# Modified Peace River HO Layout



## Mark VerMurlen

Hi Everyone,

I've been reading and planning a new HO scale layout for the past few months. This will be the third layout I've built. My first was a classic HO scale 4x8 ft sheet of plywood that I built as a kid. My second layout was N scale and was 4x6 ft with moderately elaborate trackage and plaster skin terrain. I didn't finish that layout before I had to give it away before moving cross country. Now 9 years later, I have space opening up where I can build another layout in a spare bedroom. I'm going to go back to HO scale since N was just a bit too small for me.

I searched for a long time for the right plan to build. I found the Peace River RR Layout that was featured in Model Railroader magazine of March 1987. I liked the continuous running design and the ability to do some operations with it. I had to modify it slightly to fit in my space. So here's the plan for that I'm going to build:










Mark


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I recreated and modified the Peace River RR layout on my computer with AnyRail software. I then split the layout image into 3 strips and printed them full size at my local print/mailing shop. I could then use the full size print to make sure it would fit and to trace from.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Construction begins with a pile of materials:


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Benchwork construction begins. I have a few requirements for this layout. I want to be able to deconstruct it and move it to a new house at some point in the future. So I'm building 4 modules for the benchwork that will be bolted together. I also realize that I won't be able to reach the one corner of the layout, so I'll need to mostly finish it before I can put it in the corner and finish the rest of the layout.

Here's a few pictures of the benchwork construction:














































The one section is lower than the others so I can build the river area at a lower grade and have the steel viaduct bridge be about 10 inches above that terrain.


----------



## Magic

Nice bench work and a good start.

Looks like that pile of materials will soon be model railroading fun.

Magic


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Started cutting out and priming the roadbed support plywood:


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Finished attaching the roadbed support to the benchwork. The unpainted section will be cut out and replaced by a bridge.


----------



## vwrabbit

Looking good!


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I have started working on the river canyon area in the far corner of my layout. Since I won't be able to reach this area when the layout is fully assembled, I took apart 2 modules of the layout from what you saw in previous photos and leaned them against one of the walls in my room so that I have space to work on just this section. I'm using pink rigid foam board and shaping it before I apply a plaster skin over it. I'm planning to use rock molds to form the details of the canyon walls. Right now I'm working on just the basic form. Here's where I'm at:




























You'll also notice that I've cut out the track support plywood from where my steel viaduct bridge will go. I'll have to get started on that soon so that I can accurately locate the exact start and end points of the bridge.


----------



## flyboy2610

Looks good!:smilie_daumenpos::smilie_daumenpos:


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working a few days now on building the steel viaduct bridge that I am putting in the corner of my layout. I'm building the kit from Micro Engineering. I'm going to be working on this for a while since it has lots and lots of parts. I've got one of the support towers just about finished. I've got to build 3 more just like it. Bridge length will be about 310 scale feet (~42 inches) when finished and needs to both curve and rise slightly. Here's my progress so far:


----------



## bluenavigator

Nice viaduct! I had not seen the machining blocks for long time. Good use of them!


----------



## Kilian

very inspiring!


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I'm nearing completion of my steel viaduct bridge. I was traveling a bit over the holidays, so this has taken a little longer than I expected. I've been able to put in some hours over the last couple of days, so that made up for some of the travel time. I've got the bridge towers finished and I've assembled and glued the bridge girders. I also made up some bridge piers from wood which I'll paint concrete color and glue down to the foam land forms. I still need to do some weathering on the bridge and I haven't yet glued the towers to the piers or the girders to the towers. I've copied the idea from others here on the forum that suspended the bridge girders from an upper support. I'm using plywood here because my bridge is on a 24" radius curve and it also rises on a 2% grade. Here's a couple of test fit pictures to show you where I'm at:



















I think I now need to shift my work to the land forms around the bridge. I need to cast some rock walls for the canyon and form the river bed with rock and sand next. I'll then need to decide if I should pour the water for the river first before final installation of the bridge or do that after the bridge is in place. I think it would be easier to work on this area without the bridge in place, so that's the direction I'm leaning.

Mark


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working for the last several weeks on the landforms of the canyon on my layout. If you remember, I need to finish this area of my layout before I can push it into the corner and put together the rest of the sections since I won't be able to reach this area once its in final position.

I decided to use Bragdon Enterprises rock molds and their casting resin process for most of the rock walls you can see in the photos below. I bought 2 different molds that I've been using repeatedly. I've also used a little bit of paster of paris for some of the rocks that are situated above and below the rock walls.

Everything has been covered in white primer at this point. I'm hoping to start coloring the rocks later tonight when the primer is fully dry.



















I'll be putting talus at the base of the walls later and of course the bridge will sit on top of the multiple piers you see in the foreground.

This phase has been taking longer than I expected, but I'm pleased with the results I'm getting.

Mark


----------



## IlliniViking

Mark, I can't wait to see this with some color, I think it will be an awesome view watching a train roll across that viaduct bridge.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working on coloring the rock walls of my canyon over the last week. My first attempt didn't work out so good. The coloring was fine, but I had hundreds of small white spots that the paint washes wouldn't adhere to. I just couldn't get the paint to stick to these hundreds of little spots. I must have had some contamination on my rock faces. I think it could have been the release agent used when molding the rocks. After debating what to do, I decided to strip off the paint and clean the rock faces as best I could, re-prime the rock faces, and then do the paint wash coloring all over again. I'm so glad that I did. I just wouldn't have been happy with my original results. Here's what attempt #2 looks like when done:














































I'm extremely happy with the results. Much better than I was even hoping for. Taking a more critical eye, I was maybe a little heavy handed with the dark strata in the rocks. I could have also had the strata followed the rock fault lines a little better on the one side of the cliff. But it looks really nice in real life and I doubt many people will really notice.

Now on to the more level ground work and then the river itself. I'm itching to get this section of the layout done so that I can push it into the corner and then put in place the other sections and get some track down and trains running.

Mark


----------



## IlliniViking

Looking good Mark. It's amazing how a little color brings some much depth.


----------



## bluenavigator

Awesome! Could not be more realistic than that! Good job! :appl:


----------



## Torsion

Very nice, I like the coloring on the rocks. How did you achieve this? What kind of paint?


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thanks for the nice comments. I used acrylic paint wash in a 1:8 paint to water ratio. There are 4 different colors: desert tan, burnt sienna, raw sienna, and raw umber. I started with the lightest colors first and progressed to the darkest. I used more of a band approach rather than the leopard spot method. I didn't want the last dark color to overly color the rock face, so I wiped off the high surfaces shortly after applying it so it was kept mostly in the cracks of the rocks. I went over some of the colors a couple times to get the coloring I wanted, so it wasn't a once and done process. But I didn't fiddle with it too much either. Since my washes were pretty weak, color didn't build up too fast.

Mark


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working on the "flatter" portions of my canyon scene over the past week or so. I've got the river bed painted as I want as well. Here's what things look like now:










I think I'm ready to pour the "water" for the river.

Mark


----------



## Torsion

Very impressive, looking forward to seeing the bridge installed.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've poured the "water" for my river. I decided to use Envirotex Lite for the "water" with a very slight brown tint. Poured it in 2 layers and then topped it off with Woodland Scenics Water Effects for the waves and turbulence. Added a little bit of white paint dry brushed onto the turbulence in front of and behind the rocks and piers. I'm really happy with the way it turned out.




























It was rather nerve wracking to mix and pour the resin solution knowing that doing it wrong meant ruining the whole scene. Luckily I mixed it thoroughly enough that it dried hard everywhere with no soft spots. I think adding the tint made it easier to see when the solution was fully mixed. It took a couple of days for the WS Water Effects to dry here in Seattle with the humid rainy weather.

Mark


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

While I was waiting for the "water" to dry, I worked a bit on weathering the steel viaduct bridge and putting in place the bridge abutments on the tops of the cliffs. Here's some pictures of my dry fitting.




























Nothing is clued down with the bridge yet. The track on top of the bridge girders is just positioned there for effect. I need to shape it a bit better, extend it to run the full length of the bridge, put the guard rails in place, paint it, and so on.

I'm looking forward to the track laying part of this scene now.

Mark


----------



## Dirtytom

Nice

DT


----------



## Torsion

Looks wonderful, great job.


----------



## Mr.Buchholz

That canyon looks bloody amazing!!! Can't even begin to describe how awesome it really is, especially with the bridge! Keep the updates and images coming!!

:appl:

-J.


----------



## Dabigbozman

Very inspirational


----------



## Aminnich

:smilie_daumenpos::appl: im at a lose for words, very nicely done sir


----------



## leadsled

WOW! thats some impressive modeling!


----------



## vwrabbit

:smilie_daumenpos: Fantastic work!


