a little different than the engine shed (just realized that they both have the same basic shape). I'm planning on adding an awning & a bunch of cannery stuff outside (including pile of fish), but I'm still playing around with heights, roof angles, door sizes and styles, etc. Here's some proto picts so you can see the various types / designs to work with: As you can see, many options! (especially since the buildings were added to in somewhat haphazard ways as they expanded).
These sorts of canneries were all over the place in the Pacific Northwest. You can still see pilings out in the water where many of them once stood. Your photos show a good range - often they were jumbles of a series of building efforts.
Agreed, this thing is simply stellar! Were I a rich man I would commission you to build me an NP empire..... your craftsmanship is exactly what I envision when I think about that bygone era in the pacific northwest..... And now, I eagerly await the first posts and pillars to be placed for your new cannery! If you're constructing it of raw materials like your other building, I am sure it's going to be another "epic win" as the internets would say! Any time you need an early NP diesel to run a few laps for snapshots, you let me know
