I haven't been slacking off... what I had been doing is fighting an annoying cold that kept out of the basement all week. What I did do was take some of this down time to think about and do some design work on the scenic treatment in the ravines under the three bridges. I fastened the screen wire in place and then took pictures, imported them into Corel Draw where I added the bridge abutments that would blend into the rock faces.
After printing out the pictures, I used markers and colored pencils to draw what I'd like to see on these steeply angled, weathered limestone ravines. My theme comes from the topography in the KY River Gorge that runs north and south through my state. We took a boat tour of the this area last summer and there are very dramatic cliff faces with overhanging foliage that makes for some dramatic scenes.
This area of the Gorge is the location of the KY High Bridge, a deck bridge that soars over the gorge carrying the Norfolk-Southern RR. I took pictures of the rocks with the understanding that I'd want to model them for the layout. Limestone and sandstone throughout Central KY is very stratified and looks like it was laid down with a ruler. It might not be too hard to model.
Here's some shots of the Gorge, and then my artistic treatment. Of course it's all shrunk to proportions acceptable to an O'guage layout. The real gorge is very deep.
Even in N-guage, this thing would be a monster. Perhaps Z-gauge...?
Here's some of the topography.
And here's a detail shot which I'm using for shape and coloration.
And here's what I'm going to try and do.
This is the deck bridge ravine. What's not shown is a nice collection of tallus rock at the river's edge. There will be foliage on bushes and overhanging the rock edges.
This is the double truss deck bridge ravine.
I'm going to start working this coming week since the cold is now at the point where I can function. I may use Sculpt-a-mold to form the rock formations. Before I do anything, I'm going to do some trial runs to see how best to form the surfaces. I don't know of any rock molds that look like these formations. If anyone does, please let me know.
