My primary concentration up until now has been to finish building the CR&E in phases, and I can thankfully say that 99% of the necessary construction is complete. I can finally turn my attention to other projects, like signaling (likely beginning in 2012) and scenery!
I'm being selective about the scenery I start, because I do not want to bury the wiring for stationary decoder and signal installation. The areas around controlled turnouts will not be started yet because I'd like to be able to have the open space for the wiring projects that will be required to get the signal system up and running.
John's Creek, which is nothing but a named point about midway between Paint Bank and New Castle, VA, was selected as the first scene to work on. There will be a set of intermediate signals there, but I didn't figure wiring for those would be that difficult. It is a narrow upper level scene that will feature two tunnels and a high bridge over John's Creek. I liked the way the track flowed, and I thought the high bridge would be a great place to stage some photos after I get the scene set to my liking.
I love doing scenery, but it has been a little over three years since I've done any of it. I find scenery construction to be relaxing and somewhat addictive, as I can spend hours dreaming up and creating a scene. Being a little out of practice, I've been taking my time to be sure I remember how to do scenery right, and I always want to improve upon the quality of my work.
My first step for this scene was to cut the profile of the eight foot long masonite fascia panel that would be attached to the front of the layout. Once the profile was drawn out and cut, the fascia piece was attached to the 1X3 benchwork with screws. This would give me the profile for the foreground scenery. I installed the fascia without painting it, as I wanted to get the plaster work done first. I am considering painting the fascia black instead of green, as that look has been very appealing on several area layouts I operate on.
I used Google maps, including the street view, to get an idea of what the scenery in this area looks like. Though mountainous, the scenery along Virginia Route 311 (which parallels the CR&E's freelanced route here) didn't look too dramatic. Therefore, except for the tunnels, I decided to keep the scenery more of a rolling terrain rather than cliffs, rock cuts, and so forth. This is truly in the middle-of-nowhere, with trees lining the right of way. I actually found an interesting clip of a motorcyclist taking Highway 311 from Paint Bank to New Castle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeS3jQjkZt8
I weaved cardboard strips for the scenery base and applied plaster cloth on top of it. I covered everything I could, not including the immediate areas entering the tunnels. Since John's Creek Tunnel actually goes through a wall, I sealed off the hole in the wall using a foamcore tunnel liner that I then wrapped plastercloth around. I thought it came out pretty decent. I tried not to attach plaster to the wall or to the fascia. I'd like to have the fascia removable if necessary for maintenance.
I want tunnels to be dark inside, so I painted everything inside the tunnel black, including the liner through the wall and part of the wall itself. I also fabricated an extended tunnel liner out of extruded foam and painted it black. That has not been installed yet, but will be after ballasting is complete. I also painted the plywood subroadbed, cork roadbed, and track black inside the tunnel.
Outside of the tunnel, I extended the black paint on the rails through the visible scene. The black will be the initial thin coat of paint to begin to kill the shine on the side of the rails. I'll follow up with Roof Brown paint as a second coat, hopefully creating some realistic color variation on the ties and rails. I painted the track with Polyscale water-based paints.
After I got the track painted, I test fitted the Johns Creek trestle. I still have to finish attaching the trestle bents, but the bridge fits where it should. I also added ties to fill in gaps between flex track pieces, and I painted one tie yellow where the gap is for the future signals at Johns Creek.
Next I will ballast the track inside the tunnel only. Once the ballast is dry, I will install the tunnel liners and tunnel portals, check clearances, and then plaster the portals in place. It will then be time to paint the plaster green and start ballast, water, ground cover, and trees.
Below is a view of the scene as it is now at Johns Creek. I'm excited to be working on scenery again!
