# My Indiana,Ohio Union Railroad.



## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

After more than a month of planning and gathering of parts i have enough of this layout to show some progress.
This is a 36" X 80 Door layout. The bench is the door,1/2" MDF and 2" foam. Might be a little overkill but it is flat and solid as a rock, The back drop is also a door. I'm using all Kato unitrac to keep assembly simple and as bullitt proof as can be.
The loco is a EMD SD 40-2 From BLI and the rolling stock is mostly used purchases from the Ebay. Oddly enough the 2 cars i bought new seem to be problems, one is an Atlas trainman boxcar that has trouble negotiating turnouts and the other is a BLI boxcar that need some coupler attention. The riser is made of some of the leftover foam and ill be scratch building the piers for the viaduct and bridge. The grade is a little more than 3% but the loco can pull all seven of the cars up with no uncoupling's or derailments. Still waiting on the track to finish the elevation.
Thanks for lookin and comments and ideas are welcomed.

🚂 🚂


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## QueenoftheGN (Dec 10, 2019)

Looking really good! It’s definitely a nice track plan, this’ll be nice to watch come together.

Did you mean to post the photo of whoever that is?


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Thank you Annie.
Yes,im a fan of the old school movie stars.
What I'm not a fan of are the surgery enhanced botoxed,peirced, tattoed  crop of todays stars.
No offense intended cause i know the modern day stars are loved by millions.
Her name is Ann Frances

🚂 🚂 🚂


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## Spence (Oct 15, 2015)

Known as “Honey West”


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## QueenoftheGN (Dec 10, 2019)

One more thing, Can you give me a close up photo of the locomotive? From what I can see I like the look of it.


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Hi Annie
I can do that its the first one i have bought and im really happy with it
it runs on both dc and dcc and even does some of the sounds running dc.
Be a few but ill post one 
🚂 🚂


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

This is the Broadway Limited Imports #3715 EMD SD-2






























Not sure if its ok to plug a train shop but i got this at Factory Direct Hobbies in the clearance section.
Now im torn between getting a NEC Power Cab or a BLI EMD SW-7 
🚂🚂


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

Nice locomotive! ‘N’ scale has come a very long way from its early days.....


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## QueenoftheGN (Dec 10, 2019)

Spruslayer said:


> This is the Broadway Limited Imports #3715 EMD SD-2
> View attachment 552280
> View attachment 552281
> View attachment 552282
> ...


That’s a beautiful locomotive, thanks for sharing.

Get the NEC power cab if you intend to run one engine around the mainline, but also do some switching in your yard, but it also means you can’t run DC locomotives, so there’s good, and bad.
Ooh, an SW-7? Gotta love the look of the Burlington Route one


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

QueenoftheGN said:


> That’s a beautiful locomotive, thanks for sharing.
> 
> Get the NEC power cab if you intend to run one engine around the mainline, but also do some switching in your yard, but it also means you can’t run DC locomotives, so there’s good, and bad.
> Ooh, an SW-7? Gotta love the look of the Burlington Route one


The power


QueenoftheGN said:


> That’s a beautiful locomotive, thanks for sharing.
> 
> Get the NEC power cab if you intend to run one engine around the mainline, but also do some switching in your yard, but it also means you can’t run DC locomotives, so there’s good, and bad.
> Ooh, an SW-7? Gotta love the look of the Burlington Route one


from
Thank you Annie
I'm sold on the power cab but it will be After the track is complete and wired properly with a circuit breaker . I just learned a $ lesson the hard way. I was on the fence about buying the SW-7 or saving a little longer to get the NEC. Went to the train store to have another look at the loco and the price has gone up $15 😮 . From now on when I see a good deal I better take it if I can. I'm only less than three months in to this hobby and SD-2 is the only loco I have.. I'm only gonna buy dcc equipped locos and I may stick to only BLI. I don't have any experiences with other brands but I'm really happy with the SD-2 plus I like the fact it will run on DC and DCC. The plan in my head at this moment is to only run two loco at a time but I can see a future with a small fleet of engine to chose from.
🚂🚂


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## Pauly H (Dec 31, 2020)

@ Spruslayer

How did you make your incline with the radius? From what I can see in the picture, we had the same idea.


