Rock Staining

I knew that I had to try my hand at staining the rock castings. Bruce and I had done some work before on the hill between Uniontown and Herminie. I wanted to highlight the clay composition found in Pennsylvania soil, so I was going for more orange than brown. As you can see in the first photo, I got it a little too orange.

Rocks a little too orange on the Herminie hillside

Since then I read a few articles that implied it was both easy and only too a little experimenting to get museum quality rocks and hillsides. Yeah, I was not buying that...but I was OK with close enough. I bought the Woodland Scenics Earth Colors Kit C1215 a couple of months ago and the instructions were brief and made no sense to me. So naturally, I ignore them and tried it my way.
I put a couple of drops (why don't they make these in squeeze bottles?) of Burnt Umber, added a drop or two of Yellow Ocher and a few drops of water, stirred and slapped it on. Well, I brushed it, stippled it, dabbed...all kinds of techniques. I didn't like the color so I mixed some Stone Gray and Burnt Umber and it was OK but still not what I wanted. I tried three other color combinations, then ended up with my rubbing alcohol and black ink wash.
I stepped back and thought....well, that didn't work out as planned! I took a couple of pictures for the story today and looking closer, I sort of like what I see. I need to fix the ballast, add some ground cover, bushes and of course get the backdrop painted, but I think this might work.

Second attempt using Woodland Scenics Earth Colors Kit

Of course, I realized at this point that I did not measure any of the paint mixtures I created, am not really sure I know which paints (there are 8 in the kit) that I ended up mixing together and since I kept painting over the castings with different paints and techniques, I am not even sure if the final product is a single paint mixture or the result mixing the different paint samples.
Plan? We don't need no stinkin' plan!

Hills, Creek and Backdrops

What do these three have in common? A visit from Bruce! Our schedules have been hectic the last couple of months but he was able to stop over earlier this week and as usual, his perspective and suggestions inspired me to get cracking on some of the scenery that I have been putting off.

Hills outlined on the backdrop between Herminie and East McKeesport

We went through some ideas and then Bruce just started sketching. I think I spent more time looking for a piece of chalk than we actually spent on the broad brush sketch for the hills. Actually, Bruce's first attempt was nearly perfect and we just adjusted a couple of the hills to balance the scene a little better. After he left, I carved the river in front of the tracks and the next night I added some Sculptamold  - an excellent plaster material - and some left over rock castings I had. After this dries, I will paint the riverbed, add some details like talus, sand, tree limbs, etc. and pour the "water".

After adding rock castings and Sculptamold to the scene

Back to Bruce's visit, I was so pleased with how the sketch looked, I said we needed to do something similar in the other corner. Here I just wanted some grassy hillsides behind the barn and an eventual ranch house that masks the scenery divider that the outside mainline runs behind. I think Bruce captured it rather well.

Roughing in the backdrop to the farm

Obviously, Bruce's visit inspired me to continue on the scenery, doing the Sculptamold last night. I will wait for the next visit before we actually start painting the walls but in the meantime, I hope to have the rock castings stained and some of the surrounding scenery more complete, like the tunnel behind the trestle bridge. Also, I started thinking about some more permanent structures that I need - the ranch house and the industrial building that will mask the left end of the East McKeesport scenery block. Also, I have some ideas for making the whole Uniontown scene more complete. Maybe I will have some time to work on that this weekend?

Happy New Year

Well, the new year has started off well for me...the trains are running again! They were completely dead when we had the family over for Thanksgiving and it looked like there was a broken connection somewhere in the layout wiring. I run a single block with multiple feeders to the rails so I assumed either the connection from the Digitrax DB-150 to the layout was bad, or worse, the DV-150 was blown. Ouch. I did not want to trace the wiring (simple though it is) and put it off until last Sunday when I decided it was time to bite the bullet and fix the darn thing.
I tried a new set of jumper cables from the DB-150 directly to the train and no engine lights, nothing moved. I decided to dispatch all the locomotives then reaquire just one. It ran! Reconnecting to the wiring to the layout and it conitnued running! Sweet! I tested a couple more locomotives and everything worked fine. So what was the root problem? No idea, but reminded me that I tend to solve problems by starting with the most unlikely, difficult solution and work backwards to the easier ones.
Yeah, need to work on that.
With the cooler weather affecting the train room (unheated room off the garage, with a space heater to  take the chill off) I probably won't be tackling any major projects over the next 3 months. Still, it would be nice to finish the Irwin tower, wiring some of the interior lighting I have started in the tower and GGS Cabinets, finish sculpting the hillside between Herminie and East McKeesport, and finish some of the buildings in East McKeesport. The hand-painted backdrop behind the hillside is waiting for my creative aristist, Bruce, who convinced me we need to try that approach.
I'll need him onsite and a beer in hand before that happens!

How do you determine the next project?

Asked no one....ever. But I am going to answer it anyway. It's my blog!
There are several triggers that can happen - I find something at a train show or hobby shop that fits an idea, I have a number of car kits or structures waiting to be built, or I get an idea from someone else in a magazine or one of the Facebook groups. Usually, I just have a pile growing on the desk and I decided its time to clear the desk. Here's what the desk looked like last weekend.

My work desk is usually cluttered.