----------



## dsertdog56

Wow! Very nice.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I'm declaring my canyon and bridge scene done! I've painted the bridge track and added the guard rails. I've glued down the bridge track and the 2 switches at either end. All the track joints have been soldered. I applied some power to just this section of track to get some assurance the joints are good. Here are some pictures of the finished work.




























I can now push these 2 sections of my layout into the corner of my room and put up the 2 other sections to make the layout continuous once again. I'll then be into serious wiring and track laying mode.

Mark


----------



## MtRR75

Great job - Top shelf


----------



## RonthePirate

That's one heck of a nice piece of work there! 
Looks scary being up there!
Can't imagine myself being there for real!


----------



## VegasN

looking amazing. Can't wait to see more.


----------



## bluenavigator

Whoa! Really looking so fantastic! Unbelievable amount of work done on this! I was amazed at how good the river look, especially with wavy appearance! It sure does look so realistic!


----------



## Overkast

Mark, you're building this train set like a boss! Really gorgeous (and inspirational) work all-around. Nice job!

Can you please post some pics and details about your technique for building the guard rails on the bridge? I've been thinking about how I'm going to do that same thing (for N scale though).


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thanks for all the nice comments from everyone.



Overkast said:


> Can you please post some pics and details about your technique for building the guard rails on the bridge? I've been thinking about how I'm going to do that same thing (for N scale though).


The bridge track I'm using is from Micro Engineering. So it comes with the closer tie spacing and wider width. It also comes with the guard rails, which are loose in the package. The ME bridge track ties also have dimples for where the guard rails should be placed. This was extremely valuable to getting the placement correct and consistent. I would highly recommend using their track.

I don't have any specific pictures of my process of installing the guard rails. I carefully bent them to the general curvature of my bridge. This was easier than I expected. The rails kept their flatness well. I used a small file to make notches in the foot of the rails at the places where I wanted the rails to bend inward to meet each other. This made it easier to make the sharper bend at the spot I wanted. I then filed the rails so they would meet at a point. I glued each guard rail down one at a time. I used a gel type CA and put a drop of adhesive on each tie between the dimples Micro Engineering puts into each tie. I was then able to just start from one end and place the guard rail in place, hold it a bit, and move on. I let it dry for a day and then came back and used a paint pen to give the guard rails a rusty color.

The whole process was easier than I expected, but I have to give a lot of that credit to the Micro Engineering folks that made the kit. Since HO is larger gage than N, I'm not sure how much more difficult N scale might be. Good luck with your bridge! I'd love to see how yours turns out.

Mark


----------



## Overkast

Thanks for the feedback Mark, much appreciated. So as to avoid hijacking your thread, I decided to start a new thread on the guard rail topic... I have an idea in my head and hoping to get some insight. Hopefully people will respond!


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been only working a few hours a week on my model railroad over the last several weeks. Its sports season for my daughter and I've been going to watch several of her races. Since my last post, I've re-assembled the complete layout pushing the canyon scene into the corner of the room. I'll definitely need to create an appropriate backdrop image for it, otherwise its just lost against the room walls. 

I've been working on electrical and roadbed. I'm going with DCC for control of both the locomotives and the turnouts on the layout. I also want to get to the point that I can use the computer to automate the layout and run the trains independently. I've chosen to use Digitrax for my DCC system. I'm using the Zephyr for my main controller. If I find it doesn't have enough power, I'll add a booster.

For computer automation, I chose to get a Dell all-in-one touch screen system that I've mounted with a swing arm to the benchwork. The touch screen will allow me to throw switches and control locomotives simply using my fingers on the display. The computer is interfaced into the Digitrax Loconet via USB. I'll use either JMRI or Train Controller software for the control panel and train automation.

For automation to work, I need to have block detection so that the computer can know where the trains are on the layout. So I'm using two sets of PM42 and BDL168 power and block detector boards. I'm using three SEC8 boards for controlling the slow motion motors for the turnouts. At some point, I also want to use them for signal control. I'm stealing the idea of another forum member that mounted the electronic boards on a swing down panel for ease of access.

With the cork roadbed down, you can see the nice flowing lines that the computer layout software created. I'm really pleased with the look I'm getting. I never could have gotten such nice flowing lines on my own.

Lots of wiring and track to lay down still. I need to complete the laying and wiring of the track that goes under the yard and industrial area in front of and to the right side of the room window. The large piece of plywood that makes the base of that area is currently loose so I can lift it out of place to work on the track below. Once the lower track is finished, I can screw down the top surface and work on the top track. I think its going to be a while until I get to that stage. 

Just wanted to give you all a progress update.

Mark


----------



## Overkast

Looks really great Mark... I love how you're investing into the computer control, blocks, and circuit boards right off the bat, vs. waiting til later to upgrade into that (Like me).

I already had a majority of my track laid before I investigated signaling and discovered it could have been advantageous to block up sections of my track for ABS purposes, so rather than re-do a bunch of work I'll probably try my luck with infared and photocell detection for signaling instead when I'm ready to invest.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


----------



## Magic

Now that I see how your canyon scene is placed on the layout and how it will blend in it looks even better than before. Great work. Will be a very interesting RR to say the least.

Magic


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Its been a couple of months since I last posted. I've been making progress, but I've also been traveling a lot. So here's an update on where I'm at.

I finished putting down all the cork roadbed. I've got all the turnouts and the rest of the track laid down. I'm using code 83 Walthers turnouts and flex track. I've got bump stops at the ends of all my dead-end spurs. The layout is broken up into 32 blocks. I worked on laying track and wiring power and turnouts as I went. Since this is a fairly small layout, really couldn't get any trains running until the full loop was completed. That only happened about 2 weeks ago. I still need to put in the railroad ties at my track junctions and then I'll need to paint them.




























I chose to purchase a license for TrainController Gold software to automate my layout. You can see in this screen shot that I've got the track diagram completed and I've entered in my locomotives and cars. I've done speed profiling and brake compensation measurements for my locomotives and all the blocks have brake and stop markers added, so my trains are stoping when and where I expect them to. Its been great fun to let a couple of trains run automatically and watch them go. The software will throw the turnouts as needed and will slow or stop a train to avoid a collision. I still need to set up a bunch of schedules for my trains and I'm still learning all the capabilities.










I've got almost all of my wiring done. This is one of two electronics panels that will swing up and down on hinges for access. Each track block has a pair of red & black wires that feeds back to the Digitrax BDL168 block detector and PM42 power management boards. Each turnout has a slow motion switch motor that has a pair of yellow & white wires that feeds back to the Digitrax SE8C board. LocoNet ties them all together. I'm not the neatest solderer around, but everything is working so far. If you remember, this layout can be taken apart, so even though its hard to see in the above pictures of the layout, I have electrical connectors between each section so that I can disconnect the wiring. The terminal blocks on the right side of the picture supply all the power to the system. There are 3 separate power supplies (one for the Digitrax Zephyr DCC controller which feeds the tracks, one for the PM42s, and the other for the SE8Cs and BLD168s). I've got fuses that protect the 2 accessory power supplies.










I've got all but 2 of my slow motion switch machines installed. I'm waiting on a remote extension kit to finish the last 2. As you can see from the picture below, I had to be creative with a few of my switch machines because I couldn't locate them exactly under the turnout as I would have liked to. You'll notice that I've been putting tie wraps on the wires to identify them.










As you can see, I'm modeling the Great Northern railway. I've chosen the transition years of about 1953 or 1954. I've got a BLI Mikado 2-8-2 steamer, a pair of BLI SD9 diesels, a Walthers E7 diesel, and a BLI SW1500 switcher engine. I've got several freight cars that I would expect to see on a railway in the upper northwest, Great Northern, Canadian Pacific, Canadian National, Chicago & Northwestern, Northern Pacific, Union Pacific, and Green Bay & Western. I've also got a mail car, 3 coach cars, and a solarium car for my passenger train. I've been collecting cars and engines over the past 9 months as I've been building the layout, so its now great to see them actually rolling on the layout.

Mark


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Not a lot of progress to report. Put in all the missing ties from the track joints this past week. My fingers are a little raw from doing some filing and pushing them under the rails. Did a little more computer work to define schedules. I created a fairly complicated schedule that shuttles cars between all the industrial sidings on my layout. Also built some schedules that take a train out of the yard onto the mainline, circle the mainline, and return to the yard. I can start any of the trains in the yard on one of those schedules with just a simple button push. Oh, also built one of my "background" buildings just to see how it would look.

I also did a quick video this morning on my phone to show the layout in operation:





Mark


----------



## VegasN

Wow......


----------



## wvgca

nice video ...
and a nice clean layout with [ in my opinion] excellent use of available space
:appl:


----------



## Magic

That trestle looks great with a train on it actually looks great without a train on it as well.

That's one heck of a fine layout and train control system.

Magic


----------



## VegasN

Pro quality for sure.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thanks for all the nice compliments. 

