Not quite a complete redo: 4-6-17 update

Did some more work on a water tower built around a support column, ground cover on a station park area and today glued brick paper on the yard stick walls, and installed foam base for repositioning of a grain tower.  I have adjustments to make on pre-existing mountain hillsides to accommodate the tower and of course an endless list of detailing on this work and previous endeavors.  Just a few pics.  The station brickwork is printed paper and it needs weathering to tone down the bright colors. The roof on the water tower is just not right yet.  I also made and painted supports for a girder bridge and redid supports for a truss bridge but those I will redo again soon.     

Just found this thread, nice work, will be following the progress.

Today I installed the girder bridge and supports for that bridge and a truss bridge.  The supports are marginal design but they work for now.  I spray painted them with textured paint. I painted some track west of the girder bridge and applied some gray stone ground cover.  In the area where I am relocating a grain elevator I had to cut back the lower edge of the hills in the background.  I hope to apply plaster cloth to repair the area soon. I placed the train station after I made gravel parking lots for the station and a feed and seed building. I used a different color sand for the feed and seed building and will add trees and such on their border.  Here are a few pics.  Humble thanks for those who follow my progress.

The last few days I have had a little more enthusiasm for tackling tedious scenic fixes.  The first fix (pic 1) was to plaster a couple of hill reconstructions. There was a flat area near the underside of a bridge that was kind of boring.  I don't know if this berm in pic 2 is the fix, but it is a little more interesting and might provide more opportunity for interesting trees and under growth.

The next fix was refurbishing scenic foundation on the ends where I plan to install an Atlas truss bridge. I glued 2 layers of newspaper on the cardboard lattice in prep for plaster cloth.  After I get that painted and foliaged, I can install the last piece of a retaining wall, install the bridge, and eventually start bigger projects in the rural area of the layout. 

I have decided that I will never be confident about my "vegetation" scenery skills, and that is one reason I procrastinate about it.  Another reason is that it is very tedious and time consuming so I pick other layout projects to work on, ironically also time consuming but a little more fun for me.  That brings me to a big rock hill that is next to the town area.  It was and is now bordered on the east and west sides by tracks.  The west side was basically a flat rock wall without any character.  While I was applying the first newspaper covering many years ago I had already decided that it was not good but I did not have any other ideas.  A few months ago I remembered a scene with a narrow treed ravine when I was on a hike years ago.  So, I did some reconstructive surgery on this backside that takes me back.  It's not ideal, but it beats the flat wall in pic 5.  Pics 6 & 7 show lattice work ready for glue/newspaper and then plaster cloth.

The scenery redo is coming along nicely.  Yes, foliage does take a lot of effort and time.  I was never satisfied with my previous layouts, before we moved and they came down.  Hopefully, I will be able to build to a nice level of forests once I retire.

Today I did plaster cloth work and prep for more of that.  Did a little paint and rock work. Scenery is fairly far along in the city/warehouse area.  Further detail work in that regard will slow down a lot the next few months.  If I have the time to do further work it will be in the rural and the engine house areas.  So, tonight after the ball game, (Royals over the A's), I cleaned the track in the city area, installed the two bridges there and checked out the remote switches.  Everything checked out so I placed my PRR Atlantic on the tracks and bells and whistles and chuffs, oh my, I ran a loco for the first time since Jan.1!  I only found one 12 inch piece of dirty track I missed.  Then I added an RPO and two coaches and ran a local in the city.  It felt good to watch and listen to that train chuff x 4 around the city especially in the area where I added mountains.  Here is a pic of the train.

Very nice train!  I'm picking up an MTH Premier PS2 B&O Atlantic next week that I purchased from a local Forum member.  I'm looking forward to it, and to meeting this Forum member face to face!

Mark: I think the Atlantic steamer is one of the best proportioned locos.  I got my Lionel version last fall and plan to keep it pulling a local commuter.  I pull my fast mail train with a K-line K4s. 

