More roadwork in Ruston

Had an extra day this weekend to myself.

I worked on the layout a bit but didn't make a ton of progress.

Got the shoulders and the edges of the highway and the country road filled in with ballast so as to make a transition.

Also got the breakaway bases for the signals mounted and then built up a couple of small mounds for them.

Once the glue was dried, I covered everything in grout and got it all glued down.

Then managed to get a base of scenery in place.

Finally I ran a train through it.

Louisiana DOTD

I gotta say them boys did a fine job and was quick.

After getting the cork fit and glued in place around the depot and parking lot I went back upstairs to work  on some other items.  About four hours later I went back down to see how it turned out.  Gotta say I was surprised at what I found.  I think I actually found another reason why layouts are considered never finished.

After getting it glued in place I found several things with some weight to help keep it flat while the glue dried.  I used a bag of birdshot and a couple of new bottles of 91% alcohol.  Everything had more than enough weight to keep the cork flat and that worked great.

But for some reason, both new bottles of alcohol decided to leak a little bit while laying on their sides, one on the cork the other was right over my new highway!

First, here's the new cork glued in place.

I didn't get a pic of the actual puddle, but I did get one of the aftermath and the repairs.

The first pic was after wiping most of the gunk off the surface.  It took everything off except the auto primer that I used for a base coat: acrylic paint, pan pastels, Dullcote and the Tru-Color paint I used on the lines.  First thought was to try and weather it and blend it back in, but quickly decided to repaint it and try to make it look like a newer concrete repair.

Cleaned and feathered the edges

Masked it off and painted it with a lighter color.

I followed the same method that I did originally, painted it, painted the stripes, added tar lines around the edges,  then weathered it slightly for a look of a little use.  

Overall I think it turned out ok and now the road kind of has a backstory to go with it.

Now I can proceed with the work of getting the crossing signals installed.

    

Roadwork in Ruston

I've been working in Ruston a bit more trying to finish up the highway crossing.  I have the Showcase Miniatures Model 10 grade crossing signals pretty much built.  I decided to raise them up so that they are level with the road, I did this by gluing down some cork. 

I also picked up some of their Breakaway Bases.  I still need to create the holes to insert the lower sections of the bases into.

After doing that I decided that the depot would also benefit by being level with the track.  Thinking more about it, I thought it might also be a good idea to glue down a much larger piece of cork so that the road coming off the highway and the parking lot would all match up better with the highway and depot.

So I dug out a section of cork and got it trimmed to fit the area and got it glued.  I think this will also allow me to easier define the road and parking lot around the depot and make the area level in front of the spur where the hoppers will be spotted to unload.

A train is a coming...

so one needs lights and bell.

A few months ago Showcase Miniatures released a Model 10 crossing signal in N scale.  I had to have a few thinking this would be an awesome addition to the layout?  After getting the highway made and installed, I decided it was time to test my sanity.

These kits are fantastic.  They come with everything you need along with a few options for signs, such as the number tracks and different length crossing arms.  They even include a preprinted paper with signs and colored arms that you can cut out and apply to the proper items.

They are of course, a little tedious to assemble but frankly, quite easy.  This is the first time for me assembling something like this and I didn't have much trouble.  That said I didn't make it through the first one without loosing one small part.

Once assembled, I got it painted and then applied the paper cutouts for the signs.

I also had dreams of making them lit, well let's just say I'm still on the fence about that.  I did manage to drill out the light cases so as to thread the wires through them, I picked up some Red 402 LED's and I was talking to a buddy who loves to make electronic controllers.  So if I don't lose my mind before I'm finished, I should have these working as well.  Which will be a first on my layout.

I opted not to  use the crossarms for this location, the line does not see a lot of trains, so this should work.

Weathered Highway

After getting the crossing stencils and STOP lines applied with an airbrush, it was time to add some weathering.

For the overall weathering I went back to my trusted weathering medium: Pan Pastels.  I used a light gray to help fade the stripping a bit.  For the tread paths I used a bit darker gray and mixed it with the light gray and worked them in with a soft brush to keep them from becoming too heavy.  

Along the outer edges of the highway I used a light brown pastel to give it a dusty look from the dirt shoulder.

The oil spots near the crossings were made with a Soil Wash from Rail Center by MIG.  I used a small stiff brush, loaded it with the wash and shook most of it off.  Then I took a dental pick to gently pull back the bristles and let them "Flick" some of the wash onto the surface.  The cracks/tar lines were made using a fine tipped calligrapher’s pin, dipped in black India ink.   

