Tunnel to nowhere

Either side of East McKeesport has a bridge for a view block. On the east side is Rt 30 and this scene is about 1/2 complete, ,meaning it is detailed enough to blend but there are still things I want to d- details., more tress, etc. On the west end is the B&O trestle bridge that crosses the Pennsy's tracks and disappear into a tunnel. Since the tunnel is on the wall to the backyard, I needed to do something special to create the illusion that the scene continues on.

Background sketched in and rock castings glued to the wall

I have been stalling on this project for months due to the artistic requirements but I finally told myself that good enough is truly good enough. Plus I would like to make some progress before Bruce visits again. I had already made several rock castings so I placed those where they fit best and glued them to the walls and foam in the corner. Next I experimented with the Woodland Scenics Earth Color Set and stained the castings. I was pleasantly surprised how well they turned out and pretty pleased with the result.

Rocks stained and basic ground colors applied.

I made a tunnel portal out of some cinder block paper but was disappointed. There is only 1" from the wall to the track running parallel and I could not possibly fit a 3D tunnel portal. Or could I? I found the perfect portal at R/C Hobbies and evenly sanded the back of the plaster casting to thin it down and then used the stone stain to color it. I mounted a piece of black paper for the actual tunnel and glued the portal on top. I used Scuptamold to shape the hillside around the tunnel portal and applied Woodland Scenics Earth Undercoat to make it look like dirt.

Adding a tunnel portal and surrounding hillside

Wow, I was very, very pleased with how all this was turning out. Despite the temperature in the train room hovering in the high 30s in the evenings (until I turned on the space heater), I was very motivated to continue work and the next step was super easy - glue clump tree foliage around the portal to made the hillside look wooded. Easy and I have done this scenery work before. After about 15 minutes I had almost 1/3 of the portal done! After 20 minutes, I had nothing.

Expected this to be the easy part but the trees would not stick

I posted my folly on Facebook and on one of the Model Raiload groups, someone suggested I use pins to hold the foliage while the glue dries. Brilliant! I mean I would have thought of that...eventually...probably before fall! I used almost an entire container of pins but once the glue dried and I removed the pins, It looked very much how I had envisioned it.

Using straight pins, I was able to keep the foliage on until the glue dried

I tried my hand at painting a little of the background wall around the portal - not great but passable until Bruce comes over and we tackle that project. I put the bridge back in place and purchased a new building to end the East McKeesport scene along with a background scene to finish it. 

Scene with the bridge, a backdrop and corner building

Of course, there are a lot of things I still need to do here, not the least of which is actually build the structure. But with just a little more work, this will be a very plausible scene and make the operating sessions this spring a little more fun!