lighting and incandescent track lights to illuminate the layout room. Tried and true construction tech- niques were used for the open grid bench work. There has been a trend to- wards using more plywood components to replace dimensional lumber. In my case, I chose to use plywood for the sub-roadbed and dimensional lumber for the framing and legs. The layout be- gins from the railhead to the floor at 46 inches and reaches a high of 50 inches. In one area it briefly drops to 43 inches but on average it is 46 inches. My approach to scenery is conven- tional in that for my terrain I used foam, newspaper, cardboard and plas- ter cloth to create undulations and mountains. The rock formations are made from plaster castings that are glued in place, then stained appropri- ately. Depending on the location on the layout my backdrop surface is either styrene, hard fiberboard or
plaster-
board walls painted light blue. For my backdrop, I used several techniques to get the effect I was looking for. They ran the gamut from commercial prod- ucts to having a professional artist paint the relief buildings as back- ground for my city of Baltimore, which is one of the focal points of my layout. I am especially pleased of my rendi- tion of Baltimore because I was able to kitbash and blend a number of struc- tures, primarily from Bachman Spec- trum Cityscenes,
Design Preserva-
tions, and Walthers into a credible scene. In particular, the four sided Bro- mo Seltzer tower is a signature build- ing in Baltimore, and I modeled this structure using a commercial product that I customized to fit. Another feature of my layout is that
The city of Baltimore (left and above) is scenic and impressive. It is a mixture of kitbashed structures from Bachmann, Design Preservation and Walthers. The large Bromo Seltzer building anchors the downtown. Most of the buildings are lighted. Since the L&K is mod- eled in the 1950’s-1960’s, coal trains are important traffic on the L&K. Big Coal Mountain mine is served by rail (below) and ships large numbers of coal hoppers east to the cities.
the majority of my structures are light- ed. As a matter of fact, I have employed street lights, lighted gate crossings, signals and lighted billboards, and this really adds to the scenic effect im- mensely. My visitors and operators alike have been amazed when I turn off all the lights in the room and the layout glows from all the lighted struc- tures and other lighting effects. To me, trackwork is both scenery and the foundation for the trains to run. I went to great lengths to bullet proof my track so that the trains run well and are free from derailments due to poorly laid track. For several years I held off on major scenery projects so that I could make sure there were no track-related performance issues. For uniformity I used all Walthers code 83
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
track and turnouts from Shinohara. Mostly, No. 6 and a few No. 8 turnouts are used on the mainline. In the yard areas the standard turnout is a No. 5. Minimum curve radius is 24 inches and the maximum curve radius is 36 inches to improve running perform- ance for long rigid wheelbase steam lo- comotives and full length passenger cars, as I am fond of passenger trains. Once I was sure there were no issues I painted the rail by hand or with an airbrush in realistic colors and com- menced with the scenery projects, be- ginning with mountain scene with my coal mine and systematically progress- ing around the layout. The scenic an- chor of my layout is the city of Balti- more, followed by Union Station, which is adjacent to Baltimore Yard and Big
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