Newspaper Interview

After returning from Hatteras for Thanksgiving, I was asked to do an article for the local newspaper. I arranged an interview with writer Bruce Wehrle and photographer Donnie Roberts. After several anxious days, it finally ran in the Christmas Day edition.

What a Christmas surprise to open the morning edition and see your story, not only front page but continuing for a whole second page as well.

The pictures were very good and showed more of a variety of subjects that I would have every thought about.

The Dispatch article is located here.

The pictures for the article are here.

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.