Misc. Scenery

Okay, last post and I'll be all caught up. After finishing the High Point expansion (well almost finished), I moved on to some other scenery. There were 2 areas that I had big plans for : Landis and Reidsville. Both were to be a city block full of downtown buildings. However, my will to make said buildings has crumbled. It just seems like I never am in the mood for building buildings.

So, I planted a number of house kits and prefabs I had to turn the cityscapes into neighborhoods. Sorry maybe next time.

Expanding NS High Point Yard

Immediately after the 03/05 session, i started tearing apart the NS High Point Yard. It was obvious that the yard was just too small to be functional. I had to sacrifice the High Point Depot, but I'd rather make it workable than just a nice static display.

You can see in the first picture the left end of the old ladder has been removed and the start of the depot.

I extended all the yard tracks and had to think about how the 2 trains that would be staged there could access the lead to the M-Line. that disappears to the left rear of the second pic. I extended the old Engine track to what will become Thomas Bus. I don't think they actually get deliveries by train, but what the heck.

I didn't see any use in rejoining the mainline here and have the "too-short" Jamestown siding 3 feet away, so I killed the proverbial two birds by joining the yard track to the Jamestown siding to make a 12' long Industrial siding.

It should hold any train on the layout if needed. I still have room for the actual High Point Depot platform and can maybe add the retaining walls to give it more of the Depot feel.

New Scenery

While I was working on the Beltway extension, I added a farmhouse and scenery to the curve between Bowers and Lake.

Buildings At Speed Rail Industrial

I know, I know, months between posts is not exactly an up-to-date blog. Have spent a good part of 3 months down with my back. Was diagnosed with 3, yes 3, herniated discs in my lower back (in addition to the one in my neck).

I did manage to get some scenery and buildings done around Speed Rail. One represents Airgas and the other Southeastern Packaging.

Maybelle Scenery

I've been working on the scenery around the old Maybelle Bulk Transfer plant on South main Street in Lexington. I know they do some work with HFCS which is affiliated with Corn Products in Winston Salem. HFCS stands for High Fructose Corn Syrup, used in colas and other products as sweeteners.

North End Of Linwood Yard

I worked on the northern end of Linwood for a couple of days adding a few scene breaks in the form of small hills. One, to break the siding for Kimberly-Clark, the other to separate the yard tracks from the mainlines.

This section is in the middle of the winter and makes it hard to "hide" things like seams and horizons and such. Compounding that is the fact that the mainlines pass just 2 inches from the skyboard leaving little room for anything.

As a last thought, I dabbed on a dirty brown wash behind the "trees" to try and hide the horizon. Wish I had done a bit more. I wanted to cover with Supertrees, but there just wasn't enough room. I had to rely on the Cinnamon scented decorative broom to do the job. Mmmmm Cinnamon.......

HPT&D Scenery

Added a small neighborhood to the HPT&D (High Point, Thomasville and Denton) level.Had to take a couple of pictures to see what it looked like up close.

Snow Scene On The Winter Side

As a train travels through the CCSB, it travels through time as well as space. All 4 seasons are represented. Winter was the hardest to do as you can't hide things behind trees and ground cover.

Just like Disneyworld, it's all about the illusion.

Here's a couple of picture of a section I did with some snow. Being as we haven't had a really good snowfall in years, I kept it real with just a dusting.

Scenery Around Linwood Yard

After we returned from Hatteras at Thanksgiving, I spent some time cleaning up for an appointment for a newspaper article.

I had also been working on scenery north of Kannapolis thru Salisbury, but got stopped when I realized I couldn't picture the Innes Street to Salisbury Depot in my mind. I skipped around Salisbury and also bypassed Spencer since I don't have the Roundhouse ready.

So, that put me across the river at the entrance to the Linwood Yard. The side from north of the Yadkin to Lexington is to be a winter scheme. I added some small ground effects (couldn't do much as this is all on plywood, not splines) and added the winter trees. Here, I used the Super Trees bare but sprayed light brown and the twigs from the Cinnamon decorative broom I had saved.

I had toyed with the notion of trying snow, but was really reluctant as I have heard quite a few horror stories. I masked off the track and ballast and sprayed a heavy coat of 4x Hair Spray on all the trees and ground.

I sprinkled on Woodland Scenics Snow very lightly. Here in Central NC, our snows have been rather sparse the last couple of years. I was immediately impressed with the look and took a couple of pictres and then moved along with more snow.

For now, I am keeping it off the track and right of way hoping to keep it out of the engine motors and mechanisms, With the light ballast, it is not as noticeable as I thought.

Kannapolis

Moving north from Speed Rail Industrial are the stations Kannapolis and North Kannapolis. Somewhere in there is Glass, but it's not on the NS track plan I have.

The first picture is from around N. Kannapolis, looking south towards Speed Rail. Just another wooded area to provide the scenic break between locations so as to get a feel of distance. That was a lesson I learned on my first "layout". It was more like a test bench for anything and everything.

I tried creeks, mountains, overpasses, underpasses, buildings, dirt roads, asphalt roads.... whatever to see what I could make and what to stay away from on the one that counted.