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

I used the leftovers 2" foam from the bench top.
gonna have to do another cause I keep changing my layout.
I take the length of the rise and the height, in my layout I am going with 2"
To come up with the angle then cut vertical slots to let it bend to the radius
🚂🚂


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## Pauly H (Dec 31, 2020)

Yup, we had the same idea.


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Here is a short vid of what i have so far. I'm still waiting on some track to complete the elevation


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## QueenoftheGN (Dec 10, 2019)

Very nice, I see a tunnel portal, are you planning to include a tunnel? If so, something you can use to cover the track from whatever you're using to make whatever the tunnel is through is the coverage things that candles and bottles are shipped in, it also makes it darker in the tunnel, so that's a plus.



This thing, I don't know what they're called, sorry.


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Excellent idea there will be a tunnels for the three tracks on that side a d was pondering what to use. I think I gonna add another SD 40 cause that loco won't pull the 15 car consists up the incline on the right. It has pulled six cars up but I could tell it was struggling.
I've found free card stock plans for the portals to use as planers until I can get better premade ones
🚂🚂


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Whoo hoo!
Im stoked today as i received the your order has shipped notice for my Power Cab and EB1 circuit breaker i ordered on the 13th Jan. I was becoming concerned over the time it took to ship but at $196 delivered to the door was a good bit less than anyone else i found offering it on the internet so im ok with the long wait.














. In the past 2 weeks I've been slowly working away on the layout,
Here's a shot of the turnout control board and the lay out as it stands today 









And Betty says dinner is served!
🚂 🚂


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## Wooky_Choo_Bacca (Nov 13, 2020)

Well hello Betty, what we havin' fer dinner ?? (I better hush, I'd end up in all sorts of trouble in my small "two butt kitchen", that's what my sister calls it anyway)


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

I now have the Power Cab up and running.
I didn't want to have a programing track on the layout so i put together a couple pieces of track mounted to some plywood.
To facilitate switching between the layout and the program track i mounted to dc barrel jacks on the turnout switch board that's wired to a EB-1 circuit breaker so i can unplug the layout and plug in the program track. I already can see how easy it is to have a train wreck just running two at a time even as small as this track is! I didn't have a collision but i did have to hit the emergency stop to avoid one. Going to read the PC book tonight to try a gain a better understanding what i can do with this. One issues i would like to address is that one of the SD-40s is faster than the other and I'm hoping i can adjust that with one of the CV parameters and then learn how to have both locos in the same consist.
Im really pleased with the DCC, i just need to catch up on the learning curve.
🚂 🚂


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

Find out the model number of your decoder and download or view the entire CV list. Especially the motor control CV's so you can match speeds of your locomotives.


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## Wooky_Choo_Bacca (Nov 13, 2020)

I don't know how the Power cab works but I was told something interesting about my Digitrax, and confirmed by reading the manual that I can hook up my Kato DC controller to the Digitrax and use it as a second throttle for one of the trains, way cool.

The CVs are somewhat confusing but I simply matched the two SD70s I have and set them as a consist (?) but before I coupled them I did a short test run, both took off at same speed and same direction even though one was running in reverse


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

The extra throttle would be nice , I noticed when I was running two locks when I switched from one to another I had to adjust the speed. I'm not sure if it was me not knowing what I'm doing or what. Tomorrow I'll dive deeper into the PC manual and the BLI instructions. I'm not much of a techie but this is another part of the hobby that is interesting! Who said an old dog can't learn new tricks 🐕


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## Wooky_Choo_Bacca (Nov 13, 2020)

Yeah that was one "problem" I was having switching back and forth betwixt locos, if the speed was different it would take off like a rocket LOL not that it would derail as I've had these running wide open just to see IF, nope, didn't derail. With a second dedicated throttle I'll know which is which and won't be scrambling to switch over using the buttons

And yeah, THIS old dog has learned a lot in the last year or so LOL


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Well..... The slower of the two locks has suffered a malfunction. I was running it around the track solo when I lost control, it would not respond to any function from the cab so I turned the power off and tried to run it again and it would not do anything. I found a cv to reset the decoder but the only thing I got it to do was make the engine sounds and lights. 
looks like it may be going in to BLI for repairs.
😲😱🚂🚂