I'm thinking its time to start building the mountain on the end opposite the canyon. I've been forming a plan in my head for how I want it to look. We'll see how well I can transform it to reality. I want it to be able to lift off for track access. I want it to include a small stream and small waterfall flowing down the side. I'm going to build it with foam and plastic resin rock formations like I did for the canyon scene.

Mark


----------



## gator do 65

Incredible layout! :worshippy: I'm glad I found it!


----------



## Mr.Buchholz

We want YARD! We want YARD!

-J.


----------



## VegasN

Mark VerMurlen said:


> Thanks for all the nice compliments.
> 
> I'm thinking its time to start building the mountain on the end opposite the canyon. I've been forming a plan in my head for how I want it to look. We'll see how well I can transform it to reality. I want it to be able to lift off for track access. I want it to include a small stream and small waterfall flowing down the side. I'm going to build it with foam and plastic resin rock formations like I did for the canyon scene.
> 
> Mark


Looking forward to it.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Haven't been making a lot of progress on my layout over the summer. I've started on my mountain, but I realized that I won't have easy access to the track once its in place, so I should probably paint the track before I get much farther.

First I had to prep for painting. Probably didn't need to do this much protection, but it made me and my wife feel better since this is in a spare bedroom:










I was able to airbrush all the exposed track over a couple of days. I sprayed Burnt Umber over the ties. I then came back and painted the sides of the rails a dark rust color. I used a very small micro brush to paint along each side of the rail. (Actually several of them since my back and eyes could only take doing this for an hour or less at a time.) This has been very time consuming and I'm still not done with it yet. For every inch of track, its four inches of very fine painting. Here's what the track looks like after painting:










The rail color is pretty subtle in real life, but shows up better in this picture with good lighting. I'm really pleased with the results. The paint eliminates the slight color difference between the turnouts and the flex track. The rust paint on the sides of the rails also tones down the shine of the track.

Mark


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I decided to do a little tease of how my mountain is coming along. Note that this picture was taken before the pictures above where I started painting my track.










I need to do more shaping still. This is pretty rough. Its hard to see in this photo, but I plan to have a small waterfall just left of the center of this photo. This is going to be the green and wet end of my layout, so there will be a mountain stream in the high valley that spills down towards where the camera is placed for this shot.

Mark


----------



## Torsion

Looks good. Looking forward to seeing more. I like what your doing with this in a relatively small space.


----------



## gator do 65

Mark, how are you shaping your foam?


----------



## Overkast

Nice track painting work Mark, and I am LOVING the foam mountain shaping you're doing as well! Great stuff!

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

gator do 65 said:


> Mark, how are you shaping your foam?


I've mostly been doing the shaping with a hot wire foam cutter. There's a company called Hotwire Foam Factory that makes a cutter where the wire is thick enough that it can be bent into shapes so that it can make deep gouges into the foam. I also use a rasp as well. I used a hand saw to make the major block cuts before gluing the layers together.

Mark


----------



## carrera mike

OMG!! I didn't know that there's this much passion into the hobby! I meant that as a compliment. Im new.. Bug bitten. Im just in awe with what you gents can do! 
Thank for sharing.. very inspirational :thumbsup:


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working here and there on a number of different things. So time to give an update.

Perhaps the most noticeable thing I've done is install facia boards on a majority of the layout. There's one piece that I haven't done yet, but everything else is mostly done. I need to fill in several gaps between the facia and the foam I used to build the mountain. I used 1/8" hardboard to make the facia. There are several places where I was able to curve the facia to make a pleasing shape. You'll also notice that I have one piece of board up behind the mountain to make the backdrop. I have more pieces of hardboard ready to go up for the backdrop, but I don't have them in place yet.

The second thing that I've done is created most of the land forms for the nearest section of my layout as you walk into the room. This was built using the hard-shell method with plaster cloth forming the hills and valleys and drywall mud compound to smooth it out. I didn't set up the lighting to show the contours very well, so its kind of hard to see the undulations in these pictures. I also have a few flat areas that will make the passenger station and a couple of industry sites.

I also assembled a few building structures. I put together a kit for a passenger station, two more industrial "background" buildings, and a yard interlock building. I also purchased a pre-assembled water tower structure and a few vehicles that I can use for better judging road and parking dimensions.

I've also been having some fun just running the trains around the layout.




























Mark


----------



## VegasN

Just simply beautiful! I agree, at least for me, running the trains is the best part.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been making slow progress on my layout over the last several weeks. I've been adding rock formations over the plaster skin, coloring them, doing some painting, and then the final ground cover. Here's my progress to date:




























In the above 3 images, you can see how I'm attempting to disguise the distance between the upper track and the lower track. There's only 4 inches difference between the track heights. I want the tunnel entrance to look somewhat realistic, so I built a hill with a cut through the hill for the upper track. I think this accomplishes what I wanted to do.




























In the foreground of the above image, I'm building a passenger depot. There will be a station platform, depot building, and parking lot. I'm working on making the station platform smooth and with a nice crisp abutment to the track. 










This ties together the canyon scene I had finished some time ago with the rest of the layout. I can now do some ballasting of the track in this area to finish it off.

Mark


----------



## gnnpnut

Outstanding work Mark. Looking forward to photos of GN motive power and equipment running thru your scenes.

Regards, 
Jerry


----------



## VegasN

gnnpnut said:


> Outstanding work Mark. Looking forward to photos of GN motive power and equipment running thru your scenes.
> 
> Regards,
> Jerry


I agree, that will be stunning!


----------



## Magic

Great work Mark and your idea about the tunnel and cut works out beautifully. 
Gives the distance look you were after.

Magic


----------



## Chops124

Jaw dropping. Spectacular.


----------



## artinattleboro

Looking mighty awesome!! Just getting started back in trains after 40 year layoff, any way of downloading your AnyRail file? I will need to modify a bit but would be a great head start.


----------



## Overkast

Mark, your terrain artistry is both exceptional and inspirational. Fantastic work!!!

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

artinattleboro said:


> Looking mighty awesome!! Just getting started back in trains after 40 year layoff, any way of downloading your AnyRail file? I will need to modify a bit but would be a great head start.


I've been out of town visiting family for the past week, so I apologize for not responding faster.

I've attached my AnyRail file. For some reason, whenever I open or save this file, I get a warning about an illegal value. I haven't been able to figure out what's causing this. It hasn't seemed to cause any issues, so I've been ignoring it. I should probably send this file into the AnyRail company so they can figure out if there's some bug causing this or not. There's a bunch of layers in this file most of which you can probably ignore.

Mark


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working on my passenger station and depot. I've constructed the platform itself out of flat styrene sheets which I've cut to follow the contour of the track and fit around the base of the Depot building. I cut/filed expansion joints into the styrene to make it look more realistic. I bought a styrene sheet that already has the sidewalk pattern embossed in it and split it apart to form the sidewalks. The sidewalks are not yet cut to their final length. I'll cut them to get the exact fit just before I'm ready to glue them down. I now need to do some painting of the depot building, the parking lot, sidewalks, and platform. I'll then glue down all the styrene pieces and put grass along the parking lot and between the platform and sidewalks. Here's what it looks like before any painting has taken place.

Mark


----------



## Magic

Thar's going to look pretty sharp.
You do some very nice terrain and ground cover work, looks great.

Magic


----------



## VegasN

I always so enjoy seeing your work. Keeps me motivated. If I can achieve half of what you do, I would be ecstatic!


----------



## artinattleboro

*File*

Thanks for the file Mark, It will be awhile before I can start building, room needs work first.
Your layout is coming along nicely.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been making progress on my passenger station over the last week. Got a lot of painting done on it and some ground cover put around it. Also got a few detail pieces such as the mailbox and fire hydrant glued in place. More details such as storm drain grates and manhole covers are coming. I'll also have some lamp posts to be installed. And finally, I need some travel people figures to add to the platform.

As I've been waiting for the passenger station to dry, I spent some time on the 2 freight houses across the tracks from the passenger station. I got the parking lot and road leading to it completed. I have a fair amount of work left on the buildings.

Mark


----------



## VegasN

Looking incredible. Got us wanting to see more.


----------



## Overkast

VegasN said:


> Looking incredible. Got us wanting to see more.


I second that! The station area (and everything else) looks really great Mark. I'm also in awe how fast you're making progress on these scenes too.


----------



## jlc41

Very nice, I like it.


----------



## busguy

The Canyon and the Bridge work are unbelievable . . .

When I showed a couple of the pictures to my wife she said "Where is that ?? " When I told her it was a model she said, "No freakin way" . . .

The amount of detail in that Canyon is amazing. The rock work of the canyon walls and the flow and colours in the river are perfect.

The two freight buildings in your last photo . . . are those from Walthers Cornerstone ?? The layout that we are looking at building call for those two pieces and it's very cool to see them actually built up . . .


