Anthony, the mainline is indeed elevated higher than the sidings and other track. In general, the mainline is elevated on two strips of cork roadbed, sidings on one, and other tracks are layed directly on the subroadbed. I agree that this looks much better and mimics what the prototype railroads do. Here is a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu_fzqccIw0 The entire preview is excellent to watch, but if you want to jump right to the cardboard strips & tape snippet, jump ahead to about 3:40 in the video. Jamie
Hmmmmm...there is something green growing on my layout: With the section of Allatoona Road glued in place behind the tracks, this defined a nice small area where I could begin adding scenery materials such as dirt, ground cover, grass bushes and trees. I am using the Pelle Soeborg "wet in wet" method where you glue down a base cover of dirt, then begin adding layers of ground foam and static grass to the wet surface and bonding everything in place with wet water and diluted white glue. In the above photo, I am using ground up leaves for dirt along with Woodland Scenics course turf and static grass (burnt grass & light green shades). I think it looks pretty good so far, although as you can see in the photos there is a definite mismatch between the green tones of the ground cover and the green tones of the backdrop. The ground covers have more of a "lime" green color while the backdrop is more of a "spruce/conifer" green. I used Woodland Scenics darker green colors to choose the backdrop color, so I am going to wait to see how everything looks when I get some tall grass and trees in place since the trees will be covered with the darker green/conifer color turf. This section is only about a foot square, so it is an ideal proving grounds for what I do on the rest of the layout. Will be working on tall grass & trees this weekend so I'll be sure to post any breaking developments. Please let me know any feedback you have since this is the first time I have ever ventured into the actual "scenery" phase of layout construction. Jamie
This is a good start. I think the foliage green looks closer to what I would expect for that part of the country than the backdrop green does. Do you have a good reference photo of the look you're going for? Something like this maybe? http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=325516&nseq=4 If so I think your foliage color looks good, but you should sprinkle in a bit of darker static grass (and some dead grass along the tracks - weed killer). The soil looks a bit too dark - in fact, the bare soil in the proto photo is *exactly* the color of your painted soil. Maybe you should just stick with small patches of that for what little bare ground there is down there. The texture of the painted plaster looks like baked Georgia clay. It must be fun to be at this stage now! -Gary P.S. The road & track look great.
Here's another shot (in a region closer to your line perhaps?) that shows light foreground grass and dark background mountains: http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=322344&nseq=29 The color match is pretty good in both cases, but your backdrop is a lot closer than those mountains.
Gary, Yes I have referenced lots of photos like the ones you posted--that is EXACTLY the look I am going for. In fact, I have about a dozen photos of the very scene I am modeling clipped to the upper level benchwork that I can refer to as I work. Even though the light green turf looks wierd to me now, I have lots of faith that when I get the "bulkier" bushes & trees in that are darker in color, things will start to look correct. In both of your photos (and in all of mine), the ground covers are lighter and yellowish while the bushes and trees are darker and bluish. This should transition more seamlessly with the backdrop. Of course, there is only one way to really find out! Jamie
There are several different types of greens, and I have found that mixing them gives the best results. Running through the mountains here in Alabama I have found that trees look different greens depending on the time of day, type of day, and time of year, so you really cannot go wrong with scenery. I like to work off photos too, but dont be afraid to make changes....sometimes adding something here or there can make a scene more appealing to the eye, even if it is not there in real life. Getting the 'feel' is better then getting ever tree and weed correct. I have no doubt this will be a great looking scene and am looking forward to nextr photos!
After looking at that light green ground foam for several days, I decided to remove it even though I think the color is pretty close to what I want. Mostly, I did not like the way it looked too much like wall-to-wall carpeting. It only took a few minutes to pull it up, and besides I really need to put down the static grass before I do anything else in this area. My negative ion generator arrived in the mail today, so I will probably be building the static grass applicator this wekend. In the meantime, I installed the section of Allatoona Road in front of the tracks and added dirt to the surrounding areas: There is no dirt on the near side of the tracks in the following photo because there will be a gravel service road along the tracks here: I will be building up the shoulders of the road with Sculptamold, especially near the tracks, to blend the roadway in with the adjacent ground. I also still need to install the section of road between the rails. I have also been building my first batch of SuperTrees in anticipation of adding them to the layout in the upcoming weeks. The tees were build following the methods described beginning on page 43 of Caleb Austin's Central VA door layout progress thread. For fun, I temporarily installed a tree on the layout to check how the height and color fit in with the scenery: I have been paying close attention to the trees around north Georgia this week and I think this one looks just about right, although I need to do a little more work to get it "layout ready." I'm sure I will have lots of practice perfecting my tree-making process in the near future! Jamie
Nice work Jamie!:thumbs_up: Your at my favorite stage of construction right now. The tree looks great, just be sure to mix in some trees with slightly different shades of green. Also, I sometimes will sprinkle a slightly lighter shade of green on top of a dark tree to make it look a bit "sunlit".
Looking really good. Do have a question on that road. Are you intentionally leaving off the other road that intersects Altoona Rd, there are the crossing? Not trying to be nit picky, just curious.
Blog issues :ru-nerd:I like the how to sections on your blog. I haven't been able to access the blog in a few days. Are you having technical difficulties?
I will have at least two shades of darker green that will give the trees their predominant look, but do plan on mixing in other lighter shades of green as well. I have noticed the smaller trees, saplings and bushes that grow along the edges of the more mature wooded areas have lighter shades of green. I have to be careful when I drive around that I pay attention to the road and not the trees. Yes, I am excluding that road because I thought it would be too much to have two short road sections running off the front edge of the layout that close together. FYI that is where I park when I photograph this area. Yes I just noticed that too! I think the slider component on the home page is a link to another website and that website is down or slow, which is causing my home page to take forever to open. The site is actually still working, but the home page is really, REALLY slow because of that slider. If it doesn't resolve by this weekend, I'll replace that control with something else like static photos. Sorry for the issues, it will be resolved before the weekend is over.
The blog was indeed taken out by a misbehaving third party slider control. It is back online now and you should be able to access it without any issues. Here is a photo from a post I just made this morning: Jamie
I have been spending a few minutes each day blending the Old Allatoona Road grade crossing into the surrounding scenery: Trying to get the road to look like it is part of the scene rather than just glued to the top of it. Jamie
Very nice road, Jamie. Question: The section of the road through the crossing. I assume it's a darker gray than the rest of the road because the prototype is that way... how is the prototype crossing constructed? Do you have a photo?
The darker gray represents asphalt that has been used to pave the crossing area more recently than when the entire road was last resurfaced. It is a very typical appearance of crossings in this area. Although I do not have a good photo of the prototype road showing the contrasts in the colors, I did find a good photo on the web that highlights this appearance. This is not the same grade crossing as the one I am modeling, although it is the same road (this grade crossing would be about a scale mile farther south) and has the same construction: The sharp paint lines on my road will be softened when the road is weathered and ground covers are blended in up to the road edge. Here is another shot of the next crossing to the north that shows the same appearance up close: Jamie
Aah. Cool. Fresh(er) asphalt. Of course. You're doing a great job capturing the reality of the region you're modeling, and your attention to detail is commendable. Between you and Jerry, we've got both coasts covered!
Superelevation? Oh yeah! That is a side-by-side shot comparing a section of mainline before and after I added superelevation to the layout. Jamie