The second picture is the same area as the first, but taken from the right side and just as I put down the first layer of groundcover. I use dried basil and oregano. Yep, that's right. Smells good too. I get the plastic shaker bottles 2 for a dollar and this pic is about 75 cents worth.

I am getting fairly happy with the fall colors. I have finally learned to tone them down and mix in a lot of green with a little red and less yellow.

I've set a couple of houses in place, but have got to go back and level and set them into the grass. The bottom picture is looking north with the Kannapolis station sign to the right. You can see how much the houses need to be leveled here.

Speedrail Industrial

Speedrail Industrial is a business park located off Hwy 49 north of Charlotte. I plan to model 4 industries there. To the left is the beginnings of laying the trackwork last week. Below are actual pics of the 4 industries and what I have so far.

Foils, Inc - A metal recycler which is actually just north of the industrial park. Served by a single siding running thru the property.

The next business inside the park is Mallard Creek (Chemicals I think). Just a small pumping station manned by camera surveillance.

Next in the park is an Gas Company, but I don't have my notes with me, and the name won't come to me. They always say the mind is first to go. Anyway, the gas company will be located in the rear of this picture.

The track leading off in the foreground is Foils.

Southeastern Packaging is a rather large facility, actually located on 2 different sidings. This must be a warehouse of sorts. The tracks disappear under the building roof so that they can be unloaded out of the weather.

Station Signs

During the first Ops Session, John Barnett suggested that I make station signs in the prototypical Southern Green. I had made a highway sign with an online program called SignMaker located here.

I went back there and figured out how to make a simple name sign without all the highway markings, printed them and mounted on some plastic. There are quite a bit bigger than scale size, but I made them for the benefit of operators.

One of the goals I had building the layout was to minimize the amount of labeling on the fascia so as to keep the operators' focus on the layout. This should help in that regards.

Between High Point and Thomasville

This is a small area between the High Point Yard and Thomasville. Just opposite of it is Southern Film .

The bank rises a bit more than the prototype and there's actually an illegal garbage dump to the left. I may try to add it in later.

Jamestown Scenery

I continue to work on the upper NS level. Starting with the Danville staging
yard, thru Reidsville and on to Jamestown. There are a couple of industries served there, one being Univar and the other Homeland Container. There's also a siding probably a team or house track.

I have been putting in what scenery I could leaving room for the buildings which will have to wait until I can kitbash or scratchbuild them.

So that operators can have clear access to the turnouts and sidings for cars, I've had to make the aisle side scenery pretty sparse. For the most part, it is just grassy areas. The static grass seems to hold up well to resting arms, and objects laid on it. I just have to keep undulating the ground so it doesn't appear to be just flat.

Reidsville Scenery

Have done a little work so far this week. This is the view coming up out of Danville staging thru Edna Signal by Reidsville.

The back side of the street will be a city block. The entire level will be fall scenery. It helps to be able to ride around now and see the colors. Harder to imagine fall colors in March.

Looking south from Edna, the woods separating Reidsville from Jamestown. That looks like 20 miles, right?


I've went back and updated the train tags with the new symbols and added EOT tags.

Scenery In the Yards

With all the visitors out of the way, I went back to scenery. I pulled all the trains out of the yards (in part to test a short problem which turned out to be a defective PM42) and ballasted both yards. I also added a few background trees to Charlotte Yard, but couldn't do much as there just wasn't any room.

I was able to do more with Danville Yard and incorporated two pieces I had salvaged from my old layout. They don't fit perfectly into the new scenery, but I wanted a bit of the old with the new.

Workin' The WSS In The Heat

With record-breaking temps the last 2 weeks, I haven't been able to do a lot on the layout. By the time the AC units get it cool, it's almost time to quit for the night. What little I did was to continue on the WSS/HPT&D island. I am trying to get as much scenicked as possible so I can put on the lower valance. The top level is pretty much done as far as wooded areas, and I just have to come back and add in the industry buildings as I get them done.

I am not really looking forward to all the scratchbuilt buildings I have to do, mainly because it's not my strongest suit. I guess I can look at it as a chance to improve.......yeah right. For today's Show & Tell, I have a couple of areas on the WSS. First, the interchange with the NS in downtown Lexington. My version ended up in a corner as the track passes thru the island wall, thus the curve right.

South of the interchange the WSS crosses I-85. I still have work to do here including striping the southbound lane. This is another spot where I had to try out the Grassinator.

Down the road from I-85 is a siding leading into the PPG plant. Cut banks line both side of the tracks here.

The Grassinator!

Thanks to Ztrains.com, I have built a Grassinator (Plans are Here). What is it? What does it do? Several different manufacturers make static grass flock, small filaments that when a static charge is applied, stand on end to resemble grasses (see a how-to video here). Noch makes a static applicator, but costs around $150. Ztrains has plans for one for under $30. I just followed the instructions there and now have my own Grassinator.

The first time I tried it, there was a problem. I shook the applicator, but little of the flock fell out. I had tried to shortcut and used the wire from an old tea strainer instead of buying a piece of screen wire. I finally gave in and bought the wire and found it to work as it should.

The first areas I tried it on are pictured to the right. This was with a Medium Green flocking. I later went back and overseeded with a darker green, although the Medium is probably better for field grass.