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## Wooky_Choo_Bacca (Nov 13, 2020)

Ruh Roh  😨 🤨


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Oh happy daze! I contacted teck support and they pointed me to a video showing how to reset the decoder.
Wasn't to difficult,just removed the trucks and couplers,take the body off and use a reset button wile on the track.
Its still slower the the other but im gonna ponder on that till i figure it out 
🚂🚂


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Here is a vid of the SD40-2 pulling a 22 car consist. All the bugs are ironed out of the layout so now i can start to work on the sceenics. I still havent got the to locos running the same speed and the single engine wont pull the consist up the incline. Also some stills of some of the buildings i have done for the layout.






























































Eva says Tank you for looking darlink!


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## Magic (Jan 28, 2014)

Looks like you got the train running nice and smooth.
22 cars is a pretty good load for a single loco.
Looking good, nice buildings as well.  

Magic


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Hi all
Been busy working on the layout and have finally built the track the way its gonna stay!
I moved the yard parallel to the mainline and moved the industry tracks a little
here's a video of a SD40-2 pulling 29 cars with a SW7 helping at the end and some track stills
And Marueen smiles to brighten everyones day!


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

Spruslayer said:


> After more than a month of planning and gathering of parts i have enough of this layout to show some progress.
> This is a 36" X 80 Door layout. The bench is the door,1/2" MDF and 2" foam. Might be a little overkill but it is flat and solid as a rock, The back drop is also a door. I'm using all Kato unitrac to keep assembly simple and as bullitt proof as can be.
> The loco is a EMD SD 40-2 From BLI and the rolling stock is mostly used purchases from the Ebay. Oddly enough the 2 cars i bought new seem to be problems, one is an Atlas trainman boxcar that has trouble negotiating turnouts and the other is a BLI boxcar that need some coupler attention. The riser is made of some of the leftover foam and ill be scratch building the piers for the viaduct and bridge. The grade is a little more than 3% but the loco can pull all seven of the cars up with no uncoupling's or derailments. Still waiting on the track to finish the elevation.
> Thanks for lookin and comments and ideas are welcomed.
> ...


Spruslayer;

If you can get your layout away from the wall a bit, and maybe set at about 45 degrees to either of the two walls that form the corner of the room, I suggest moving your backdrop door, (or maybe a shortened version of it) to the middle of the layout. This would divide the layout into two separate scenes. If you can position the layout as suggested, you will have easy access to both sides.
Right now, it looks like most model railroads, obvious loops of track going nowhere. It also shares with most model railroads an appearance that looks nothing like a real railroad. Real railroads don't run their trains round-and-round in circles or ovals. However, we model railroaders kind of have to do just that, in order to have the continuous running we all want.
But, that does not mean our model railroads have to show the whole loop, and thereby make it obvious that our trains are just going round-and-round to nowhere. Dividing your layout into two scenes will make it look a lot more like your train has left town 'A' and traveled to town 'B' instead of chasing its own tail around.

Traction Fan


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## Wooky_Choo_Bacca (Nov 13, 2020)

Awesome layout there as well, and the blonde looks hypnotized by the train LOL


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

Wooky_Choo_Bacca said:


> Awesome layout there as well, and the blonde looks hypnotized by the train LOL


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## Aqualungs (Jan 25, 2021)

Lookin good! Love the tunnels and your makeshift viaduct skills. Did you build a d paint the buildings? They look excellent

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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Aqualungs said:


> Lookin good! Love the tunnels and your makeshift viaduct skills. Did you build a d paint the buildings? They look excellent
> 
> Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk


Thanks Aqualungs, Wookie

The buildings are kits from Woodland Sceneic and Walthers that I painted
Traction can I have been thinking about moving the layout to another part of the basement where I could make a W layout with the door layout being used as the center in the w and the outside arms parallels if that makes sense
Move pending approval 😃 
🚂🚂


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## Aqualungs (Jan 25, 2021)

Spruslayer said:


> Thanks Aqualungs, Wookie
> 
> The buildings are kits from Woodland Sceneic and Walthers that I painted
> Traction can I have been thinking about moving the layout to another part of the basement where I could make a W layout with the door layout being used as the center in the w and the outside arms parallels if that makes sense
> Move pending approval


Nice I ordered a prefab kit, but want to order a few others. Are you using Testor thin glue? 