In the photo, you can see I am adding pins to some figures for mounting on the layout and I recently added a light inside the Irwin Tower and am adding the wood trim on the outside. What you don't see is the other projects around the cutting board.

• Isaly's roof needing repairs
• 6 freight cars needing tune up (plus 4 more on the RIP track)
• fence for the barnyard
• additional parts for the barn
• additional parts for 4 structures
• jib crane for Irwin Yard
• 3 pick up kits needed paint and assembly
• papers and notes on waybill and car card (WB&CC) operations
• N scale building for the corning next to East McKeesport
• 6 terminal strips I pre-wired for structure lighting
• collection of scene details that need paint and some assembly - milk cartons, skids, sacks, and figures 

And these are just the ACTIVE projects! Almost all of the structures need additional details, interiors, and lights (some need replaced since they are cardboard mockups). Ballast needs touched up in areas, backgrounds need painted (as soon as Bruce is available!). There are trees to plant and the corner scene with hills and a stream are patiently waiting.

So....sometimes its easy to come to the train room and do a little work on a project. Sometimes, it can be daunting. I must be making progress, though, since my brother-in-law, Pat was over recently and walked through the train room saying, "Are you done building this now?"

October Update

Things have been going rather slow, as you can tell from the few posts I've made to the blog over the summer and early fall. Trains are still running well, even when it's a couple of weeks between operating them. That's encouraging. A couple of weeks ago, I drove to Pittsburgh to visit my father and sister, stopping at T & K Hobby on the way home. I did not really have much of a shopping list but just wanted to browse a bit. I found the elusive wire I need for running a separate circuit for building lights. Every where else I looked, it was black or red, but now Iblue and yellow so I can easily trace and isolate issues. I picked up some farm animals for the barn scene and an N scale wood building for the corner between Herminie and East McKeesport, which hopefully will add to the illusion of distance.
But the bug find was a background mural to place behind the buildings in East McKeesport. Although a little taller than the scene block, it really adds depth to the scene.

New background for East McKeesport

Over the weekend, I ordered additional supplies from Model Train Stuff including terminal strips for the under layout building lights wiring and several scene details - figures, wood crates, and an HO scale fence for around the barn scene. I also installed the first building light in the Irwin Tower which is important to me because  there is so much interior detail. I still need to add the trim, porch, steps and utility building to finish this kit before installing them on the layout.

Irwin Tower is the first lighted building

Both Bruce and I have been doing a lot of traveling for work and my high schoolers busy schedule have prevented us getting together lately. I have a list though of things to work on until we manage a free weekend.

• Finish the rough in hills in the Herminie / East McKeesport corner
• Carve in the Youghogeny Creek in the same corner. 
• Install the wiring bus for the building lights
• Add lights to G.G.S. Cabinets and the barn 
• Finish the barn scene with bushes, trees, fence and figures
• Finish the brick streets in Uniontown
• Finish the Irwin Tower structures
• Clear the RIP track
• Build the collection of freight car kits I have

Plenty to keep me busy for a little while at least.

That crazy Bruce!

It's been a crazy summer and while I've had more time that usual to work on the train, I've been putting things off. Recently, Bruce and I exchanged some emails and set "a train play date" as Lisa calls them and I suddenly had some motivation - I mean he can't come over and see NO progress, right?
I managed to get enough of the new barn built to place it on the layout and I put in a new fence between Isaly's and the East Yard and glued down some brick roads and sidewalks in Uniontown. That, plus the base I built for LAS Fabrics would have to do.

Isly's Deli with a border fence, brick road and sidewalk

It's always great catching up with Bruce and we talked about our summer, upcoming travels and then focused on the layout. Like the email exchange, it was inspiring getting his perspective and thoughts on what we could do for some of the scenes and I was pleased that the trains ran fairly smoothly while we were talking.
Then he dropped the bomb.

Purchased backdrop for Herminie

We were discussing backdrops and I like the one I purchased for Uniontown. I talked about what I wanted to find for behind the mine in Hermine, a backdrop for the city scene in East McKeesport, and the corner of the layout between the two.

Same backdrop in the corner

"What do you think about painting a backdrop?" he innocently suggested.
I may have sputtered the beer I was sipping, not sure. My artistic skills are limited to black and white...as in I think I can cover a white space with black paint. But, he talked me into it. We parted with him planning to pull the 1947 MR article that he thinks is the best How To on the topic and me focused on pulling sample photos from my PRR books for inspiration.
This should be interesting!

Next!

Sometimes, the nice weather, chance to go camping and kids activities conspire to suck the motivation right out of me. I've visited the train room a few times but have not been motivated to do much other than run a couple of trains around the track. I have several activities planned but they generally fall in one of two categories.

Intimidating

These are the plans that either stretch my skills or represent a "no turning back" situation.

• Hills between tunnel and East McKeesport
• Creek and pond
• Mounting the Uniontown backdrop

Backdrop looks good in Uniontown but scared to mount it

Lazy

These are the tasks that are not particularly hard, I am just too lazy to work on them.

• Clearing the RIP track which includes the 4 or 5 cars that didn't fit
• Cleaning up the ballast around the layout
• A new base for LAS Fabrics so cars fit on the siding
• Ground cover in East McKeesport
• Brick roads in Uniontown
• Finish the Irwin tower including interior lighting
• Wire the programming track switch
• Better storage for cars and locos not on the layout