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

busguy said:


> The two freight buildings in your last photo . . . are those from Walthers Cornerstone ?? The layout that we are looking at building call for those two pieces and it's very cool to see them actually built up . . .


Thanks for the compliments!

All my buildings, including these two freight builds, are from Walthers Cornerstone. They still need a bunch of work. I want to light them, they need painting/weathering, and I want to modify the base of the building on the left to remove the baseplate and make it look like the building is emerging from the ground (not sitting on a baseplate).

Mark


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've put in the lamp posts and people figures into my passenger station scene. Adding the people helps the scene a lot. I'm really impressed with the Preiser figures that make up most of this scene. I also have a few figures from Woodland Scenics which are also good. I had one male figure I wasn't sure quite what to do with because of the pose, and then it hit me and I placed him as shown in the second photo below.

None of the LED lights in the lamp posts are hooked up and working yet. That's another task for another day.

Mark


----------



## VegasN

NIce. Yeah, I see what you are saying about the figures.....look good. Better than those 100 figures for $8.00 ones......


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I did several feet of ballasting over the past weekend. Also a little bit more painting of the freight buildings. Cut the base off of the one building and did the terrain cover around it. Also got some freight cargo to set outside and within the open doors of the freight houses. I also have a couple of my trains posed in these pictures.

Mark


----------



## jlc41

Coming along nicely. I like your station platform with the people and lamp posts.


----------



## VegasN

Immaculate! Your trains pose so well.....they must be models......


----------



## deedub35

Looks great. I wish I had a fraction of the time you have to work on your layout.


----------



## VegasN

I wish I had a fraction of his skills, and patience.


----------



## Overkast

Love it Mark. I see from some of the road imperfection details that you've added to the freight parking lot that you're watching some of the same tutorials that I am! 

If my roads come out looking anything close to yours, I will be a happy man.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thanks for all the compliments. I have to admit, it does stretch my level of patience. I hate waiting for paint and glue to dry, but I don't have any deadline for finishing anything, so there's no pressure to have it done immediately. I've had a fair amount of time to work on things over the last few weeks. I'll probably have another few weeks before my schedule gets crazy in the March, April, and May time frame.

I need to get back to my mountain scene. Its not coming along as well as I'd like and that's the main reason that I jumped to the train station and freight houses for the past several weeks. I haven't quite put my finger on what I don't like about the mountain scene right now. I've been doing a bunch of rock face work using plaster castings. I'm debating if I need to maybe go another direction.

I'm planning to go to a big train show here in Seattle this weekend. Maybe that will give me some ideas, inspiration, examples of how I might want to proceed on my mountain scene.

Mark


----------



## VegasN

Man I wish we had train shows here.


----------



## time warp

Nice work, Mark. Its nice that you have the space to model the passenger platform area in a realistic proportion. Most of us don't have that kind of room. Keep up the good work!


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working for the past several weeks on my mountain scene. As you may remember from several months ago, I built the mountains out of pink foam as shown below:










The above shot was taken before I had put up much of my actual ground terrain. I had stopped work on my mountain scene to finish a passenger station and some freight house scenes. I've now returned to the mountain scene after putting up some backdrop boards and skirt boards.

I reshaped the mountain a little bit, reducing its height a little as well. Then added several areas of rock faces. The rock faces are made from rock molds cast with plaster and plastic resin. I also used drywall compound to smooth out the mountain and blend in the rock faces. I sprayed white primer to seal it all and make for a uniform colored surface.










It was then a matter of coloring the rock. At the opposite end of my layout, I have the canyon scene with all brown colored rock. For the mountains, I wanted dark gray rock. I did the coloring process much different this time than what I did for the canyon. I first put down a complete black layer making sure I got into all the deep crevices.










I then put on layers of gray and dark brown over the black. With some light gray and even some white to highlight edges.










Next came a brownish green base color.










And then finally ground flock/turf. The mountain is going to have a pine tree forest covering much of it, so I used mix of a product called Forest Debris and Forest Floor from Scenic Express. I also painted the stream feeding the waterfall and the water fall basins.



















Here's a different perspective of the mountain showing how it ties into the passenger station in the foreground.










I'm pretty happy with the way this is turning out. I now need to make a few dozen pine trees of various size, type, and shades of green. I've already started a couple just to see how they will look. I'm planning to use the furnace filter method of making them.

Mark


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

As an aside, there was a change to the forum some months ago that affects the display of images. I typically attach pictures to the post and then individually insert "img" tags to get them to show up where I want them in the text stream of the post. In the past, the attached pictures would just show up as a sequence of file names at the end of the post. Now they show up as thumbnails pictures at the end. What I see on my screen when viewing my post is the pictures shown twice, once in the text commentary and another at the end. Not sure if other people see it the same or if its some setting in my profile. Anyone have a suggestion how easier/better methods of posting pictures?

Mark


----------



## MtRR75

Yeah, All of your pictures show up twice -- once were you put them in the text, and again after the text.


----------



## Nikola

A feature often seen in real life rock cuts is where a series of vertical holes is drilled from the top and then filled with dynamite and blasted. This cleaves a pretty straight cut through the rock but you see half of the vertical holes that were drilled in the remaining rock walls.

This might be a nice feature for someone to add to their layout as I have never seen it done.


----------



## Overkast

Mark, I really like how you posted this recap of progress in an easy-to-digest fasion. Really puts into perspective a bird's-eye view of all the hard work done behind the scenes to bring to fruition. Really great work.

And Nikola:...


Nikola said:


> A feature often seen in real life rock cuts is where a series of vertical holes is drilled from the top and then filled with dynamite and blasted. This cleaves a pretty straight cut through the rock but you see half of the vertical holes that were drilled in the remaining rock walls.
> 
> This might be a nice feature for someone to add to their layout as I have never seen it done.


...Heck of an observation and idea, and I agree as well.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


----------



## FTWingRiders

Looks great! Thanks for a step by step for newbies like me!


----------



## VegasN

Looks amazing, as always!


----------



## Magic

very nice work, that's going to look sharp.

Magic


----------



## Gramps

Great work, using the mountain photo as a guide was a smart idea.:thumbsup:


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Gramps said:


> Great work, using the mountain photo as a guide was a smart idea.:thumbsup:


I want to try to eventually paint the backdrop something similar to the snow-topped mountain photo I have. My mountains are meant to look like the foothills before the higher elevations in the background.

Mark


----------



## jlc41

Very nice work, I like it.


----------



## IlliniViking

Great work Mark. Looking very nice!!


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've gotten some more work done on my layout this past week. Originally I was planning to make a few dozen pine trees. After making a couple to try it out, I realized that if I populated the whole mountainside with trees, I wouldn't be able to get to the stream and I might have issues with the backdrop. So a change in plans happened.

I painted the backdrop a nice flat light shade of blue for the sky. I figured I might as well paint the facia boards as well since I had the roller out. I'll start painting scenery into the backdrop over the next several weeks. Here's a photo to show you the overall layout with the backdrop and facia boards painted.









This should also give you a better scale what this looks like in the spare bedroom I'm building this in.

In parallel, I also worked on the stream and waterfall feature that I have on my mountainside. I decided to use Envirotex Lite resin again for my water, just like I did for the Canyon scene shown earlier in this thread. I had material still left over and it worked well for me in the past. So I mixed up the resin thoroughly with a very small amount of green paint to tint the water. I also made the cascading water for the falls using Woodland Scenics Water Effect product. It was first put down on wax paper, then after it was dry, it was peeled off the paper, trimmed to proper length, and attached to the lip of the falls and the bottom water surface. I waterfall isn't finished yet, but I just have to show you what it looks like since I'm very pleased with the results thus far.

























I still need to add some ripples and turbulence to the stream and the upper and lower pools of the waterfall. I'll also come back and add some white paint. The white color that you currently see at the top and bottom of the waterfall is the not quite dry Water Effects product.

Mark


----------



## VegasN

Just simply gorgeous!!


----------



## Shadow001

looks really good.


----------



## Overkast

Wow Mark, that whole scene looks amazing! What products and methods did you use for your water and waterfall?

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


----------



## Magic

The waterfall is going to look very nice and you sure do some nice rock work.
It's going to be hard to beat the canyon scene but your giving it a good run.
Great workmanship.

Magic


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

My daughter's sports season is over with and I have weekends free once again, so I'll be able to spend more time on building out my railroad. I've been working a bit on the backdrop over the last couple of weeks.

Its been over a year since I last posted a video of my layout in operation, so I think its time to post an updated video. The video starts with a brief overview of the layout and then gets some trains running. Hope you enjoy it.






Comparing this video to the one from a year ago makes me realize just how much I've accomplished over the year. It certainly has been fun!

