nycjeff layout

[Judge]

Jeff - I am waiting for someone to model the Florida East Coast Railroad (FEC)  It runs from Jacksonville to Miami along the East Coast of Florida.  It is a straight shot with very few curves and no grades.  It is slightly above sea level.  Years ago, I was assigned as the probate judge in Brevard County and my courthouse was next to the FEC tracks.  Trains came by regularly and my courtroom had an excellent view.  No passenger trains on the FEC.  No union labor.  But that is another story.  The model RR layout could be twenty feet long and a foot wide.

[nycjeff]

Continuing on...



As we continue our tour of my upper level, after passing the interchange scene we come into the lake scene at the upper right corner of the track plan.



A drone view of the corner scene. After the interchange, trains go through a small wooded area with a couple of Super trees and onto a super elevated curve. Since the shelf and therefore the track is flat I wanted to give the corner some elevation change so I added a wooded hillside. The hillside is stacked foam pieces painted with a brown paint and then various ground cover materials and trees. There are even a couple of HO deer on the hill. On the other side of the track is the lake, here I painted the plywood shelf blue and added a couple of layers of Mod Podge. This gives the corner a nice top to bottom flow with the trains running through the middle.



A closer look at the corner curve with the hillside and the lake on both sides of the track.



I carved some open spaces into the foam hillside and inserted some real rocks and then blended the scenery around them. The "boulders" along the lakeshore are pea gravel from my front yard with some sifted dirt and ground cover mixed in.



The first view of the lake has a couple of small structures, first a scratch-built wood dock and then a FOS Gas and Bait kit that I did a build thread on in the Kit building section of the forum under Two small FOS builds. The super tree is one of the ones I had success with, the motorboat came with the FOS kit and the canoes were from a kit that I can't remember the name of. The streetlights are from Walthers.



A closer look at the FOS kit. I really like the small FOS kits, they have so much character packed into them. More in a minute

[nycjeff]

Here is a track level view from behind the gas and bait building heading into the curve.



A drone view of the other side of the lake scene corner.



There are a couple of small structures at this end of the lake, the small house is scratch-built and the signal bridge is either Plasticville or LifeLike.



A closer look at the small scratch-built house. This was one of my first scratch builds and I had fun with it and it encouraged me to do more.



The track splits here so I thought that it called for a small elevated watchmans shanty, it's from Atlas.



After rounding the corner, trains go through my oil loading scene. There are quite a few oil and natural gas wells in central Ohio. We had one on an adjacent property of our family cabin and we got free natural gas for the place as a result of agreeing to let them drill the well. About once a week a tank truck would come and empty the tank next to the well and take it to an oil facility, so the oil loading scene is appropriate for my layout. The shelf going down the right side of the track plan is 18 inches wide, this gave me some space for multiple tracks. The freight mainline is on the right and the left hand track goes past a passenger station that is coming up. The two center tracks are for the oil loading scene and some other industrial areas coming up. That's it for now, more later.

[nycjeff]

Continuing on...



The track near the front edge of the shelf presented a problem when it came to ballasting. The edge of the cork roadbed beneath the track is only about 3/4 inch from the edge of the shelf as shown in the picture. The problem was how to ballast the track without most of the material falling off the edge of the shelf.



The solution that I came up with was to build a dam with masking tape along the edge of the shelf. I then spread full strength wood glue along the edge of the cork roadbed and then applied my base ballast material. After laying down some ground cover foam, I soaked everything with my alcohol and water solution and then liberally applied the Mod Podge and water solution.



The next day I removed the tape dam and only a small amount of the ballast material came loose with the tape removal. The end result is a clean looking ballast edge.



Another view of the shelf edge with the ballast in place. I was pleased with how this came out and it goes to show that sometimes a simple solution is the best answer.



Here is a look at the various tanks at the end of the oil loading area scene. The large black tank is either from Tichy or Rix, I forget which and the smaller tanks are from Walthers. I used some cork roadbed material for the berm around the tall silver tanks.



The truck unloading area is from Walthers Interstate Fuel kit and the truck is from Classic Metal Works, I think. More in a minute.

[nycjeff]

Here is an overhead view of the tank car loading area, the structure is two Walthers kits, with some kit-bashing to show the piping from the tanks to the loading dock. The tank cars are from Tichy.



A track level view looking back at the oil loading area.



A look back along the freight main track to the corner along the back side of the oil loading area. That's it for now, more later.