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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

Aqualungs said:


> Nice I ordered a prefab kit, but want to order a few others. Are you using Testor thin glue?
> 
> Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk


aqualungs;

For plastic models, liquid styrene cement works very well. I don't know if that's what you mean by "Testors thin glue." Testors, Model Master, and others, offer liquid styrene cement. When I used the Testors, it came in a short square glass bottle. The bottle had a metal screw top with a brush fastened to it. The brush was much too large for applying glue. If you used their brush, rather than a smaller artist's brush, the glue got all over the place. Now I use Model Masters, which comes in a square plastic bottle with a tiny stainless steel tube attached. The tube will accurately deliver a drop of cement where you want it without mess. The tube does clog occasionally so I keep a short length of very thin music wire handy to clear any clogs. 

regards;

Traction Fan 🙂


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## Aqualungs (Jan 25, 2021)

traction fan said:


> aqualungs;
> 
> For plastic models, liquid styrene cement works very well. I don't know if that's what you mean by "Testors thin glue." Testors, Model Master, and others, offer liquid styrene cement. When I used the Testors, it came in a short square glass bottle. The bottle had a metal screw top with a brush fastened to it. The brush was much too large for applying glue. If you used their brush, rather than a smaller artist's brush, the glue got all over the place. Now I use Model Masters, which comes in a square plastic bottle with a tiny stainless steel tube attached. The tube will accurately deliver a drop of cement where you want it without mess. The tube does clog occasionally so I keep a short length of very thin music wire handy to clear any clogs.
> 
> ...


Excellent thanks for the.. tips.. lol!

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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Heres a few pics of where im at know with the layout.
I had to put the trains away because i was doing more train running than workin on the scenery!
Base for the factory,Tunnel and walls made of .03 styrene 
Waiting on some rock molds to do the cliffs and starting to apply the base ground cover.
And to livin up the view is Samatha rockin the house down!






























.


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Having some more fun with scenery the last few days
I built a Walthers industrial office kit and did some more of the base landscape ,wooden railroad crossings and made a landing spot for the water tower.
My attempt at wire trees with limited success ,at n scale the larger one would be a giant
Meanwhile the dynamic duo is pondering what the evil Mr freeze will do next,with batgirls help


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

Spruslayer said:


> Having some more fun with scenery the last few days
> I built a Walthers industrial office kit and did some more of the base landscape ,wooden railroad crossings and made a landing spot for the water tower.
> My attempt at wire trees with limited success ,at n scale the larger one would be a giant
> Meanwhile the dynamic duo is pondering what the evil Mr freeze will do next,with batgirls help
> ...


spruslayer;

Trees, and mountains, on a model railroad present some size problems.
First of all, in terms of being scale size, neither of the trees in your photos is "giant" at all.
A prototype locomotive is about 15' tall. Your trees appear to be somewhere between 2 & 3 "locomotive heights" tall. That's 30'- 45' tall trees. If you look at some real trees, particularly those growing wild, in a forest, plenty will be that high, or higher.

The scale problem comes into play when you have to decide if the trees can be higher than a locomotive, but still much lower than our attempts at "mountains." Mountains are virtually impossible to model to actual scale size in any of the model railroad scales. A small mountain, (4000' high) would be 25 real feet tall in N-scale! We can't fit anything even close to that size on our layouts because we just don't have that amount of space available.
Bear in mind that a mountain 4000' high would extend outward at least it's own height in all directions. That means our N-scale mountain Would be not only 25 real feet high, but well over 50 real feet in diameter! I certainly cant fit that on my layout.

For our model "mountains" we need to somehow give the impression that the pathetic molehills on our layout extend up, and out, a lot further than they actually do. In other words, we are really modeling only a small part of a mountain.

That takes us back to tree size. If a model tree is half the height of our mountain, that turns the "mountain" back into a molehill, right at first glance. So, in the interest of maintaining the illusion of mountains, we need smaller trees. After all, real trees come in many sizes.
So, in this sense, yes, maybe your trees, though reasonably scale size, would work better if they were smaller.

