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 |
The Reverse Loops area was the one area of the layout I could never quite get a mental picture of. Did it want a hillside? A stream? A forest?
Then one night early in February of 2008 it suddenly hit me: a town. On this 18" wide strip of curved real estate, I could add a road and line it with businesses. It would be a town that -- horrors! -- would have no rail industries to serve.
A week later I read an ad in Model Railroader magazine about a "Build A Scene" contest they were running. Deadline was May 30, 2008. It was as if the stars had aligned. I was off and building, and spent the next three months creating the town. The article -- consisting of 56 photographs and 2,500 words -- was sent in to MR at the end of April, 2008. In early June MR let me know that I'd won 1st Place in the contest and that my article would run as a two-part series -- something unheard of for contest articles -- in the January and February 2009 issues. What an honor!
Because of this sudden inspiration, and because some maps show a now-abandoned town on a now-abandoned rail line only 2 miles from my house named Eureka, the name was born.
Immediately following the construction of the town, I finished the scenery on the reverse loops by adding some woods, a stream, and a small bridge.
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They're not much to see, but
they're critical to the layout. Here are the upper and lower
reverse loops, with the curved backdrop in the center. This is the
original configuration before the lower return loop was raised 5".
Yup, these are the same loops you may have seen on the benchwork page. Exciting, isn't it? On the right in the background you can see the curved backdrop over the gorge area. |
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On
a lark, in early in 2001 I added an 8-foot maintenance track over my
workbench. Using a #8 curved turnout, I branched off the outer
track of the lower return loop and mounted the track directly on a
shelf. In August of 2004 the little-used maintenance track was
eliminated as I raised the lower loop trackage 5". This
eliminated the senseless grade from Glen Oaks down to the lower loop.
Also, I may add hidden staging to the upper reverse loop in the same way, putting the tracks inside the cabinets. Sure it's a waste of cabinet space, but it has a Coolness Factor of about 10. |
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Electronics is another area of
this hobby I love. Here's a shot of the two automatic reverse loop
turnout controls I built, using plans by Rob Paisley (http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/CircuitIndex.html).
When the train crosses a beam of infrared light at either end of the
reverse loop, these circuits automatically align the turnout for the
train's exit. This, coupled with Digitrax's PM4, makes for total
hands-free operation on this loop-to-loop layout.
It looks like a rat's nest of wires and it is. I have no idea how or why it works. I just used Rob's schematic like a recipe and soldered myself silly. |
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Just at the time I started
working on scenery for the reverse loops in February of 2008, Model
Railroader magazine announced their "Model A Scene"
contest. I figured, "I'm building scenery anyway, I may as
well enter" and did. In mid-June, 2008, MR
told me that my article had won First Place, and would appear in the
January and February 2009 issues. I was absolutely blown away --
and tickled, and honored -- to hear this. Seriously.
So here's a sneak peek at what may appear in the article. This is the way the upper reverse loop looked before I started working on it in February of 2008. |
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The first thing I did was add a layer of 2" extruded insulation foam to the area where the town would be located. Because there would be little weight on this area, the benchwork holding it up was only hot glued to the existing benchwork. (February, 2008) |
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I stacked 3 layers of extruded foam insulation together, glued it, and used a hot wire foam cutter to shape it into a hillside at the workbench. At this point it was not glued down to the layout. (February, 2008) |
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Because this area of the layout
is the least accessible from the aisle of any point on the layout (a
good 3-4 feet away...yes, a design flaw... guilty as charged) I added
scenery to it first, otherwise my stomach and chest would be crushing
the scenery closer to the aisle. The real dirt, ground foam and
rock castings were added at the workbench, then brought over to the
layout for a test fit. I painted the track and ties in this area
and ballasted it. I later added Woodland Scenics and Scenic Express
trees to the top.
