Latest at Smith Summit

Tonight I finished the last of the scenery work around the 12 whopping feet of mainline that I have ballasted. That's 12 out of close to 300 feet of mainline, including the K&N branch, and I hate to think how many feet of sidings and yard tracks have to be done.  This will be a lifelong project.

There are certain to be scenery enhancements as I go, but for now I'm pleased with the more-than-basic scenery I have in this area. 

The photos above depict the mainline around Smith Summit, where the CR&E tops out in both directions, climbing eastbound from Lewisburg, WV and westbound from New Castle, VA.  

Latest scenery and signaling progress

It has been awhile since I've posted an update, but here goes.  I've been busy installing the signaling between Coleman and Johns Creek, basically bringing one more siding and some intermediate signals under control of the dispatcher from the CATS CTC program.

Before doing that portion of the signaling project, I did some scenery in the Loops section, particularly at Ridge and west of Paint Bank, VA.  None of that scenery is complete yet, but I consider everything a work-in-progress. 

Additional scenery work has been done in the last week around the summit of the climb over the Alleghenies, at a place called Smith Summit.  

I also spent about a week's worth of evenings painting hillsides on the backdrop using several variations of green and gray paints.

Here are a few quick pictures.