The photos show my attempts at giving the impression of mountainous country in the tiny spaces available on my N-scale shelf layout. Notice that you can't see the tops of the foreground mountains at all. They are cut off at the limits of my model world. Only the distant mountains have their tops visible, and that's only possible because they are painted on a backdrop as being "miles away."

Nice trees. Don't give up. Make some more, a bit smaller.

Traction Fan 🙂


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Thank you TF
I'm getting close to the point of doing trees and bushes/underbrush and the trees are presenting the biggest challenge.
i have purchased some premade but wont mind savin a dollar or two makin them my self.
I'm still trying different gauges of wire to make different size trees
For the backdrop im shooting for the same idea if i can get my artist mojo a workin ☯
Some more pics of the progress
When Ann ask:
You paid how much for that loco?




































🚂🚂


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

Spruslayer said:


> Thank you TF
> I'm getting close to the point of doing trees and bushes/underbrush and the trees are presenting the biggest challenge.
> i have purchased some premade but wont mind savin a dollar or two makin them my self.
> I'm still trying different gauges of wire to make different size trees
> ...


Spruslayer;

Smaller gauge wire, but more strands of it, helps a tree's appearance. Also if you coat the twisted wire main trunk with RTV, or caulk, let it cure, and then paint it, that will make the trunk look better. The twisted wire just doesn't look all that much like a tree trunk.

In your photos, it looks like some of your trees were made with natural trunks, a.k.a. twigs. That's my go to method for deciduous trees. Nature tends to duplicate itself in miniature. It's hard to beat mother nature for realism.
Unfortunately for me, the Seattle, Washington area I'm modeling is covered in conifer trees, and I have yet to find a natural plant that looks like a pine, fir, or spruce, tree in N-scale. Even the commercial ones don't look all that good to me, and they are way too expensive in large quantities. So, I had to scratchbuild all the conifer trees in my photos (+ a lot more)
It's lots of work, but I like the results.

Good Luck & keep Having Fun;

Traction Fan 🙂


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Thanks TF for the tree tips.
Im gonna make most of the trees as even though this is a door size layout trying to model the rural is gonna take more trees than i wanna buy.
I have found some get 100 trees for under 20 on ebay and amazon but they looked plastic toy like to me.
Hope i get faster t making them though !
Here is some more of the progress im makin on the scenery
All the trees in these pics are premade purchased ones with the exception of one tree on the left near the tunnel entrance.
And of course my post wouldn't be complete without some completely unrelated photo,we have Ann modeling the latest in transportation fashion
Enjoy and thanks for looking.


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## QueenoftheGN (Dec 10, 2019)

That little grouping of trees by the rock looks real nice. Quite real looking imo. It’s amazing the difference 4 months can make!


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## Wooky_Choo_Bacca (Nov 13, 2020)

Spruslayer said:


> View attachment 558378
> View attachment 558386


The girl in the glass bubble LOL

The red building, what / which is it ?


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

thank you Annie
Since putting the trains away I'm able to get more work done !


Wooky_Choo_Bacca said:


> The girl in the glass bubble LOL
> 
> The red building, what / which is it ?


I've known a few glass bubble girls 😃
The red building is the Sicken tire company from Woodland Sceneics
Nicely detailed kit. 
I know some things at n scale are not an accurately scaled but the Walthers buildings look large next to the WS kit
And I was just getting over how out of scale unitrack is 😉
🚂🚂


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## vette-kid (May 2, 2020)

@Spruslayer your layout is looking great. I'm curious about the trees as well, I've wasted a little money on commercially available trees only to find they weren't what I wasafter. I'll need 400 or more for my layoutin guessing as I'll have a few forrest areas. 

TF, I'm sure you had a writeup on making trees somewhere, but I can't find it. Do you have such a thing? Time is a consideration, but I want them to look decent too.

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## Aqualungs (Jan 25, 2021)

I dig the trees they look great! Everything is coming together nicely and looking realistic. Now I want to ballast my track lol

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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Thanks VK & Aqualung
The hardest part of ballasting the unitrack is not getting any ballast or scenery material in the manual switch lever on the turn outs and also i didn't put any between the rails to try and avoid any issues
I did have one jam up with ballast but was able to get it working by vacuuming it out!


