Animation

Animation on a model railroad comes in many forms - movement, lights, sound, even smells! - and can be activated manually or automatically.  Most animation comes from the trains themselves, which, after all, are the stars of the show!

Backdrops

Photo backdrops add a feeling of distant scenery between the actual 3-D modeled scene and the cloudy sky.  The area previously finished required very little (about a foot) of backdrop, while the area I'm currently working on requires more.  Generally, I use them where the track, a road, or some other element runs pretty close to the wall, and the planting of lots of trees to soften the transition from 3-D to flat vertical is impractical, because the area is narrow.

Big Muddy

The river has been poured, and despite having a lot of apprehension about this step, I'm very happy with the results. (Note - the viaduct coloring and detail is far from finished!)

Plastered Up

Most of the foam and plywood terrain is now covered with Sculptamold plaster, and the roads and river base are covered with Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty (the yellowish color).  Durham's woks well for roadways with a finer texture than the Sculptamold, and will be sanded to remove any putty knife marks.  I also use it for the base of water features because, well, it's water proof.  The epoxy resin I'll be pouring for the river is very thin, and like water, will find any pin hole leaks before it cures.  I've caulked where the foam meets the plywood base, and the Water Putty adds another layer of leak protection.  This all has to set up now for about a week before continuing on.

Weathering Coal Hoppers

Convincing weathering is crucial to achieving a realistic look to track, scenery, structures and trains.  I've done that as I go for the track, scenery and structures, but the trains, for the most part, are still shiny and new looking.

I've started to address this with the coal hopper cars.  I've studied a lot of techniques, and tried many, and have come up with a method I'm happy with, that won't take forever.  With adjustments in color, it will work on many different kinds of rolling stock, and on locomotives.  I'm not brave enough to try one of my locomotives yet, but I'll get there as I do more and more.  Practice, practice, practice!

I mentioned it won't take forever, and that's important!  I was showing some photos of the finished portion of my railroad to a friend at work, who's never seen anything like it, and he remarked that he thought it was "museum quality".  I had to argue that it really was not, and pointed out some flaws and some things that could be better or more realistic.  Most attempts at modeling anything in a small scale will involve many compromises, and you have to stop and move on when you feel it is "good enough".  My weathering method is no exception - my trains aren't destined for a museum display (nor should they be);  I run 'em, and I want to get the weathering done in a reasonable amount of time, and move on!

Enjoy the video.  In real time, from setup to cleanup, this lot of 10 cars took me about 3 hours.  As I get better (and don't fart around filming it!), I'm sure I can cut this time in half, maybe a little more.

Tricky Terrain

 

 

Took a while to get the foam terrain base roughed in here!  There's a lot going on in this area - the viaduct and river, of course, but also the deck girder railroad bridge, a road bridge over the river, and what should be the only tunnel portal on the railroad.  The track also, after entering the tunnel, curves to the left, under and behind the scene.

Mold Making & Casting for the Viaduct

Above are a couple of views of the stone viaduct castings being dry fit into place.  These will be fit together tightly and epoxied to each other, and to the plywood track base at the top.  The thin Masonite board at the bottom is temporary.

Silicone molds were made to produce the plaster castings.  I started with designing and having a mold master made for an arch face and a liner half, shown here.  These could be hand carved from a block of plaster, clay, or other material.  In this case, they were modeled on CAD, and "grown" on a rapid prototyping machine.  There are many companies that offer this service as it becomes more available and less expensive to do.

After these masters were grown, I hand carved the rock detail with a Dremel tool.

Next, I built wood and clay formers to hold the silicone, placed the masters face up, and mixed and poured the silicone into each box.

 

Once cured, I broke away the formers, and what's left are the silicone molds.  One is purple because of using a different batch of  hardener - just happened to be what they had at Hobby Lobby.

 Hydrocal, a very hard casting plaster that picks up fine detail, is then mixed and poured into the molds, and after the plaster cures, about 90 minutes, the silicone easily peels away, leaving an identical copy of the master.  The molds are very resilient, and can be used again and again.  I mold a rock or two with any leftover Hydrocal.

Control Panels

The main line and coal tipple area turnout control panels are complete and installed.  Much more fun to operate trains now that I don't have to reach in and throw the switches manually!

Each turnout (a model railroad term - means a track switch - turnout is generally used to differentiate these from electrical switches) is controlled from one of these panels.  These join the original panel, seen in the August 2011 post "Continuing Fascia Work", which was redone to match these, and serves the lower staging area.  There will be (2) more panels - one each for the locomotive servicing area, and the brewery complex area.  There's no track in these areas yet!

The panels are made from a base of 1/8" Masonite and  1/16" clear Lexan, with a printed track schematic diagram sandwiched in between, and mount vertically behind the blue fascia board.  Each can be removed and laid down horizontally (as shown in the 2nd photo below) for servicing.

To change a turnout position, you move the appropriate toggle switch to the desired position, then press the button beneath the toggle.  This delivers a brief burst of power to the turnout solenoid to position it.

A Short Video

Thought I'd post a little video - watch it full screen HD at YouTube.

It's amazing what can go wrong when you try to stage a video!  This is take 4 of 5 that I shot last night, and despite it's flaws, is the best of the lot.  The WM freight that's moving away from the camera decides to stop briefly at about 23 seconds, and I got a little shock when I flipped the toggle switch to change the signal from green to red (the signals will eventually be automated - I wired them up for the video with a 12VDC transformer, a bunch of jumper wires, and a toggle switch - so basically, I had a bunch of bare live wire in one hand).  Anyway, this is a little look at some main line running past the coal mine area.

Coal Mining Area - Complete???

Well, it's complete enough for now - I'm going to move on to the next area (viaduct, river).  Lots of details added, as you can see below.  Still a bit to add and do, which I'll pick at while building the next area:
- complete the control panel wiring for this area
- weather the locomotives & rolling stock
- add more layers of detail, such as grade crossing signs, switch stands
- wire the track signal controllers

Some current counts:
- trees- 248
- people- 35
- animals- 8
- cars and trucks- 4

I'm able to catch some things in pictures, that I didn't notice before - such as:
- photo 2 - the person with the broom appears to be a woman!  Didn't notice this before...
- photo 9 - bent wood stove stack on the darker grey building
- photo 11 - my Jeffreys mine motor is off the track!
- photo 12 - let's assume the boy in the foreground is imitating the girl in from of him - but
                that doesn't explain her odd stance with her arms out!

I've tried to get some good "in the scene" shots - hope you enjoy them - click each for larger.