Mark


----------



## VegasN

Wow.....it has been awhile since we've seen your babies hasn't it?
Looks astounding! All that wonderful scenery.......makes me want to go back out right now and work on mine......but.......I am not anywhere near ready for scenery, it's 9:00 at night, I've been out there half the day, and it's still 102 out there.......so I'll sit here and admire yours for now.


----------



## Magic

Looking great Mark.
Just love that curved trestle over that beautiful canyon.

Magic


----------



## jlc41

Very nice workmanship. I like the attention to detail. i.e oil spots in parking lot and the trestle speaks for it's self.


----------



## Overkast

It's great to hear from you again Mark, and thanks for posting that awesome video! The layout looks gorgeous and fun. Amazing how far it's come. 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Its been a while, so I want to post an update on my waterfall. All the "water" work is done. I've added waves and painted the froth at the bottom of the falls. I've started making trees for the upper part of the hills. I've make 16 so far and I probably need 5 times that many for this end of the layout. I'm pleased with the way this is all coming together.

Mark


----------



## VegasN

Wow! That is gorgeous! Man, I just hope mine turns out half as good as yours!


----------



## jlc41

Very nicely done. I like the deer drinking and the trees and the water and the .... you get the idea.... whole thing.


----------



## Gramps

Very nice, thanks for posting.:appl:


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Worked on a completely different project today. I had purchased some electroluminescent billboard signs from Miller Engineering a while back. Decided to mount them on the roofs of a few of my industrial buildings today. Right now, they're running off of battery power. I will eventually wire them in to a permanent power supply and turn them on and off from my control panel. Here's what they look like:






Mark


----------



## Nikola

I've not seen that before. Impressive and eye catching!


----------



## VegasN

They look great!


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working for the last few weeks on assembling some buildings and doing some painting of them. I've been wanting to try to figure out what will fit and look right in my industrial/yard area. Decided to get an Ice House, Service Garage, very small Industrial Office building, another Freight House, and an Electrical Substation. Those are now assembled and put into place as shown in picture #1 below. I still need to do the "landscaping" around them, which will mostly be adding blacktop roads and parking areas. 

I also did some painting of the 4 industrial backdrop buildings I already had assembled. In addition, I finished the lighting of those 4 buildings to complement the lighted billboards on top of them. You can see them closer up in picture #2 below. I decided that my city would be Spokane (as you can see on the water tower), so I looked up some industries that existed in Spokane during the early 1950s and thus named my buildings after those industries. The building name signs were made on my computer and printer. My goal is to be "plausible" but not neccessarily accurate.

The final picture is of the fuel company I built for the opposite side of my layout. I've done some painting of the tanks and pipes but not the other platform or main building yet. I want to put some home made decals on the side of the tanks. Another task for another day.

Mark


----------



## Nikola

Nice!


----------



## jlc41

Nice work, I like the sky line in the back ground makes the scene.


----------



## 89Suburban

Looking great!


----------



## VegasN

As always Mark, perfect work!
Hey, the building in your yard, the one on stilts......what is that building? I have the same thing in N scale and have no idea what it is supposed to be.....


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

VegasN said:


> As always Mark, perfect work!
> Hey, the building in your yard, the one on stilts......what is that building? I have the same thing in N scale and have no idea what it is supposed to be.....


Walters calls it a "Storage Shed on Pilings". I'm using it as a freight house.

Mark


----------



## time warp

I like the tanks and the curved roof storage building. Things are starting to come to life!:thumbsup:


----------



## VegasN

Cool, thanks Mark! I just wondered what it was intended to be. Mine is the office/shop area of a junk/scrap yard.
Oh, and I agree with TW, that curved roof building is pretty sic!


----------



## time warp

They built wood structures like that in the old days to have the floor at loading dock height.


----------



## VegasN

Ahh.....see I was thinking more like swamp buildings or beach front buildings.......what do I know??


----------



## jlc41

Ahh, the old day's where common scense prevailed.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've had more time to work on my railroad over the last week or two, so I've been making some more progress. I've nearly completed the Petroleum Company scene, including finishing the scenery around it and ballasting the tracks. I've got pictures below of the Petroleum Company up close and also from farther back so you can see how it fits into the overall layout.

If you look in the distance of the pulled-back shot, you'll see I also have some other projects going on in the yard/industry area. Hope to make more progress on that over the next several days.

Mark


----------



## time warp

You are to the point now where you probably have more scenic detailing ideas than you know what to do with, and a few places you DON'T know what to do with.:laugh:


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

time warp said:


> You are to the point now where you probably have more scenic detailing ideas than you know what to do with, and a few places you DON'T know what to do with.:laugh:


You've got that right. I could make more trees, do more building lighting, track ballasting, make roads/parking lots, assemble and install signals, software for the signals, put more people in the scenes, see what I could automate with an Ardrino, and probably another half dozen things I'll think about after I finish this post.

Mark


----------



## Overkast

Mark, you're doing an outstanding job progressing the layout. The city scene and petrol company are gorgeous additions! I'm amazed how you added the lighting to the city buildings, it looks so great. And the detail in that petrol company... all those pipes and the weathering detail, etc... it's all just top notch.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk


----------



## Gramps

Very nicely done.:appl:


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thanks for the nice comments. I've been doing the building lighting all from scratch. I bought a strip of 50 surface mount warm white LEDs from an online electronics supply company. I think they're meant for making home light bulbs and can take 40 ma of current. I'm driving them with only about 4 ma of current when inside a building and 2.5 ma of current when I use them outside under eaves and overhangs. They should last forever at that low power. I'm also using Woodland Scenics LED lamp posts and goose neck lights which are pre-built. Been working with lots of very small wire lately.

Mark


----------



## Overkast

I can't wait to get to the point where I am putting lights into my layout. I've never thought of controlling the current flow to lights to get the proper brightness and longevity until this week where both you and time warp posted about it. I love those kinds of nuances!

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been doing more work with getting lights working on my layout. I posted some pictures of the industrial buildings with billboards a while back. I've now got lights working on my passenger station, the petroleum company, and one of the freight houses. Here's some pictures of what this looks like in the dark.

Mark


----------



## Magic

Looks really nice Mark.
Just the right amount of lights to do the job but not so many to over do it.
Nice work.

Magic


----------



## jlc41

Looking very nice, I like it. I like the idea of softening the under eaves lights.


----------



## Gramps

Very nice lighting.:thumbsup:


----------



## Overkast

Oh my gosh, the lighting is amazing Mark. It looks so realistic - just like Magic said, not overdone or underdone... it's so darn near prototypical it looks real. I love how you did headlights on the truck too!!! Blown away right now...

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk


----------



## bluenavigator

Really stunning light show!


----------



## time warp

Nice work on the lighting! I particularly like the interior lighting effects. :appl:


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thanks everyone for the nice comments.



Overkast said:


> I love how you did headlights on the truck too!!!


I can't take credit for the lights on the truck and car. I purchased those already lit. They're from Woodland Scenics (https://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/category/JPLitVehicles). They are very nice and look great. I might buy another one or so for the industrial area that isn't yet done.

Mark


----------



## Bob88

Mark VerMurlen said:


> I've been doing more work with getting lights working on my layout. I posted some pictures of the industrial buildings with billboards a while back. I've now got lights working on my passenger station, the petroleum company, and one of the freight houses. Here's some pictures of what this looks like in the dark.
> 
> Mark


That's awesome, I love it.


----------



## 89Suburban

That looks great!


----------



## VegasN

Man.....I don't even have the words.......I sent a picture of your layout to a thesaurus and asked for the right words......it said it can't help me......


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working this past week on my electrical substation on my layout. I put together a Walthers Cornerstone plastic model of the substation a few weeks ago. I was able to put down "gravel" around it and build a security fence around it this past week. The security fence was built using the guidance of a YouTube video created by Luke Towan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_guMOYoCpw&t=306s). I built it using wire, rather than styrene. Using Blue Tack to hold down the wire pieces while I soldered them worked out really great. The most difficult part was gluing the "barb wire" to the top of the fence. I painted it earlier today and added some signs. I was originally thinking of trying to put in the cabling between the pieces of the substation, but I'm having second thoughts about do that. Maybe in the future. Here's what it looks like.

Mark


----------



## jlc41

Looks good, I like it. The fence is very nice with the signs attached.


----------



## time warp

Very nice work, the fence looks great.:thumbsup:


----------



## Magic

Mark that barb wire sure set this fence off, great workmanship.
I bookmarked that video, need some good fences.

Magic


----------



## VegasN

Looks very nice. I am very familiar with Luke Towan. Unfortunately, some of his techniques don't work in N scale. Too small. I use matchsticks and mesh material for my chain link fencing.


----------



## Bob88

That's very nice, looks like a lot of work tho, lol.


----------



## Gramps

Very nice.:thumbsup:


----------



## 89Suburban

That looks outstanding.