As an aside, while adding scenery to this hillside the cheap step-stool I was using flew out from under me, totally twisting my left knee of of whack. An MRI determined that, thankfully, there was no torn cartilage, but it kept me from jogging for over two months. (February, 2008) |
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To get an idea of how the town would look, I used some buildings from elsewhere on the layout and "played checkers" with them until I got a town configuration I liked. I then painted a road on some scrap paper with black paint to get a feel for the overall scene. (February, 2008). |
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I made the road out of a piece of painted foamcore which I then glued to the layout. The road ends at yet another mirror -- the 10th one on the BV. The mirror will add the illusion that the road and retaining wall continue around the bend, as you can see here. (February, 2008) |
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I then started constructing the structures that would go in the town. This City Classics filling station is truly a classic for this era. (March, 2008) |
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The "cornerstone" structure for the town is this gem by Banta Modelworks, called "Silver Plume Bakery." It's a laser-cut kit that I renamed "Frank's Hardware" (for my late dad), and completely detailed inside. This building is only inches from the edge of the benchwork and is one of my all-time favorite model railroad structures. (March, 2008) |
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Across the street from Frank's would be Mahlon's General Merchandise (named for my late father-in-law). It started life as "Benson's Five & Dime" -- a snap-together Walthers Gold Ribbon kit. This is the way the kit would look if you put it together straight out of the box. Kind of "plastic looking" and not very inspiring... (March, 2008) |
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A few coats of paint, some "peeling paint" weathering, and window detailing brought this structure to life. I also completely rebuilt the staircase out of stripwood to give the building more of a scratchbuilt look. (March, 2008) |
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To fill in the narrow space between the filling station and the mirror, I used a Bar Mills "The 1-Kit" to design this ancient building. It's now called "Ray's Custom Cabinets," but a custom decal I made for the side and weathered to the point of fading, reads "The Eureka Livery Company" -- dating the town to the 19th century. (March, 2008) |
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The Eureka Depot began life in 1978 when I scratchbuilt it for my old layout. At the time it was painted brown and yellow. But a coat of "official BV depot colors" brought up to the "present" (if the "present" is 1953). While it's not as nicely constructed as some of my more recent scratchbuilt buildings, it's a sentimental favorite and I'm really glad I was able to find a home for it on the current layout. (March, 2008) |
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The last structure to be built was the Eureka Auto and Engine Repair building, made from a Walthers "State Line Farm Supply" kit -- it's the second of those kits on my layout (can you tell I really like this building? The other one is in Glen Oaks). This building would sit between the aisle and the yard throat, so it needed to be short (so visitors could still see the town), but sizeable enough to fill the spot. To add interest, I boarded up a front window, and added a car showing through the front door and in an open garage door around the back. (March, 2008) |
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Here's the way the final town of Eureka looks. The beige building on the far left is Mahlon's. I also added a DPM "Carr's Parts" building (brown with red trim) that I'd built in 1999. That was the very first structure I'd built when I returned to model railroading after a 17 year hiatus. It was constructed in the garage of the Chaska townhome we lived in while our new house was being built, so it's aptly named, "Chaska Garage Supply and Parts." Next to it is the filling station, followed by Ray's Cabinets. Directly above the depot on the right you can see how the mirror makes the road appear to continue through the backdrop. Eureka Auto & Engine Repair is in the foreground. Not very visible in this shot is Rocky's Tavern, a tiny little structure with a ton of character, by Woodland Scenics. It's located on the corner, right next to Mahlon's. (April, 2008) |
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This is one of my favorite "beauty shots" from Eureka. Although it's hard to see at this size, there's an old couple sitting on a bench in front of Mahlon's, resting from walking their dog. Meanwhile across the street two young kids have parked their bikes at Frank's and are enjoying a mid-summer soda pop. Closer to the backdrop, next to Mahlon's, is Rocky's Tavern. (April, 2008) |
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Here's the back of Eureka Auto & Engine Repair. I love these areas of the layout that are just filled with junk, as this is. For this picture, I swiped the Model-T on cinderblocks from Igot's Gas in Froton. You can see the partially open garage door and the bumper of a car visible. (April, 2008) |
