Welcome Back. It's been a few weeks since my last update. I blame the warm spells in PA. No snow days mean no long days working on the layout!
The first update is around the turntable. This area looks like a bit of a hot mess right now. I've switched my ballast around the yard tracks and TT to Woodland Scenics cinders. I will continue to use Brennan's Better Ballast on the main lines. Because of tis switch I had to do some clean up, and that is ongoing. I have my eyes out for a nice water tower and coaling tower, these will go on the two adjacent yard tracks above the switch tower building (see below).
Around the whisker tracks I have added some concrete platforms for 4 of the tracks. I've also added a few more tracks here and wired them up. The track ballast change can be seen on these tracks too.
At the end of the concrete platforms I'll add scuptamold to bring the ground level up and slope it downwards towards the mainline loop. I plan to put a few drainage pipes in this area from the engine servicing area. they will drain into a littered ditch.
On the far side I've continued rock work. Here the rock molds have been painted with artist Gesso, then brushed with black tempera. Once the tempera is on I take a sponge, soak it, and press it onto the rocks. the water then mixes with the tempera particles and fills in the cracks and crevices. The water runs down the rocks creating a more natural look. I then take diluted earth colors (burnt umber, ect) and use a small brush to add those colors to cracks in the rock face. the colors then run down the rock creating a natural look and some depth to the scene. This is far from over, I will add ground cover later.
In the picture below you can see the fascia board has been painted black. This has been done around the layout except the back section by the upper level and around the control panel.
Here you can see the rocks around the bridge and waterfall scene have been painted as well. I haven't added the diluted pains to these yet. The bottom of the waterfall will be a pond. This looks messy now. Eventually, I'll add plaster to form the pond.
Below you can see the mountain in the corner of the layout. I've added some rock molds and that's about it. You can see a few gaps in the molds, these will get filled in with smaller molds.
I've also started some retaining wall molds were the track goes under the mountain. The open area behind those walls is an access hole for working on the mountain. Eventually this will get covered up with the mountain. The access hole will remain so I can access trains in the tunnel for any reason.
As we move down the upper level track the mountain evolves a bit. I've added scultamold around the rock molds. I will follow this up with some joint compound to fill in any cracks in the rock molds that I missed with the scultamold, then it will get a coating of artist Gesso. The slope in the image will be a roadway that leads up to the second level.
That pretty much wraps up this update. I have a z-1000 arriving today which will power the switches on the yard and upper level. Once this arrives I will get those switches wired up.
Thanks for checking in. Please leave feedback below!
Thanks,
Chris
