(Above) A Heisler has just brought a load of logs from back in the holl’r as the branch switcher pulls a flatcar of freshly sawn boards from Wolf Hollow Lumber. The trees behind the sawmill are dried oak leaf hydrangea blooms covered with ground foam. The distant hill- side was covered with a thin layer of black polyfill, sprayed with hairspray and sprinkled with ground foam. This five-foot stretch of background hillside took less than one hour to complete and is a signa- ture scene when you first enter the layout room.
(Right) A string of empty hoppers sits on a passing siding as an I1s Decapod clanks down the branch with a string of loaded hoppers.
a dash of dish soap holds it all in place.
I needed lots of economical, semi-foreground quality trees to model fall along the Appala- chian branch line. Nearly 1,500 dried oak leaf hydrangea blooms coated with various ground foam products cover most of my wood- ed areas. For two distant moun- tainsides, I put down a thin layer of black fiberfill, sprayed it with hairspray, and sprinkled little clumps of the same fall color mix- es I used for the foreground trees. The scale and color of hillsides were easy to produce and really add depth to the layout.
There are three mountain streams and a waterfall along the branch line. In addition to plas- ter rock castings, the stream beds feature real rocks and even some very thin western Pennsylvania slate. To create the waterfalls, I placed straight lines of clear caulk on wax paper and used a tooth- pick to swirl and shape it into a thin layer of cascading water. Once it dried, I trimmed it to fit and attached it with clear caulk. Once the waterway was sealed, I lightly tinted Envirotex two-part
50 RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
epoxy with light brown and green paint and poured the stream bed in three thin layers. Down- stream from the falls and rapids, I drybrushed some white froth be- tween each layer. This really adds to the three-dimensional effect. I used acrylic gel to add rough water and ripples. Dry brushing the falls with white paint really brought out the highlights. Structures on the layout fea- ture a combination of kit-built, kitbashed, and scratchbuilt struc- tures. The industrial area on the lower level is a combination of kitbashed and scratchbuilt struc- tures with a narrow footprint; many of them are notched in the back to clear the hidden staging tracks along the wall behind them. Many of the engine terminal struc- tures were built years before plan- ning for the layout even began. Coal mining, logging, and lumber-relat- ed industries dominate the branch line and upper deck. Eventually, I plan to add a downtown city scene in the corner between the engine terminal and yard. I also made use of a combination of building fronts and photo-realistic backdrops to add depth to areas with very lim-
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