High Greens at Fordyce

The last post I got out and tested the signal for the ripped out crossing between Fordyce and Haskell.  I worked all week getting them prepped for installation and finished them up last night.

As the story goes on my layout, there was a short line that crossed the Rock near Fordyce.  It ran through Haskell and on the west.  The short line shut down and Gavilon Fertilizer swayed the Rock to add a connection at Haskell so they could still rely on rail service.

After making this happen, the Rock tore out the crossing near Fordyce, but left the signals in place for now, leaving them green for their mainline and red for the short line.  As I was told, they would need to request permission to completely remove the signals from the FRA.  The request is pending... 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this section of the layout, I've taken some pics to help you follow along.

Here's the track plan for that area.  There are two green dots where the signals are located on the Rock and a red dot where the one stands on the defunct short line.

The following images show an overview of the locations, followed by shots of the signals.

Looking North from Fordyce.  The building in the upper left hand is Gavilon in Haskell.  The signal is next to the loco.

Looking down the short line, the removed crossing can be seen in the middle near the backdrop.

Looking South from Haskell.  You can see both signals, the green on the left behind Gavilon's building and the red to the right of the unloading shed.

The south signal

The North signal

The Short line signal

Signals at Fordyce

In 2019 I ordered some signals from CSS (Custom Signal Systems) out of Utah.  There is a spot near Fordyce (on my layout) where a fictional short line crossed the Rock Island, just to the north of where the current Whitewater bridge is standing today. 

In my world, the short line is now abandoned, the Rock Island tore out the diamond, but they left the signals intact and lit.  The signals will have a constant GREEN signal displaying for the Rock Island and RED for the short line.  Part of the short line is now operated by the Rock Island with a connection at Haskell, AR.

This is one of the small projects that I want to get done before October.

Op Session: Jan 25th, 2025 time lapse

After getting the basement and layout cleaned up I decided to hold another session, one it was time and two I wanted to make sure things were working properly.

One of my colleagues from work wanted a closer look into our mad little world of model railroading so I invited him over to give him a first hand look.  He set up his phone and took a time lapse video of the first half of the session.

I think it turned out pretty good, and I think I may do this again for the next session?

The Ruston Depot

As usual, my layout is not modeled exactly after the prototype, but Ruston had a brick depot, which I think was more of a freight house?  

So I wanted to try and find one that was close and decided upon the Walther's Santa Fe brick depot. 

The first thing I did was to remove the circle on the end peaks and the semi circles on both bays.  After cutting them off I then glued on some pieces of styrene to cap them off and then left off the end sections of the roof that overhung the end windows.  Not perfect, but close enough for this modeler.

Then I painted the brick to somewhat match the original depot/freight house, but it came out a touch lighter than I had planned, but I'm hoping I can offset that when I get around to weathering it.

When it came time to plant it, I asked a friend what he might suggest?  He told me to add a strip of styrene around the brick platform then sit right on the parking lot and finish it off with weeds.  Instead of concrete, I chose a wooden border made from ties.  So I took some time and cut up and stained a batch of ties from Balsa wood and glued them in place and now I have a way to reposition it when I have to take it up to weather it.  Plus I have a sensor inside the depot for the right side of the crossing.

Once I get some signage applied and some details placed around it,  I think it will be plausible or passable?

I've also got some Showcase Miniatures Train Order boards that I can add as well, if I can remember where I stashed them.

The bog finale

I started the bog back in October 2024 and tonight I think I'm going to stick a fork in it (hopefully I won't drain it).  The final thing I added to it was some algae around the edges and a few lily pads. 

I wound up giving the bog a second pour using the Liquitex Pouring Medium, but this time I added a few more drops of Vallejo Burnt Umber to help offset some of the lighter areas.  For the most it worked.  But you will notice differences in colors from post to the next.  This is due mainly to lighting and camera/image editing.  In person it does have a slight orangish look like coffee, but it's hard to get that to show correctly with the camera.

The algae I'm happy with.  I took some fine ground foam of three different shades of greens and put a pinch in a very fine strainer and rubbed it till it fell through the strainer.  This gave me a much finer ground foam.  I used the pouring medium to glue the algae in place, it took a bit of practice to keep it from being overwhelming and to get the right colors.  While it's not perfect, I'm happy with the outcome.  As for the lily pads, I'm not 100% happy, but they'll work.

Also if you plan to go fishing or wading in the bog, do be mindful of the local gators!

If there is anything I need to add to the bog it will be around the cabin and the boat dock.  I need to build a small, old dock,  the one I got from Woodland Scenics: Family Fishing pack, just looks cheap.  I think I'll fabricate one that'll look much better?

The bog

For the last couple of months I have been working on the bog, this past weekend I finally got to the point where I felt I could finally make the first pour.

I finally settled on using the Liquitex Pouring Medium and I added 3 drops of Vallejo Burnt Umber to 2ozs of the pouring medium, just enough to give it a slight murkiness.  It took three 2oz cups to fill it all in.  Although I knew it would probably take a second pour, since this stuff reduces in thickness as it dries.

