Thanks guys! Yes, I suppose it could give a very good spalled concrete effect, but mine was just too severe. I chose to "repave" the arches with Gysolite plaster. It's very rough since it's designed to be the bottom coat on old fashioned plaster lath walls. I smeared on a heavy coat which I'll sand somewhat tomorrow and add a top coat of joint compound and then it will be back to the paint shop.
It'll take a full day to cure, so I started to design the tunnel shape by cutting some cardboard shapes to give me an idea of a) how it will work with the portals, b) how big it's going to be, and c) how much material (Masonite, plaster, cardboard strips, etc.) will be required to build this thing. Already I can see that it's bigger and more massive than my original RR Track imaginations were. I taped all these things together and stuck them in approximate positions. It's easier to modify cardboard (and cheaper) than Masonite.
I placed a portal... with its wet plaster... in place to ensure that the contour was still high enough to fully enclose it. I'll do the same thing on the other ends tomorrow. This establishes the back, most elevated contour. I still have to create some templates for the depth contours. I'm going to fill in that notch with more L-girder so that corner has more surface and is squared off. This gives me more space for the coal mine. This was the plan done on RR Track over 3 years ago. My cardboard mountain extends further to the left than this version. In this plan you'll also see that the spurs are extended up to the mine. In actuality, I want to connect the spur to the track on the right hand inner loop if I can fit it. There's sufficient straight track in front of the portal to put in an O-80 or O-96 switch. Unfortunately, I no longer am able to use RR Track since I'm now on a Mac and RR Track has no plans to produce a native OS version, nor do I want to go through the hassle of installing a Windows operating system in parallel with OS even though this computer is capable of running both.
This was a short work day so that's all I have to report. I'm really getting excited about putting terrain on that bare right end. It's time to do it.
