Week 8 contruction progress report

This week I installed the remainder of the ground throws.  They were attached with a combination of glue and track nails.  The ground throws are working reliably, and will hopefully continue to do so after the scenery materials and glue go in around them.

Caboose Industries ground throws installed and foam carved.

Next up I roughed and carved down the foam a bit in the large open areas using a Stanley Surform. This should help avoid the completely flat look.  I gave the foam a coat of light brown paint to avoid seeing pink spots in between the dirt and grass.  Next time around the smart thing to do would be to paint the foam before laying any track, that way any pink foam showing through could be avoided.

More foam carved to avoid flat look.

Foam painted with a light brown dirt color.

I airbrushed the rails a dark brown to get the rusty rail look.  Immediately after airbrushing each segment I cleaned the paint from the top of the rails using a piece of wood soaked in rubbing alcohol. When compared side by side the painted rail looks a lot nicer than the shiny rail sides.

The middle track looking much nicer after an airbrushing with a dark brown.  

The top of the track was cleaned immediately after airbrushing with a block of wood soaked in rubbing alcohol.

I started giving the open areas a dusting of Woodland scenics earth ground foam, and then a scattering of Woodland scenics burnt grass ground foam.  This was done using the old and reliable method of wetting the foam and ground foam with rubbing alcohol and then following up with Woodland Scenics' Scenic Cement.  I suspect this base coat may end up being a little bit darker than what Southern California looks like, but I should be able to lighten it up a bit later once I've had a chance to compare the look to some photos.

I ballasted one siding with Woodland Scenics fine cinders ballast.  The rest of the sidings will also receive this ballast, but the main line will get Arizona Rock & Mineral's Santa Fe Mauve ballast.

Siding ballasted with cinders.

Siding looking a bit buried in the brush.

After adding dirt and grass around the ballasted siding I feel like the track is looking rather buried in the brush.  This is fine for the sidings, but I wish I had elevated the main tracks using roadbed.  I'm not sure if the transitions between roadbed and the ground level tracks would have worked well in these short distances, which is why I laid all the track directly on the ground.  On the next layout I'll have to be more careful with maintaining elevation differences between mains and sidings.


In the next week I hope to make good progress on scenicing and ballasting, and perhaps start building citrus trees.  I think I need 25 - 30 citrus trees, with the majority of them going in the area next to the staging tracks.  While partially blocked by the Sunkist building, one can look down the length of the layout and see this area, so I think it will look nice to have a large citrus orchard placed there.