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Here's a shot down Main Street, directly aimed at Rocky's Tavern. Standing outside are two old guys, waiting for the establishment to open. (April, 2008) |
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And here's a shot up Main Street, from almost the same vantage point. I added tall grass, cattails, and some wet ground to the ditch next to the tracks, and swiped the billboard installer from my Farm area for this shot. (April, 2008) |
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Here's the hillside and the cut with a train passing through it. The trees help hide the edge where the scenery meets the backdrop. It took until March of 2009 to get scenery on to that hillside in the foreground, which is at the north end of Colfax yard. (April, 2008) |
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This is the way the rest of the return loop looked before I started. I call this area "Beyond Eureka" and I've submitted an article about its construction to a model magazine. (June 2008) |
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The first order of business was to peel back the Masonite fascia and determine where the stream would go. I cut the extruded foam insulation, beveled it with a hot wire cutter, and mounted plywood beneath it. (June 2008) |
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Because I absolutely hate ending roads or streams at the backdrop, I added another front-surfaced mirror to the backdrop -- the 12th mirror on my layout. This way the stream would be reflected and it would appear to go beyond the backdrop. You can even see here that the effect is pretty convincing. (June 2008) |
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I hate it and I love it -- adding Hydrocal-soaked paper towels to create land forms. Here I am adding the towels to the left bank of the stream. Note the Saran Wrap on the backdrop and mirror -- this is messy work! The masking tape in the foreground is creating a base between the track subroadbed and the fascia to lay the paper towels on. (July 2008) |
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I hand-painted the stream
(versus using an airbrush) because I wanted to add rocks (ok, pebbles)
to the bed. Here I am painting around the rocks to make sure I
didn't slop paint all over the top of them, thereby ruining the effect
of seeing them through the water later on.
I also scratchbuilt a small bridge for the tracks. I used board-by-board construction, even though the deck would later be covered by ballast. I chose this type of bridge because, of the six previous bridges on the BV, none had a ballasted deck. (July 2008) |
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Here I am pouring the stream, after damming up the fascia. I used Magic Water for this, as I did for the stream in the Farm area, because it's easy to work with and I was impressed with it. Not to mention, the Enviro-Tex Lite that I used in the Black River in both Glen Oaks and Froton is now discoloring at a rapid rate, turning a sickly shade of brown. Sure, it makes the water look a little muddy, but it's not the kind of water I wanted on my layout! Time will tell how the Magic Water holds up. (July 2008) |
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To give the water a little texture, I painted Gloss Medium on to the surface once the Magic Water had cured. It spreads on milky white, but turns crystal clear once it's dry. I also used Woodland Scenics' Water Effects for areas where I wanted a little more turbulence. You can see how nicely the rocks show through the Magic Water. (July 2008) |
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Here's the area before I started adding trees, and before I replaced the track. I scratchbuilt a decrepit old barn/warehouse board-by-board to give this area a little visual interest. (August 2008) |
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Next it was time for my least favorite layout activity: building trees. I spent a couple of weeks of evenings building pine trees out of Bragdon Finescale Forest material (see my "Wetland Detailing" article for details), goldenrod, and Woodland Scenics' deciduous trees. Here's the scene from a high angle showing some of the trees, and the area where the stream meets the mirror at the backdrop. You can see that the track has been relaid and ballasted. (August 2008) |
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Here's an overhead shot of the stream, with a train passing over the bridge. I made the stream this "S" shape so I could more easily visually obstruct the area where the stream meets the mirror. From the aisle, viewers can kind of see that area... which makes the mirror effect that much more dramatic. (September 2008) |
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By late September, the area was finished! All in all I'd added scenery to the entire reverse loop area (probably 10 or 12 linear feet by 18 inches deep) in a little over 7 months. Considering I didn't have a clue what I wanted this area to be 9 months earlier, this was pretty good progress in my book! (September 2008) |