Extending the layout

The Thomaston section has been sitting on my workbench for nearly two years, but I recently moved it back into the train room after finishing the masonite backdrop on the first two walls.  The sky is blended using two Benjamin Moore colors: "aqua marina" at the top blending into "jet stream" at the bottom.  I applied bands of each using brushes and then blended them with a roller leaving a smooth finish with some streakiness suggesting wispy clouds near the horizon.  Later on I will add photo images of trees and other landscape details. 

The backdrop sits on the shelf brackets and isn't actually attached to anything, just sandwiched between the layout and the wall.  I glued 3/4" styrofoam panels to the back of the backdrop in between the shelving standards so that it stands an even distance from the wall all the way around. Screwing the layout sections to the shelf brackets locks everything in place.

Getting the first section back in place motivated me to work on the second section, which is a largely rural area with no sidings. The open-frame benchwork for this section had already been constructed using my usual technique of a 1/2" birch plywood frame and top covered with 2" foam. One thing I learned when building the first section is to avoid having corner curves cross a section boundary, so I added a small extension to accommodate the entire curve in this corner. 

Ultimately the layout will extend along the right-hand wall to a quarry and harbor scene, but for now I plan to install a staging yard to allow me to run trains in and out of Thomaston.

Trestle construction, part 3

Here’s the finished trestle. The deck/stringer assembly was installed at the same time as the abutments, and the bents were then glued on from below. I used brown ballast as filler around the abutments and the bases of three of the bents, but it will eventually get covered by the final scenery. The last three bents will be “dirted in” whenever I get around to scenicking the creek.

The metal object between the rails is a RibbonRail gauge:

The abutments I made previously turned out to be too narrow for the approach fills. For the shorter abutment on the right-hand end, I was able to remove the top course from the taller abutment to substitute for the smaller one, but I then had to recast the larger (left-hand) one. The original larger casting was repurposed (upside-down) as a retaining wall, which is visible below the transfer crane in the last photo of the November 29 post.

Trestle construction, part 2

Getting back to the trestle, I installed the crossties on the deck using scale 8’ lengths of 1/16” square basswood, and outer guard rails made from scale 4x8s with NBW castings every three or four ties.

I also got started on the trestle bents, using 1/8” round stock for the piles, 1/8” square stock for the caps, and scale 2x8 for the braces. All of the wood was cut using a cheap 2” miter saw from Harbor Freight, which makes short work of repetitive cuts and ensures that all of the piles are cut at the correct angle, in this case 0, 5, or 10 degrees. The following photo shows the quick-and-dirty assembly jig I used, and a finished bent (with NBWs) in the upper right.

The piles and caps were stained a darker brown than the trestle deck and the braces.  My thinking was that these pieces might have been creosoted while the rest were left untreated. I'm not sure if that is actually prototypical but I like the contrasting wood tones.

A retaining wall for the transfer track

While the trestle is under construction I thought I'd get started on the scenery on the other end of the layout, where there is a transfer track to shift cargo between the narrow gauge and standard gauge.  The narrow gauge track is elevated by a scale 18" to facilitate the transfer, and I wanted a low stone retaining wall to separate the two tracks.  I was going to cast it in plaster like the trestle abutments but decided to try carving it from basswood instead, since I had basswood strips in the right size lying around. The blocks were carved with an X-acto knife and then textured by tapping the strips with a hammer:

Here's a photo taken from the back of the layout showing how the wall looks after painting and installation. It also shows the ballast mix I'm experimenting with, which is two parts "pit run" to one part "NP gray" from Arizona Rock and Mineral.

For the transfer crane, I am using the Walthers "LCL container terminal" gantry crane but placing it on a fixed foundation rather than rails.  In the following photo it is set in place temporarily as it is only half-finished. The kit is designed with metal walkways, which I am covering with stripwood for a more rustic look.

Trestle construction, part 1

The trestle over the Mill River (which, truth be told, is really more of a creek) will be assembled in place, starting with the stringers and deck and then adding the bents last. Since this is a two-foot-gauge railroad, I only used four stringers, two under each rail.  Each stringer is actually a single length of 1/8” x 3/16” basswood (scale 10x16), but since the trestle is on a 21” radius curve, it should have separate stringers running between each bent and angled to follow the curve.

To mimic this look, I lightly scored the inside face at scale 12’ intervals and then made a deeper cut on the opposite side.  Then I could gently bend each joint slightly without completely breaking it.

The inside stringer was scored at exact 12’ intervals, which is 42 mm in HO, and then the others were scored at 0.5 mm increments (42.5, 43, 43.5 mm) to account for the curve. Each pair of stringers is assembled with short pieces of scale 2x8 as spacers, and then the pairs are glued together with short 1/16" wide spacer blocks. I didn't bother to place the spacers in prototypical locations since they will be hidden by the bridge ties.

After the glue dried I trimmed the ends to length, installed nut-bolt-washer castings, and added short timber retaining walls at each end to hold back the fill at the top of the abutments.

It will be a couple of weeks before I can continue this build, but I'm looking forward to installing the trestle and finally getting started on scenery! And at some point I need to get back to that forney project.

Trestle abutments

The Mill River trestle will need some stone abutments, so I cast them using lego forms.  The width of the narrowest legos is 26" in HO scale, which is a decent height for abutment blocks. After the plaster set I carved in block lines and gave them a dark wash before shaking them vigorously in a small container with aquarium gravel to polish the edges and give them some more color. The result may be a bit too regular for a narrow gauge road, but I figure that since the railroad's primary customer is a granite quarry, it would have ready access to high-quality stone.

EDIT (November 2):
I eventually decided that the abutment blocks were indeed too regular, in fact they looked more like concrete than granite, so I roughed up the surfaces by tapping them with the tip of a large drill bit and then colored them with weathering powders.  Here's a comparison - the one with the new treatment is on the right:

Painting track

After masking the turnout points and spray painting all of the track brown, I tried a few techniques to paint and weather the ties. I have read that the Maine two-footers used untreated (non-creosoted) ties, which calls for a sun-bleached and weathered look. The following photo shows the steps I used: from left to right, drybrushing with white paint, then a heavy india ink/alcohol wash followed by dusting with tan weathering powder from Monroe Models. I applied the powder too heavily, but compensated by scraping the ties to give them some texture, followed by a light application of white powder to the ties to fade them, and finally applying dark rust powder to the spikes and tie plates.

Here's a closer shot of the finished section, temporarily buried in aquarium filter charcoal to approximate the cinders that I plan to use in the engine terminal area. It looks pretty good to my eye so I'll continue using this approach on the rest of the track.