Durango & Silverton RR Shots |About Me
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| Construction shots: | Benchwork | Scenery | Finished Scenes |
| Layout: | Trackplan & Specs |
| Misc: | The
Road to MMR | Articles
I've written Durango & Silverton RR Shots |About Me |
When I first visualized the layout, I figured a dramatic wooden trestle over a gorge would be a truly breathtaking sight. Then I decided a stone arch bridge would be even cooler.
Two problems with this vision: first, we don't really have trestled gorges here in the Midwest. Second, with the exception of downtown Minneapolis, we don't really have stone arch bridges here in the Midwest, either.
But we do have steel viaduct bridges. And we have lots of lakes. And I settled on that combination.
Once the Glen Oaks area was 90% scenicked, I turned to the gorge area, figuring I'd do the scenery there, then fill in that last 10% of Glen Oaks to blend the two. I decided a Micro-Engineering tall steel viaduct bridge would look pretty neat, and that a portion of a small, quiet lake with a heavily wooded background would be perfect. So in late January of 2006 I began.
I wrote up the techniques I used for detailing this area of the layout in an article which was published in the April 2007 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman magazine. It outlines the trees, tall reeds, the fish, and a few other details. You can see the intro page of that article on my Articles page.
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The Gorge/Lake area is located
on the smaller of the two peninsulas. Around the right in the shot
is Glen Oaks. Way in the back on the
right on the upper level is Westcott.
The plan is that the area on the left, which I formerly thought would be a wetlands, will be a country road with a farm. (January, 2006) |
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After the Micro-Engineering bridge was built, the first step was to cut away the existing track. (January, 2006) |
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I cut a curved piece of
3/4" plywood the same radius as the curve (30") and clamped it
above the existing track on either side, then raised the
Micro-Engineering bridge up to the bottom of the plywood, and used wire
ties to temporarily attach it to the plywood. This way I knew the
rail heads were even.
Also, I'd decided that the 3-storey ME bridge was just too tall for my part of the country ("the flatlands"), so I modified the bridge to make it only 2 stories. (January, 2006) |
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Before I added a base to the area, I decided to extend it a little further out into the aisle, since I had the room, and since I wanted the track to be centered in this area, rather than right up against the edge of the layout. I was able to extend the benchwork about 14" further than it had been. (January, 2006) |
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Permanent benchwork was installed. This included two diagonal braces that extended from the front down to the legs. I knew the plaster and casting resin water would be heavy and they'd need a solid base. I then added a 5/8" base where the lake would be. (January, 2006) |
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I made one more modification to the bridge, based on a timely article in the January issue of Model Railroader magazine, and cut the left legs down one more story. This would let me make a more gradual slope down to the lake. To help me better visualize this whole area, I wadded up newspaper and laid wet paper towels down over it. (January, 2006) |
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Once I was happy with the contours, I added 2x4 pieces to serve as a base for the bridge footings, then covered the whole area with Hydrocal-soaked paper towels. I cast bridge footings out of plaster by making balsa molds... again, a tip from the MR article. (January, 2006) |
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Chooch stone abutments and walls were painted and added before the rest of the Hydrocal-soaked paper towels. (January, 2006) |
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I'd also used some builder's insulation to help make a foundation for some of the embankments for the lake. The lake will occupy roughly the pink area in this shot. (January, 2006) |
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Once the Hydrocal had set, I
painted it with a dark brown latex paint, let that dry, then covered the
paint with real dirt, glued down with diluted Elmer's white glue.
On top of that I sprinkled Woodland Scenics ground foam everywhere but
where the lake would be -- I left that plain dirt.
All this time the bridge was simply set into place -- not permanently mounted -- so I could still operate the layout. (February, 2006) |
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Before I went much farther I did some scenicking under the bridge towers and piers. (February, 2006) |
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The last step before pouring the
EnviroTex was to build some details for the lakeshore. I added
tall grass, a dead evergreen, and the uprights for a dock. The
black portion of the dock is just a piece of spacer cardboard.
Because I didn't know exactly how high the EnviroTex would come, I
didn't want to add the actual dock.
The bottom of the lake was also airbrushed with Polly Scale Engine Black to give it the illusion of greater depth. (February 2006) |
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And here it is, after two pours. The first pour wound up by being over 1/2" deep down at the edge because the lake bed wasn't as level as it should have been. Before adding the second pour, I added a boat and five fish made from solder. (an article-in-the-making...) (February 2006) |
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Here's the boat. This is "Leone Fishing" -- bobber off the side of the boat where the fish aren't. The fisherman is an ancient Weston figure who's actually supposed to be leaning against something, smoking a cigarette. But he was too perfect for this scene to not use him. The boat is from J.L. Innovative Design. The fishing line is .004" stainless wire (yes, you read that right -- it's only twice the size of a human hair) from Ngineering, and the bobber is a piece of wire insulation. (February 2006) |
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Here's a look at the dock area, scratchbuilt board-by-board. There are two fish off the end of the dock because... well, that's where the guy could be fishing but isn't. The gas can and life jacket are J.L. Innovative Design. The three stumps are castings from masters I carved in Sculpey. (March 2006) |
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It took weeks and weeks to
finish all the trees for this area. There are over 60 pine trees,
50 of which were scratchbuilt branch-by-branch.
There are only 3 varieties, but mixing them up really adds visual interest:: (1) made with Woodland Scenics painted, plastic pine tree armatures and Bragdon Enterprises "Fine Scale Forest" material (each takes about 30 minutes to make), (2) made from an ancient Color-Rite air fern forest kit I bought on ebay (each takes almost an hour to make), and (3) goldenrod painted with brown and green spray paint (takes about 60 seconds to make!) (March 2006) |
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The dead evergreen was made using a Woodland Scenics pine tree armature with some marginal material from the Bragdon "Fine Scale Forest" bag, painted with Polly Scale Rust. (March 2006) |
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The tall grass was made from 3 colors of Woodland Scenics tall grass. The ducks (including two way over on the left) are Preiser. (March 2006) |
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| Here's the finished scene.
I only have to weather the bridge, add a few more stumps and bushes here
and there, and put a million cattails in the tall grass. (March
2006)
Again, you can see a detailed article I wrote on detailing this area in the April 2007 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman magazine. |