I had to coax it around the edges, weeds and trees, but it flowed in nice and smooth.  Another bonus of this stuff, as Boomer mentioned, it does not creep.  Having said that, as I said, when it dries it reduces in thickness so it does have the appearance of creeping up the banks and trees.  Hopefully the second pour will not shrink as much or be as noticeable.  If it does, I do have a backup plan.

The first image was taken within minutes of making the original pour, it does have a milky appearance, but it starts to dry fairly quickly and begins to clear up as well.

The following three images were taken a couple of days later, it still took another couple of days to fully cure.

I still have some minor details to add to the water and surrounding areas, but so far so good, I'm happy with it so far.  Time will tell.

  

Water pour tests

When I first contemplated building my bog, I wondered what I should use for the water?

When I watched the video by Grant Eastman when he made his bog on  his N scale SAR layout, he used Woodland Scenics Realistic Water with good results.  So I thought why not?  It's easier than a 2 part epoxy.  In fact I had used it on my Whitewater Creek  about a year ago and had good results with it.  

However, not long ago there was a modeler on TrainBoard who used it on his river and it was a complete fail!  After pouring, two things happened.  At some point he sat a small glass jar on it and it actually left an impression of the jar on the surface.  The next thing he noticed  there were large bubbles forming in his river.

After doing some research, he found out why?

The realistic water does NOT dry solidly and you are not suppose to pour it over non-acrylic paint or PVA glues like Elmer's.  I did notice that in my Whitewater Creek a few months later, there were some tiny bubbles forming around the reeds that I glued in place using Mod Podge.  But they are not as bad as what he encountered.  His were LARGE.

So now I had two things to think about before pouring the water in the bog.  

1) What should I use for the water?

2) What should I use to glue my dead trees to the bog floor?

Well for the water, I remembered watching Boomer when he made his river scene and a drainage ditch.  Both turned out very nice.  He uses a lot of artist supplies for his modeling.  For his river, he used a mix of Golden soft gel semi-gloss mixed GAC 500 (it's very glossy when dried).  The soft gel was thick so it would hold its shape for ripples, but he mixed GAC 500 to thin it just a bit, then spread it out and used a sponge with a dabbing motion to create the ripples.  Another thing about GAC 500, it doesn't creep like most resins tend to do.

For the drainage ditch, he used straight GAC 500 pouring it with several thin layers of no more than 1/4".

Great!  This sounds like a winner, I'll give it a try.

Now for gluing the trees to the bog?  Not using the WS realistic water, I didn't have to worry about the bubbles.  But keeping this in mind, I still didn't want to use a PVA glue, what about acrylic caulking?  I tried it but it took too long to dry?

Someone told me to use CA with an accelerant.  That would work, but I didn't want to get anything sprayed on the painted bog floor that might react? 

Then a friend told me to try some UV Resin glue, it's fast, strong and dries quickly with a shot of UV light.  It also dries completely clear.  I've used this stuff to add LEDs for my loco heads lights and it works awesome.  So with this info and material on hand it was time to do a test.

I grabbed a small plastic lid, glued some sticks and a couple of weed tufts to the bottom with the UV Resin, it was fast and clear!  While it's not a permanent glue, it would hold stuff in place until the GAC 500 was poured and dried.

I poured it to about 1/8" and it did self level, but I had to coax into the weeds and up to the trees, no big deal.  Then I let it dry.  It went down solid white and started to turn clear once it started drying the next day.

After three days, it was still slightly milky in some areas.  It's been 6 days now and it's still showing some milkiness.  But the good news is, the UV Resin is not releasing any bubbles.  It also didn't creep, although it looks like it did because it shrunk thinner.

Wondering how long GAC 500 takes to fully cure, I asked Boomer a question via his YT channel and he replied it could take a bit and that maybe I should try Liquitex gloss pouring  medium.  He said it was much more forgiving.  OK, I'll give it a shot.  I went to Amazon and ordered a bottle of it.

Last night I repeated the same experiment with another shallow plastic lid, glued the trees and weed tufts down with UV Resin and poured some of Liquitex gloss pouring medium as I had with the GAC 500.

First thing I noticed was it was not 100% white in color but actually semi translucent.  It was a bit thicker, but not much (and found out you can thin it a bit if needed).  It did not creep, and I had to coax it into the weeds and around the trees.  I walked away.

Tonight I took a peek and it was dry and 98% clear, with only a very small amount around the edges and in some of the weeds where it was thicker.  Cool!  The other thing I noticed is that it did shrink just like the GAC 500.  But with no ill effects that I could see, it just got thinner.  

So I grabbed the Liquitex and made another pour over top, filling it to the rim again and walked away for the night.  We'll see how it turns out tomorrow... 

 

Dead trees and Homer

I recently got some dead trees and stumps planted in the bog.  

Next up on the "To Do" list is getting the water poured in the bog.  For this I plan to use some GAC 500 for the water as suggested by Boomer.

I did a test to see how well the GAC 500 pours around the stuff that will be in the bog such as trees and weeds.  It self levels pretty good and doesn't seem to creep like most resins would, I found that it has to be coaxed into some of the smaller details. It may take awhile to dry completely, but so far it looks promising.

After getting the signals installed, one of the LED's didn't want to cooperate, so I covered it by sending Homer out to have a look see and get it replaced.  

The Showcase Miniatures crossing signals are a very nice kit and would recommend them highly.