----------



## bluenavigator

Bob88 said:


> That's very nice, looks like a lot of work tho, lol.


Worth the effort after doing that, one would be rewarded.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working on my landscaping of the yard area of my layout over the last couple of weeks. I've built a diesel fueling station and a sanding tower. I've also worked on creating some yard items like extra sets of wheels, a stack of rails, and a stack of ties. I also built a wooden plank walkway from one end of the yard to the other. Also installed a number of light poles. Still need to work on the industrial sidings and mainline in back of the yard.

Mark


----------



## time warp

I like how the city scene is coming together with the backdrop, nice work as always!
I gotta give you a D- on the blue flowery wall treatment, it doesn't really make a credible looking sky. :laugh:


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Those are leftover from my daughter's room decorating. My wife didn't want me to remove them, but I think that's going to have to happen one of these days while she's out.

Mark


----------



## Ace

*Nice video on page 11 !!! Great-looking railroad !!!*


----------



## time warp

Ace said:


> *Nice video on page 11 !!! Great-looking railroad !!!*


Absolutely one of the best!


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working for the last few weeks on a much different project on my railroad. I have sound equipped locomotives on my layout like many of you do. So I was thinking, if my locomotives have sound, shouldn't the other items on my layout? Shouldn't the waterfall make noise and shouldn't there be birds in the woods? Shouldn't you be able to hear the industry work going on? Yes, I think so.

So I spent some time thinking about how this could be done and researching some products that I could use to accomplish this. I decided to start with 3 mono channels. One for the woods/waterfall, one for the industrial area, and one for the passenger train station. I then had to figure out how to produce the sounds. Looked at several boards that could playback audio tracks. Decided to use a board from SparkFun called the Tsunami Super WAV Trigger. This board can drive 4 stereo or 8 mono channels, so more than I need. It stores sound files on a micro SD card, so I can change the sounds when ever I would like. It has 16 triggers for starting the various tracks. Best of all, it can playback multiple tracks all at the same time with seamless looping and mixing.

After purchasing the Super WAV Trigger board, I also needed to buy 3 mono amps and speakers. I decided to build small speaker boxes to house the 2" speakers which required a bit of study on speaker design. I built them out of 1/4" MDF board and glued them together. The amps are Class D amplifiers which are efficient but need the amps placed close to the speakers, so they are put right at the back of the speaker boxes.

I hadn't planned on doing this earlier, so I needed to figure out how best to put the speakers into the layout. For the waterfall/woods, I cut out a cavity in the foam in the backside of the mountain that hides the speaker from view. Once the backdrop is in place, its not visible at all. For the industry area, I didn't have space behind the buildings and I couldn't go below them because of hidden track underneath that area. So I decided to put a hole up underneath where I planned to have a hill out several inches in front of the industry and make a sound channel coming out the backside of the hill. For the passenger station, I simply put a hole up under the station building.

I put a 3 position switch in my control panel to operate the sound system. Center is off, down is audio on, but no continuous sound loops, up is audio on playing continuous sound loops for the waterfall/woods and the industry. To add some interest, I put a couple of push buttons into my facia. One button by the waterfall causes a random bird call/song to be played back. Another button by the station causes a random station announcement to be played back. I still need to add in 2 other triggers that interface into my computer control so that train arrival and departure can be announced at the station. In the future, I may add an arduino or other micro controller to do some other sound playback control functions.

For the sounds, I downloaded several from the internet that had bird calls and various industrial sounds, like a stamp machine and some random clinks and clanks and clunks. I then put them together with a sound editor. I couldn't find anything I liked for station announcements, so I decided to make my own. I used a sound editor to make the announcements sound like they are coming from an old PA system. I followed some advice I found for adding distortion, clipping, and echo to give that effect. I've attached one of those sound files to this post.

I'll have to make another video to give a better sense of what this all sounds like together. The advantage of using the multiple speaker channels is that when you're in the room with the layout, the sound comes from the appropriate place as expected.

Mark


----------



## wvgca

sounds pretty clear, well done


----------



## jlc41

Nice work, just some more things to consider. I like it, thanks for posting.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Made a new video of my layout this morning. You'll be able to hear some of the background sounds that I added using the sound board described above.

Mark


----------



## flyboy2610

Nice layout, Mark! I like that trestle!


----------



## time warp

Keep messing around with that and pretty soon you'll end up with a nice layout! Good work.:appl:


----------



## jlc41

Am seeing a whole lot of wizardry going on. Nice work Mark.


----------



## deedub35

Excellent work Mark!


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've not been able to work on my layout as much as I would have liked over the last few months. Finally got around to getting around to finishing the ground cover for the far industrial area on my layout. That allowed me to totally finish all the track ballasting. I'M ALL DONE WITH BALLASTING!! Yeah!

My wife got me a static grass applicator for Christmas, so I'll have to go back over a few places on my layout and add some static grass.

Things still on the To Do list include: Weather remaining buildings, Weathering cars and locomotives, Build cantilever signal bridges (4 of them), Assemble signals, wire up and program the signal operations.

I've attached a couple pictures of the far industrial area now that its nearly complete.

Mark


----------



## Gramps

Looks great!:thumbsup:


----------



## Magic

Looks very sharp Mark.
Nice workmanship.

It's always a red letter day when you finish the ballasting.
Which came out very nice by the way.

Magic


----------



## time warp

Good to see things moving ahead.


----------



## jackpresley

Hey Mark,

Just read through the thread. Thanks for documenting this, especially the early stages. Really helped me visualize how I might tackle things. Incredible work you've done. Beautiful.

-Jack


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working over the last few days on making trees for the mountain/wooded end of my layout. I'm going to call this end of the layout done except for the tunnel portal I still need to build. I'll also probably come back and put static grass on the grassy face of the mountain. It looks a little too manicured right now. There are a total of 161 trees that I've made. Most of them are built using the "furnace filter" method. The smaller trees are created using twisted wire and hemp rope fibers. I've also place a number of critters in the woods for people to find when looking at the layout. I'm pleased with the way its turned out.

Mark


----------



## cpbc

wow... brilliant work!
Thanks for sharing


----------



## time warp

It's looking better all the time, Mark. I hope you enjoy running it as much as you do building it.


----------



## rwslater

Just went through this thread of your layout construction Mark. You have some great skill and this is one fantastic layout.

Robert


----------



## 761

Stunning! Just amazing! On top of a fantastic layout, you have shared the process - which takes time away from modeling and is commendable apart from the stellar layout you have made. I cannot thank you enough.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thanks for all the nice complements. I do hope that documenting my building of this layout is helpful to others. I've learned so much from others on this board and across the internet. I hope that I can give some of that back. I owe many of you on this forum a debt of gratitude for the help and inspiration you've given me, wether you've realized it or not. If you would have shown me current day pictures of my layout 3 years ago when I first started planning it, I would have said there's no way I could ever build such a layout. But learning from others has made it a reality.

So to those just starting out, you can probably accomplish more than you think, but also consider what you like to do and what you don't like to do and take that into account. There are many fine layouts on this forum that I greatly admire and its made clear to me that they are all equally great even though they are all quite different from one another. So there's lots of ways to get to an end result and we each follow different paths to get there.

Above all, have fun! That's what the hobby is really all about.

Mark


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've started scratch building a set of cantilever signal bridges for my layout. I had tried to buy these, but couldn't find anywhere that had them in stock. I chose the style as shown below in the first picture. I've found this style used by a number of different railroads, so I think its quite common and will thus be appropriate for my layout.









I took this picture and isolated the cantilever structure so that I could use it as a template. You'll see the black and white silhouette in several of the pictures below.

I purchased a bridge building kit from Micro Engineering that I could take the beams from to make the upright post holding the cantilever structure. I also purchased some scale diamond sheeting, plain sheeting, "T", "L", handrail, and ladder shaped styrene parts in various thickness and sizes to build the upper structure.

The first step was easy. Assemble the bridge girder parts, glue horizontal "L" supports for the walkway, and then glue the diamond plating as the floor of the walkway.









I then had to figure out how to form the curved "T" supports. I decided to make a jig so that I could make several of these all with the same (or nearly same) shape. I used the silhouette to cut out some scrap 1/8" hardboard that followed the contours. I then experimented with various ways to bend the "T" pieces. I could bend it by hand over the shapes, but it wouldn't hold that shape. I then tried to use a heat gun to warm up the pieces to see if that would make them hold their shape. I couldn't get the heat gun to heat evenly enough causing the pieces to warp out of shape. So I next tried heating the pieces up in my wife's oven. I had to experiment a bit to get the right temperature and heating time. In the end, I used about 230 degrees for 3 minutes. This is what the jig looks like that I put in the oven.









This worked out really well and the "T" pieces held their shape. I then trimmed them to length. I made a "box" structure for the very end of the cantilevered horizontal support and then glued on the curved "T" supports.