Rehab update: It rained today, so instead of out door activities I blew off house cleaning and plastered a reconstructed part of a mountain rock in the city area. Over sprayed plastered abutment areas for the Atlas truss bridge in the transition from the city to the rural area painted the reconstructed hill sides in the grain elevator area.  I finished spray painting my signal poles and ladders flat black. I may post pics tomorrow after I complete more work.  

I do like the Atlantic.  I think it is a great locomotive for a small layout.  Funny, I will be getting a PW Lionel Atlantic Wabash and a caboose this week as well.  I have a Florida East Coast BL-2 I received in a trade, and there is a fellow on a Yahoo group who loves FEC.  He refurbishes PW locos, and has been looking for one he thought would be a good trade.  Just completed the deal minutes ago.  In a few days, I'll have two Atlantics.

Today it was a little rainy but quite cool so yard work or better yet fishing was not favorable so it was back down to the train cave.  Yesterday I plastered a rock hill in the city area.  Here are before and after pics of that.

Here is a pic of the PRR signals I made over a year ago. PRR online reference drawing indicated an aluminum color for the standard and ladder, however color did not have enough contrast for my eye so I re-sprayed the ladder and standard flat black.  

While I listened to the Royals beat the A's this afternoon I skim coated a long stretch of trackside plaster cloth ground cover until I ran 3 feet short of plaster.  Went to HDepot and picked up some more and will finish that part up tomorrow.  A pic would just be more white scene scape so I will update photos after I paint dark brown flat base. Tomorrow I will work on the engine house area maybe. 

BTW, my water tower built around a support column in the engine yard looks quite a bit taller than the MTH water tower.  The spec drawings on a PRR resource states that the minimum distance between the top of the rail and the bottom of the tank is 22 feet. At 5 and a half inches it looks way too tall but the tower sits on a little elevated area, so I might trim off a quarter or more.

April 24 update. The past couple of days I have spent too much time in the train cave and not enough on chores but I can get to those later. So, I worked in the rural area painting the plaster ground dark brown and sprinkling some limestone dust along the edges with greenery to come later.  I fixed it with diluted glue after wet water. I had mountain scenery that I washed with diluted folkart barn wood acrylic to blend places that were too light. Not perfect but better than I expected. 

Further east:

I assembled an Atlas truss bridge and installed it after some adjustments to abutment areas.  I did a test run on the bridge and immediate approaches after cleaning the track.  All went well and the bridge and a loco looked better than I expected.

I rattle canned some color on a refurbished hill in the city.

Some views of other city areas.

The area with blue tape is prep for a little more trackside ground cover to be followed by greenery when I finally get around to that.  I also painted an MTH corner store for the town.  The engine house area and approach are next on the list of big areas but I have a lot little things that seem to take an inordinate amount of time compared to impact on the layout.

Not there yet, but getting closer to running trains on the whole layout.

Thanks for taking the time to photograph, describe what you're doing, and post the photos and info.

Suggestion:  take 30 seconds or so to edit the title of your thread to include the date of the update.  Easy to do:  just go to the top of the page and click the "Edit Topic" button.

Thanks, again, for bringing us along on your project.

Did it Carl! Thanks.

 Today I did more ground cover prep work, paint, limestone dust and granules, installed the last piece of retaining wall.  A mere sentence does not do justice to the time I spent however I was happy to get it done.  The more enjoyable project I did the last couple of days was repainting the corner building in the first pic below.  It was one of my first attempts to grout the brick and weather.  I was never satisfied with the result. So I painted the brick rust primer, the cornice dark gray primer, and windows flat Labrador brown. It turned out better than I expected.

Looks very nice

Ken M

I have been doing small installments of work the last couple of weeks and made more progress in the engine house area. Finally cleaned all the track and ran a local passenger train, mail, baggage and then a tank car train with 9 black tankers.    

Sounds good. It is always satisfying when you finally get to the stage where you can run trains.  Good luck, and pictures when you can?

What great progress you've been making. The photos are fantastic.

We continue to enjoy watching the progress that you are making. Thanks.