Then it all received a coat of  Dullcote to seal in everything place.  

Now I can continue with the base scenery. 

Railroad crossing stencil

I wanted to get a crossing stencil on the new highway and I asked around.  I found one of the brass S&S models from a friend on a forum that I frequent and also inquired about having one printed, which a friend from our forum did happily make for me.

Once I got them in my hand, the first thing I tried was to use by stipple painting with them.  However the results were less than stellar.  I wanted to try applying them by airbrush but was held back by the worry of not being able to the clean the over spray off the stencil since I like using solvent based paints, Tru-Color to be exact. I was worried that the cleaning solvent would melt the prints.

This afternoon I found a little time to give it a go and it worked like champ!  I was even able to remove the over spray from the printed stencil using lacquer thinner.  From what I could tell, it did not damage the print.  Double bonus.

After removing the stencil I used an ultra fine brush and touched up the lines from the stencil, I must say I'm happy with the way these turned out. 

I did not add the white lines in front of or behind the stencil.  After looking at a lot of the crossings on Google maps, I found quite a few different designs from crossings along the old line.  Now I know UP is running portions of this line and I figured they may have updated some of them to current standards.  

But I did notice that some had lines, some only one line, while others didn't even have stencils on the road at all.  One of them even had the two "R's" in front of the "X" stencil, which I had never seen before.  Depending on how ambitious I feel I may go back and paint them.  I will probably, at least,  paint a white line that's even with crossing gates next to the tracks when I get them installed.

  

Highway striping

I continue to bounce back and forth between projects.  I got the building flats and played with them as I continued painting the styrene highway.  I repainted the highway several times before I found a color to my liking.  Next up was to add the stripping to the highway.

I thought about using vinyl tape but thought they may wind up looking too fresh for what I wanted so I decided to paint them instead.  Recently someone on a forum used masking tape and "painted" the lines with Pan Pastels, which looked real good, but I know from experience that they can fade away pretty good when overshot with Dullcote to lock them in place.

I decided to use paint and stipple it on so it would be a solid line of yellow and white.  After doing a little research to figure out the proper widths of the lines, I used some Tamiya 1mm tape to separate the two middle yellow lines and 6mm to mask the outer edges of them.

For the outer white lines I used a strip 2mm to space them away from the pavement edges.  Then again I used a strip of 6mm for the inner edge.  I just eyeballed the widths.

I used some White and Yellow Tru-Color paint that looked close to the proper colors, I figured by the time I got around to weathering the highway they would blend nicely.

As for a "Crossing" stencil on the highway surface, I'm still playing around that.  I acquired an old S&S models brass stencil and a friend actually 3d printed me a stencil.

Unfortunately I'm having issues with using the stencils.  I have tried several times painting them with brushes and different viscosities of acrylic  paint, but so far the paint seems to either leak out from the stencil or if I happen to barely move it, it spreads the paint.   I even tried to tape it in place.

I let it dry once and when I pulled up the stencil, some of the paint came with it.  I may try spraying with my airbrush yet.  In the meantime I looked for some decals and came up empty handed, with the exception of some vinyl transfers.  So I ordered a set to see how they'll work.

The Yard backdrop

The one rule about my backdrop is that I don't want it more detailed than the layout, I don't want it to draw your eyes from the layout.

Right now the backdrop is same color blue as the rest of the layout and in time I'll paint it with trees and clouds to match the rest of the backdrop throughout the layout, but I plan to add some buildings to it.  I had always planned to make some 3D flats by cutting up some models, which I still may do?

Several years ago I ran across a seller on eBay called Trackside Flats.  This seller took images of actual buildings and cleaned them up to make them look like generic buildings, these are then glued to 1/4" foam board so you can attached them to your backdrops to create an urban scene.

I thought these, combined with painted trees, hills and clouds might be the answer I've been looking for?

So I ordered two of his flats from his website, one of the shortest and one of his tallest flats to see if they'd get me somewhat of what I was thinking of.

They may not be perfect, but they do add a lot of depth to an otherwise flat scene.  My thought is to not have them all side by side,  but have a group of 2-4 buildings sitting next to one another and then leave some space where you can see trees and hills between them.

Having a solid run of buildings across the entire 16' of backdrop would, I think, look to be too much?