The next step was to put the cross bracing in. I was originally going to try to exactly match the real life photo, but quickly realized that wasn't going to work. So I simplified a bit. Here's the result.









I think its turning out pretty good so far. I now need to finish the cross bracing on the other side of this assembly and then make 3 more just like this.

Once I have all 4 of the main cantilever structures built, I'll add the hand rails and ladders. Then of course I'll have to add the actual searchlight signal heads.

This is all fiddly precise work, so it will take me some time to get it all done. Just wanted to show the first phases of construction.

Mark


----------



## deedub35

Looks good - real good.


----------



## bluenavigator

Looking so good! Great effort on building one from scratch! :appl:


----------



## time warp

Very nice work, Mark. Far above my abilities.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Took a break away from making cantilever signal bridges to do a small side project. A few weeks ago, someone posted an example of how to make a scrap metal load for their gondola cars. I can't remember who did that and I couldn't locate the thread, so I'm sorry I can't give them credit. Anyway, wanted to do this on my layout too. Here's the results.









Done pretty much as was shown in the other thread. Took a sheet of styrene and put some spacers under it. Then glued down a number of scrap pieces of styrene parts I had from past projects as well as some disassembled wheel sets. Used an airbrush to first put down a flat black, getting into all the crevices so no white would show. Then came back with a dark rust color and finally dry brushed on some light rust. Then a little bit of black and rust colored weathering powders for a final touch.

Haven't really done anything to the gondola car itself, other than the wheels. Another project for another day.

Mark


----------



## Nikola

Really, really nice!!


----------



## 761

Remarkable. This is really the best I have seen. Great work!


----------



## Gramps

Great work, photo and explanation on the gondola load bash. Thanks for posting.:thumbsup:


----------



## Chet

Don't know how I missed this nice layout. Excellent work getting so much into a small space without overcrowding everything. 

Well done.


----------



## Thelic

Fantastic layout Mark, keep those pictures coming!

How does the access to your hidden tracks look?


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thelic said:


> Fantastic layout Mark, keep those pictures coming!
> 
> How does the access to your hidden tracks look?


Thanks! I can access the hidden track via the backside of the mountain or from underneath the table. Its not easy, but I've only had to fetch something from the hidden track a few times over the past couple of years. The track work has been robust enough to not cause problems and the train automation software ensures the turnout is set properly to avoid derailments. For cleaning it, I have a track cleaning car that I can run over that section.

Mark


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've been working on weathering my Mikado 2-8-2 steam locomotive over the last week or so. My layout is set in the early 1950s, so steamers would have been near the end of their life. So I wanted this engine to have a fair amount of dirt on it, but not yet rusted or abused. I used some acrylic paints shot through an air brush for the fading, soot on top, and tan dirt on the lower portion. I used oil paints for the black pin wash, water scale streaking, rust spots/streaks, and the oil spots on the running gear. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Unfortunately, I don't have a good "before" picture to show the difference from what it used to look like out of the box.

Mark


----------



## jackpresley

Very nice! Love the Great Northern on the tender, too. :appl:


----------



## Gramps

Very nice:thumbsup:


----------



## 89Suburban

Looks great.


----------



## Stumpy

Weathering on the Mikado is awesome!... but so is the rest of the layout.

A question for you, Mark, about the Train Controller software. Are there features in the Gold version that you just can't do without, or would the Silver or Bronze work for you just as well?


----------



## MichaelE

Yes, the weathering is a great job. How did I miss this?


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thanks everyone for the nice comments about the weathering of the Mikado steam locomotive. Its one of my first attempts at doing a serious weathering paint job on my locomotives. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.



Stumpy said:


> A question for you, Mark, about the Train Controller software. Are there features in the Gold version that you just can't do without, or would the Silver or Bronze work for you just as well?


You're probably thinking the same thing that I did when purchasing TrainController. The Gold version is very expensive. I did start out with the Silver version, but upgraded to Gold within a month. So yes, there are several features of the Gold version that I found I needed or wanted.

Some are simple, like just being able to pick the right switchboard symbol size so that my track diagram fit nicely on the monitor I have. Some just make it easier to build the switchboard and configure everything, like the various editing extras of the Gold version.

Some things I found I just absolutely needed to have to make the layout function as I want. My track plan is moderately complex, so these things would probably not apply to simple layouts. An example of this is I've got a spur track with a couple of different industries on it. I wanted to stop covered hopper cars at the milling company and I wanted to stop box cars at the manufacturing companies. To do this, I needed train descriptions that differentiated car and locomotive types and I needed stop markers that depended on which schedule was being run. These are features only in the Gold version.

I also make use of probabilities for execution of operations. I've built schedule pieces that move trains from location to location and I use probabilities to pick from these various schedules to run after the current schedule completes. This gives my layout some randomness when its running.

I also do some simple things with COMBI-groups so that my freight trains don't use the passenger station siding unless absolutely needed for passing each other.

As I get into signals and auto uncoupling operations in the future, I expect there will be other Gold-only features that I'll be using.

You should definitely download the Gold/Silver user guide for TrainController. It has about 14 pages worth of features described that are in the Gold version that are not in the Silver. While the Gold version was very expensive, I've found it worth it because of all the capabilities that it has.

Hope this helps.

Mark


----------



## Stumpy

Thanks Mark. That helps a ton. When construction begins on my layout I'm sure I'll be picking your brain some more.


----------



## jackpresley

Mark,

Last year it appeared that you were almost done. How is it going?

-Jack


----------



## cole226

Mark, I quietly followed your build over the years.

Sat here this morning and read over much of it again. *Beautiful* job on the layout and rolling stock and weathering projects.

Any updates?


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

*Its been a long time...*

Hi Everyone,

Its been a long time since I've posted on my railroad built thread. I've been trying to be more active outside, so I've been doing a lot of cycling the past couple of years and skiing during the winters. I've also picked up learning guitar. All 3 activities have been taking my time.

As you've seen, my layout is almost complete. I like the building phase more than just running the trains, so that's another reason I haven't been very active with my railroad.

I just did get some motivation to finish one of the few remaining projects that I've been wanting to do. As you've seen, the river canyon has been a central part of my railroad, but its been lacking a proper background. I've finally gotten around to spending some time on it recently.

I couldn't find any background for sale that I thought would work well, so I decided to make my own. Since my artistic painting abilities aren't very good, I am taking a photographic approach. I shot some imagery a while back of the Columbia river gorge in central Washington state. I brought that into Photoshop and composited in river entry and exit scenes to match up as best I could with my layout itself. After several hours of Photoshop work, I took the resulting image to a local sign shop to have printed. I mounted that to my backdrop panels and then did some painting of the sky with clouds. Here are my results:


----------



## MichaelE

Amazing work. Great job.


----------



## Stumpy

Nice!


----------



## Chaostrain

Well done!


----------



## Magic

You did very nice job on the backdrop, looks great.
The trestle and gorge are amazing.

Magic


----------



## Gramps

Great work!:appl:


----------



## Big Bill

That's very nicely done.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

You may remember back on post #184 in this thread that I was scratch building some cantilever signal bridges based off a photograph that I had from the internet. I've gotten back to this project and have completed building 4 of these signal bridges. They're painted black because that's the color the Great Northern Railroad used back in the early 1950s. I've mounted these on my layout using magnets to hold them in place, but they are not lit up yet. That's another project for another day.

Mark


----------



## Magic

Those came out looking very nice indeed.
A great addition to a great layout.

Magic


----------



## Stumpy

Nice build(s)!


----------



## Gramps

Very nice.:thumbsup:


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Continuing to work on adding signals to my railroad. I'm building searchlight signals from kits made by Showcase Miniatures (https://www.showcaseminiatures.net). These are made of metal, rather than plastic, so they are more realistic in scale. The downside is that they take a fair amount of time to build from the many small parts. Here's what they look like after gluing them together and before paint. I have 10 more pole searchlights to assemble. All of the dwarf signals have been assembled and are awaiting painting. Each searchlight head contains a 3 color LED which will be controlled by automation software (TrainController Gold).


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've continued working on my signals. I've got all the dwarf and pole searchlight signals built now. They've all been painted as well. Here's a few of the different types and a closeup of a couple of dual head signals:


















If you look closely, you'll see steel washers glued to the bottom of the signal posts. I'm insetting washer shaped magnets into the terrain which will hold the signal posts in place, but they can still be adjusted or laid on their side for track cleaning or other needs. Here's a magnet embedded in the landscaping along side the track:










I've got about a half dozen signals installed and lit up as shown in the following pictures.


































I'm using TrainController software to set the color of the lights. Digitrax SE8C boards are being used to drive the signals. When trains are running under automated control, the signals are set according to the schedules. When the trains are being run manually, the signals are automatically set according to turnout direction and any occupancy ahead of the train.