[Judge]

Beautiful scenes, Jeff.  You almost feel like you are there.  I guess nearly every railroad had switchman's shanties stuck up on a pole.  My uncle, Rex, worked in one in Lakeland, Florida, during the 40's and '50s.  He was a telegraph operator and had one switch to throw, which was to route traffic from the mainline to the yard throat. 

[postalkarl]

Hey Jeff:

Scenery and structures look just beautiful.

Karl

[ACL1504]

Jeff,


Nice photos and the ballast on the edge came out looking great.

I appreciate you taking the time to photo, crop and add them to the post for our viewing.

Tom 

[nycjeff]

Beautiful scenes, Jeff.  You almost feel like you are there.  I guess nearly every railroad had switchman's shanties stuck up on a pole.  My uncle, Rex, worked in one in Lakeland, Florida, during the 40's and '50s.  He was a telegraph operator and had one switch to throw, which was to route traffic from the mainline to the yard throat. 

Thank you, your Honor. It seems like no matter what the occasion, you always have a railroad related story to tell. I, for one, appreciate all of your contributions.

Hey Jeff:

Scenery and structures look just beautiful.

Karl

Hey Karl, thanks for looking in and for the kind words.

Jeff,


Nice photos and the ballast on the edge came out looking great.

I appreciate you taking the time to photo, crop and add them to the post for our viewing.

Tom 

Hello Tom, thank you for the nice comments. I was very pleased with how the edge ballast came out- it's a nice look at almost eye level as it is the upper level of the layout. I'm slowly getting better with the whole picture thing and I'm enjoying going around the layout with fresh eyes. It's showing me that I always have something to do to improve the overall look of the layout.

[nycjeff]

Wow, I can't believe it's been almost three years since I've posted on this thread. I guess I should get my butt in gear.

[nycjeff]

When I last posted to this thread we were on the upper level right hand corner of my layout. This is what that corner looked like then.



This is what that corner looks like now. In the last 3 years I have spent most of my time building wood craftsman kits and scratch building other wood kits. All 3 buildings in this new corner are scratch builds.



This is a lower level view of the corner, from lake level.



Here is a closer look at two of the three buildings. The bar on the left is based on an article that Frank Baker (Erieman) did for Model Railroader magazine last year. I did a build thread on this in the Scratchbuilding section of the forum- it is labeled Frank's Bar. The right hand building is a grist mill based on a dis-continued kit, I'm not sure of the manufacturer. The water wheel and the sluice gates are from a kit from Wills. The rest came from my stash.



The third building is an auto repair garage based on a picture that I saw on the internet and liked the look of.




That's it for now, more later and it won't be another three years.

[GPdemayo]

Great corner scene Jeff.....

[nycjeff]

Hello Greg, thank you

[nycjeff]

Continuing on with the corner scene...



A closer look at the bar. I really like how this little scene came out. For more views, if you're interested, look at the scratchbuild thread I did.



I always wanted to do a grist mill structure. I couldn't find one that I liked that was available, so I built this one myself using a dis-continued kit that I found pictures of on the computer as a guide.



I played around with the waterway portion of this build quite a bit before I was happy. I used tissue paper soaked in a water/ mod podge mix for the waves. It was my first time attempting this and I'm pleased with the result. As I said before, the water wheel and sluice gates came from Wills Kit.
Where the water goes under the track I just removed the previous scenery right up to the track roadbed, then painted the water area with a blue craft paint, then cut out some foam pieces which I painted grey and weathered. It's not perfect, but I'm happy with the look.



A closer look at the garage, I didn't take any construction pictures of this structure. I used a picture from the internet and just went from there.



A drone view of the bar and grist mill.



A drone view of the grist mill and garage.

This does it for the corner scene, moving on next...

[nycjeff]

Continuing on with my layout tour. We are now going to look at the lower right side and lower right corner of the layout drawing below. The shelf along this wall is 18 feet long from the lake scene upper corner to the station scene in the lower right corner. It's nice to watch trains come around the super elevated curve at the lake area and stretch down the shelf.



Here's a view looking down the tracks at the lower right corner. The left side track is the freight line. The middle track is an industrial spur and the right side track is for passenger trains which will stop at a station located in the corner area. The shelf here is 18 inches wide.



First in line is a Walthers traveling crane kit. The crane straddles an industrial spur that also serves the previously mentioned oil loading facility. This is a simple kit, but I have always liked the looks of it. The crane makes it possible to stage many different mini-scenes.



Here's a closer look at the crane scene.



Just past the traveling crane is a scratchbuilt dock with a jib crane set up on it. I left the boxcar door open so that a loaded interior can be viewed.