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## vette-kid (May 2, 2020)

Actually, that brings a good question. Did you paint your base and add grass before or after the track was down and how did you secure your track?

I'm doing a build with unitrack and about ready to start scenery but I can't decide which method would be best. I dint rant want to end up with paint on the unitrack. But then, it would be easier that way, at least as far as the track goes. 

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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

vette-kid said:


> Actually, that brings a good question. Did you paint your base and add grass before or after the track was down and how did you secure your track?
> 
> I'm doing a build with unitrack and about ready to start scenery but I can't decide which method would be best. I dint rant want to end up with paint on the unitrack. But then, it would be easier that way, at least as far as the track goes.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk


I did paint the base foam first, but all other scenery was added after the track was laid. The only thing securing the track to the base is straight pins and any ground goop , clear silicone and the ballast is glued also .I have gotten paint and glue on the track but i keep a wet paper towel ready to wipe it off. i also mix burnt umber into the glue i use for the ground cover


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

vette-kid said:


> @Spruslayer your layout is looking great. I'm curious about the trees as well, I've wasted a little money on commercially available trees only to find they weren't what I wasafter. I'll need 400 or more for my layoutin guessing as I'll have a few forrest areas.
> 
> TF, I'm sure you had a writeup on making trees somewhere, but I can't find it. Do you have such a thing? Time is a consideration, but I want them to look decent too.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk


vette_kid;

"Paintbrush Pine Trees" is the tree-making file you asked about.
By the way, if you ever want to find one of my files, they're all available in the "Beginner's Q&A" section, inside the thread called "Help a New Modeler to get started." My "Paintbrush Pine Trees file only concerns making conifer trees not deciduous trees like those TommyB is making. One hint that helps either type of tree look better is to follow the old "Less is more" principal. You may notice that the finished trees at the end of my file Look somewhat like the ones in the first photo below called "Bottle brush trees." These are quick and easy to make, but they don't look all that hot. I use them in the background area of a forest scene. They don't look as good as the trees in the second photo. The reason is that the file was written quite some time ago, and I have improved my trees by cutting more "open space" in the Scotch Brite "branches." A model tree, regardless of scale, or tree type, always looks more realistic if you can see through it. If you look at a real tree, you can probably see a lot of sky and other background through the spaces in the branches. My early trees had too much branch structure, and this made them look less like real trees, and therefore fake.
This is true of a lot of commercial trees also. There are some very nice ones available, ("Super Trees" is one excellent brand) but a lot of commercial trees look like blobs of lichen stuck onto shinny plastic sticks, or escapees from Santa's Christmas village.

My old club made many hundreds of deciduous trees by stretching cotton batting material (used for stuffing toy animals and pillows) very, very, thin, over twigs. The trees were then spray painted & dried. Later a tree was held in your hand by the trunk and rotated while being sprayed with "Aqua Net" brand cheap hairspray. Then the trees were poked into a small slab of Styrofoam, and commercial ground foam was sprinkled over them. The hair spray made a good adhesive. Just strong enough to hold the ground foam "leaves" on the tree, but not strong, or thick, enough to gum everything up, as spray adhesive often does.

Good Luck & Have Fun;

Traction Fan 🙂


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

Spruslayer said:


> Thanks TF for the tree tips.
> Im gonna make most of the trees as even though this is a door size layout trying to model the rural is gonna take more trees than i wanna buy.
> I have found some get 100 trees for under 20 on ebay and amazon but they looked plastic toy like to me.
> Hope i get faster t making them though !
> ...


Spruslayer;

The tree on the left of the tunnel entrance is the best looking tree in that scene. If that's the one you made, you made a better looking tree than the commercial ones. Nice work.

Traction Fan 🙂


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## Wooky_Choo_Bacca (Nov 13, 2020)

Spruslayer said:


> i also mix burnt umber into the glue i use for the ground cover


THAT is something I didn't think about but sounds like an excellent idea, kinda like adding tints to paint to make the color you want whatever to end up looking like


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Being i haven't run a train in about two weeks trying to get some layout work done , today i broke out some trains.
heres a little short of an f7 A/B through some of the scenery


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## vette-kid (May 2, 2020)

Awesome! I love F7s. Who makes that and what sound board are you using? 

