River painted and retaining walls installed

 I painted the river water a dark grey color because of the late fall early winter season. I used a thinned acrylic for the whole river, and then airbrushed in the shallow areas with a chalky grey color. Its not as defined as I would like but I will leave it for now until I get some more scenery done. 

Bridges in, and added retaining walls to the right of the river on the lower level.

The retaining walls are foam core and the small wooden retaining section by the bridge are matchsticks.

The mansion on the hill has been preshaded.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

The riverbank

 I lightly sanded the particle board and applied a couple of layers of latex paint to seal the bed and get it relatively smooth.

I also drilled a hole for the foreground bridge wiring to go under the table. I'm powering the rails on the bridges because I plan on removing them everyonce in awhile, and I dont trust the joiners to supply a good connection. I will use code 80 joiners to keep the rails aligned and they will be able to slide back on the rails so I can lift the bridges out. 

I made some rock facings using air dry clay. I had a lot of success using regular clay and impressing it with gravel to make facings for miniature wargaming scenery, so I thought I would try this for the river bank. I secured the rocks with sculptamold. There was some cracking during the drying process which I was hoping wouldn't happen, but it wasn't severe and some of the cracks disappeared when they had completely dried.

I didn't get the detail I wanted from facings, and I felt they had too much of a stacked look, so I decided to use my home made silicone molds and make plaster castings for the rocks. I broke out the air dry clay rock and put the plaster cast ones in place

new plaster castings

I left a couple of the air dry clay ones in place (gray colored), but the plaster cast ones went in smoothly, and ended up looking much better. I also added some wet plaster to a couple of areas and did some hand carving. 

I stained the rocks with yellow ochre, burnt sienna, and raw umber washes. I did a test using a black wash for the final step but it was too dark, so I skipped that on the river bank. I added some ground foam foliage ( too light colored, but fixable) to separate the facings.

I also repainted the backdrop in this area with a different selection of colors. I think I matched a late Fall, early Winter look better than the original colors.

Backdrop painting - trees and ground

 Color pallet when I started was yellow ochre, burnt sienna, raw sienna, and burnt umber. No greens as I am doing late Fall, and acutally after gettting much of this done I think its too bright right now. 

I make a conscience effort to make subtle grades in the hills and background, but I still need to extend the grades even more. It doesnt take much of a rise to start making the background look cartoonish.

I left green out of the pallet which I think is a mistake. Shouldnt be much but I think it needs some greens to enhance the Fall color. I will be doing a test repaint by the bridge and drop the fall colors out and go to an early winter scheme to see how it looks.

The trees in the printed picture will be shaded to match the backdrop trees. 20/20 hindsight says dont stop the backdrop painting just because photo or building will be there. You may have to move it and it will show the blue sky. Just keep painting.

Backdrop painting - Sky and clouds

 I used a combination of sponges and wide brushes to apply the liquitex acrylic paint for the sky color. Cerulean blue was the base for the darker color and I lightened it with titanium white as I moved down from the top. Quite a bit of matte medium was used to increase the coverage.

Clouds were brushed and sponged in with titanium white, and then used a gray, burnt umber mix for the shadows. 

Clouds are always a struggle. Some areas come out good and some need work.

The size of the layout is making it tough to judge the best horizon line since its only 12" wide. I may go in later and try and add extra clouds lower in the sky. 

A kit bashed switcher for the Shawnee Wichita & Gulf

                                                               The Inspiration

This locomotive sits outside Baldwin City, Ks. The faded red color caught my eye from a distance as I was driving past and I turned into the parking lot to take a look and get some pictures.

I'm mainly a fan of the GP 35's to 40's, but I really like the look of this and thought it would look great as a switcher on my layout. I got online to research what it was and if I could get it in N scale. 

This loco is MKT 142 owned by Midland Railway in Baldwin City, Ks. It is an RS-3m and is operational although I think it may be used for train tours as opposed to freight duties. 

As luck would have it I have a nice running Atlas RS-3, which I rarely use as it has a Burlington Northern shell, and I have an old Lifelike GP9 that I got at a train show that never ran well. 

I combined the Lifelike body and the Atlas hood and cab on the Atlas frame.

I had to go at the back end of the Atlas frame where it screws together with a dremel, and it fastens with a miniature wire tie instead of the screw, but it is nice and tight and runs well.

It is lacking some detail like the raised number boards on the hood, but overall I'm pleased with the look. I will study on what details I can add to it before painting it. 

Wider pics of town set up

 Had a bit of a Summer break with a west coast trip and some home projects. Here are some pics of the town. I think this is the final plan for the building placement, but some may be replaced by some scratchbuilds as I move along.

I wanted a second bridge behind the truss bridge that actually had track going into the DPM hotel building at the lower level. Obviously it isnt going to be a hotel and I would have to cut out the wall for the railcars to enter. If I add the extra bridge I think it may fill too much of the gap between the wall for light to get thru and make the backdrop picture useless.

I need to begin working on the backdrop plan. I've practiced quite a bit at painting clouds and sometimes they come out good, but I struggle with it, so I've been putting it off. 

Installing homemade switch machines

 With the track and turnouts laid out I was able to drill the holes where the switch wire would come thru the base. The biggest issue was the depth of the layout. All the turnouts on the main level are hand thrown with the switch next to the turnout, so that was an easy install as the throw wire is short, level and exposed. The upper level switches needed to go thru about 3.5" of foam and particle board.

I had produced a couple of designs, but ended up going with some small SPDT switches I got on Amazon. The throw distance was a slightly longer than the rail travel. I used a .22 wire for the throw and made a coil so the actual wire movement was about 1.5" at the switch end. A sliding piece of wood moved both the SPDT switch and the switching wire. 

The SPDT's are inserted into the sliding piece of wood so they are removable if need be. 

The sliding piece of wood has a clothes hangar wire push rod attached to activate it, and the push rod goes thru the fascia and is glued into a knob. I added a top plate with screw holes, then positioned the switch underneath the layout, and temporarily secured it with duct tape. 

I added the screws leaving the duct tape in place ( no need to remove it) and they went in pretty easily.

So far they work great. I think they may last for awhile. As they wear out I can remove the SPDT and make a new one. I think I would change the material from craft wood to styrene or plastic if I make replacements.

Excess wire was cut after the switch is installed.