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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Those are the Broadway Limited Imports. Has the factory installed Paragon 3 sound decoders.
I like them for including the train chatter but they can be finnicky


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

After deciding not to use lights i have wired the buildings 🙃 
heres a couple of shots in the dark.
The shadows of the windows on the backdrop dident cross my mind,its not as bad as in the pics but it still looks kinda weird. not sure what i can do about that.
And to top off the nite here's after sowmbo finds out about the big boy /big blow combo purchase


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## Wooky_Choo_Bacca (Nov 13, 2020)

Spruslayer said:


> After deciding not to use lights i have wired the buildings 🙃
> heres a couple of shots in the dark.
> The shadows of the windows on the backdrop dident cross my mind,its not as bad as in the pics but it still looks kinda weird.


I don't know what would stop the window lighting on the wall but here is what I've done to most all of my buildings, after they are built and the exterior is painted I also paint the inside with a dark color, black or burnt umber, after dry check with a light to see if a 2nd coat inside is needed. The windows and doors have clear "glass" and I put a layer or two of scotch tape to cloud the glass a little


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

Spruslayer said:


> After deciding not to use lights i have wired the buildings 🙃
> heres a couple of shots in the dark.
> The shadows of the windows on the backdrop dident cross my mind,its not as bad as in the pics but it still looks kinda weird. not sure what i can do about that.
> And to top off the nite here's after sowmbo finds out about the big boy /big blow combo purchase
> ...


Sprueslayer;

Those structure images on the wall actually might be useful in creating the illusion of a bigger city. They are projections caused by light leaking through the rear walls of the buildings. That is, the side closest to the wall. To get rid of them you need to block the light getting to, and on through, the rear side of each structure. Painting the inside of the rear wall with thick black craft paint should help. You could also glue aluminum foil to the inside of the rear wall, even covering the windows on that side, to completely eliminate the projected images, if that's what you want.

Cutting down the amount of light by adding a resistor in series with whatever lamp, or LED you're using, will also help. You actually have too much light there. Some of the buildings are so brightly lit that they look like they're on fire inside. 
Many people use one strong, central light source. I prefer using multiple LEDs wired in parallel, and distributed around the building. I locate my LEDs behind the wall sections between windows, so the LEDs can't be seen directly through any window.

I'm finishing a large, seven-story, building with 63 LEDs in it. I used the 3mm yellow LEDs. The light they produce looks more like the incandescent lighting of my 1920s era than the light from white, super bright, LEDs. I bought 100 yellow LEDs on Amazon for about $6. I cut strips of PC board to connect all those LEDs. I used a Dremel to cut an insulating line down the center of each PC strip, and soldered all the positive leads to one side, and all the negative leads to the other. This is a lot simpler, and neater, than using a rat's nest of individual wires.
While there are things you can do to improve your lighting, It looks pretty good as is. Lighting, and night operations, add a lot of interest to any model railroad.

Traction Fan 🙂


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Heres a short update on the IOURR
I have the entire layout in ground cover so now ill move on to details/trees and rocks
The vid is 2 Sd40-2s pulling boxcars up a 3% grade
The shack is a Blair Line kit.
Traction fan i have back burnered the light issue for now
The camera on the phone made the lights appear far brighter than they really are
I used doll house light bulbs i found in the doll house section at hobby lobby
They are the old style incandesant style of bulb


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## JeffHurl (Apr 22, 2021)

Very nice!!


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Thank you Jeff
Here is a few of the entire layout as it is today.8 months in on this one and close to being done, as if that ever really ever happens! Already thinkin about another layout. 🙃 
Enjoy the pics and commits' welcomed


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## Spruslayer (Dec 13, 2020)

Here's a few shots of the new additions to the scenery.
A Mini Metal with a GCLaser grain bed ,some Woodland Scenic vehicles, figures, light poles and flag
Hard too see but the flag is very nicely detailed.
And a few attempts at a nite time shot
And to close the evening some vintage Jane Russel
Thanks for lookin and commits welcomed








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