Its been really tedious to build these signal and wire them up. As I'm sure you all know, I've got the time to do this with the COVID-19 virus going around and everyone having to stay at home. It will probably take a few more weeks to complete the installation and wiring of the remaining signals. I'll then do a video to show everyone what the end result looks like.

- Mark


----------



## Magic

Mark those are looking very nice indeed.
I certainly wouldn't have the patients to do that kind of work.
Good job.

Magic


----------



## cole226

Mark, as everyone has said you've done an excellant job on the layout. Everything looks great and the working signals will be the topper.

I'm sure not picking but I recently seen an article by a master modeler about our square corners. He used some kind of a hardboard to round the corners and made the backdrop flow better into the scene. Wondered if you had tried anything like that behind your river/gorge? It looks great as is, but it might take the seam out of that corner.


----------



## flyboy2610

Very nice! I like that magnet idea.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thanks for all the nice comments.



cole226 said:


> I'm sure not picking but I recently seen an article by a master modeler about our square corners. He used some kind of a hardboard to round the corners and made the backdrop flow better into the scene. Wondered if you had tried anything like that behind your river/gorge? It looks great as is, but it might take the seam out of that corner.


At this point, its too late for me to consider trying to change the corners. I can't reach that corner to make any changes to it. When I first started building this layout, I never would have believed that it would turn out looking as good as it does. I hadn't given any thought to the look of the background. My room is also fairly small, so it would be hard to make a rounded corner with any significant radius. I'm ok with it looking like it does currently. As has been said in some other threads, there's always something that you didn't plan for and would like to change. At some point in the future I may build another layout in which case this is something that I'll plan for up front.



flyboy2610 said:


> Very nice! I like that magnet idea.


I think it was Fredrick that gave me the idea to use magnets, so I can't claim it myself. It has worked out really well. I was originally planning to use 2 magnets for each post, one glued to the bottom of the post and the other embedded in the landscaping, but the magnets proved to be too strong. Using just one magnet and one steel washer gave me the right attraction force. I also don't have to worry about getting the polarity of the magnets right.


----------



## cole226

Mark VerMurlen said:


> Thanks for all the nice comments.
> 
> 
> I'm ok with it looking like it does currently.
> 
> I sure hope so. You can give yourself a pat on the back.
> 
> That magnet idea is pretty neat.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've finished with installing the rest of my signal lights. I've got a total of 46 signal heads on my layout, 21 are dwarf signals and the rest are pole or cantilever mounted. I'm really pleased with the way they turned out. They were really hard to build and wire up because of the small parts and fine wires. I was worried that I would wreck some of them during the installation process, but that only happened to one of them and I had enough parts to make a replacement. So they are all functional and operating under control of the computer system. One thing I didn't think of when making them is that the kits included 3 sizes of shades for the lights. I chose the longest size since it looked more prototypical to me, which I think they are. What I didn't expect is that the longer shades would shield the lights from being seen from above by myself and other guests when the railroad is in operation. You have to get down closer to "ground level" to see them. If I were to do it over again, I would choose the medium length shades so the signal lights are more easily seen from normal viewing position. Here's a couple more pictures of the signals:








_







_


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

One more thing that I finally got around to doing, building a portal for one of my tunnels. The other 2 tunnel entrances have "natural" rock portals, but I had left one undone. The tracks for this tunnel entrance are not spaced such that I could use a purchased tunnel portal, so I had to make my own. I wanted one that would look like concrete with a simple design that might have been used in the early 1900s. Here's what I came up with:
















This is constructed out of 1/4" thick foam with some thinner pieces to add some architectural interest. It was then painted and weathered before installation.

This pretty much completes all the major elements of my railroad layout. I want to do some weathering of my freight cars still and I'm sure there are some small detail projects that I could also add.

Over the next several days, I intend to shoot some video that I can edit together to show you the completed layout.

Mark


----------



## Magic

Mark, what color paint did you use for the concrete portal? It looks great.

Magic


----------



## cole226

Mark, lights and portal look great. I really like the cracked and heaved look on the portal. You really have the knack for the details. 
Can't wait to see a vid of the whole layout.


----------



## MichaelE

Looks really good Mark. You do great work.


----------



## Gramps

Great work!


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thanks for he kind comments, everyone.



Magic said:


> Mark, what color paint did you use for the concrete portal? It looks great.


The underlying main color is Woodland Scenics Top Coat "Concrete". Its a bit yellow, maybe too yellow, but it works with some weathering over the top of it to tone it down a bit.



cole226 said:


> I really like the cracked and heaved look on the portal. You really have the knack for the details.


That's a happy accident. I didn't cut a piece of foam long enough to extend the full width, so I had to make the top blocks from pieces. I figured it would look like expansion joints, but because they are separate pieces they don't line up exactly right giving the heaved look.


----------



## cole226

Mark VerMurlen said:


> That's a happy accident. I didn't cut a piece of foam long enough to extend the full width, so I had to make the top blocks from pieces. I figured it would look like expansion joints, but because they are separate pieces they don't line up exactly right giving the heaved look.


LOL, million dollar mistake. But hey, looks great, planned it that way.


----------



## Magic

Thanks Mark.
I'm having a heck of a time with concrete coloring, I'll give this a try.

Magic


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I shot some video this afternoon and did some editing to put it together. Not the greatest camera handling, but I think you'll get a pretty good view of my layout.

- Mark

[Video removed in favor of a better one linked further below.]


----------



## Magic

Really nice Mark, I love your RR.
Some super nice modeling and workmanship and a great design.
Great scenery, kind of open and not over built, a very nice mix.
Trains look so good on the trestle over that great canyon.  
Thanks for the video.

Magic


----------



## MichaelE

Very very nice scenery work Mark.

You may already know this, but if you adjust CV3 and 4 you can get much more prototypical starts and stops of the locomotives.


----------



## Gramps

Great work on the layout, that trestle is super.


----------



## Chaostrain

Very well done! I enjoyed it. Thank you for sharing.


----------



## Stumpy

Outstanding work!

Thanks for the video.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thanks for all the nice comments.



MichaelE said:


> You may already know this, but if you adjust CV3 and 4 you can get much more prototypical starts and stops of the locomotives.


This is something I need to do more work on. For TrainContoller to accurately track train position within a block, CV3 and 4 both need to be zero. TrainController has its own methods of simulating momentum by assigning weights to cars and horsepower to engines. I need to spend time tweaking those values. I had tried to do this several weeks ago, but it didn’t go well. The number of cars I’m pulling isn’t prototypical, so true life weights and power values didn’t give realistic behavior. I tried lowering horsepower values for the engines, but if I went low enough to give nice slow starts, the trains had trouble climbing the grades on my layout. So I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to solve this. May have to ask for advice on the TrainController forum.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Well, I overlooked the obvious in the TrainController software regarding momentum. I was too wrapped up in the weights of the cars and power of the engines to notice that there's a separate value for each engine just to control acceleration momentum. Setting that value to a more appropriate value for each engine has dramatically improved the realistic operation of my trains. I think I'm going to have to reshoot my video...


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Ok, new video. Acceleration momentum has been fixed. Used a tripod for most of the camera shots. Not as long of a video. Shows a couple other features of the railroad that was not in the previous version.


----------



## Magic

Big improvement with the momentum change, looks good.

Magic


----------



## Andreash

Really enjoyed this thread. Excellent modelling...cheers


----------



## 65steam

I really like how the station sound effects add interest to your passenger train. Passenger trains are beautiful but can be somewhat boring on a layout. Your sound effects make your passenger operations much more interesting to observe.

I also really like your wilderness sound effects. Just as we compress space on a layout, you have compressed wilderness sounds on your layout. In both instances, too much compression would be crowded. You've avoid crowding too many sounds into your wilderness area while also being able to suggest quite vividly how wild the mountain territory is that the railway must pass through in this region of the country.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

Thanks for your comments on the layout sound effects I've put in my layout. I have the ability to switch the background sound on or off when I run my railroad. I've found that I always turn the layout background sound on. The bird calls that come from my mountain area is very soothing to hear in the background. I think it helps counter balance all the mechanical sounds coming from my sound equipped locomotives. I also took a lot of time to pick the sounds that come from my industrial area. I wanted something that wouldn't be annoying after hearing it for hours on end and wouldn't draw attention to itself. I'm pleased that I think I've accomplished that.


----------



## Mark VerMurlen

I've spent the last few weeks working on and off on weathering all of the rail cars I have on my layout. I had done the locomotives some time ago, but hadn't gotten to the rail cars until now. Weathering is mostly light handed and was done with an air brush and grimy wash. Took the "shine" off and dulled the colors down a bit. Here's a few pictures of how it turned out. I will probably do a few details on some of the cars, such as oil stains/drips on the tank cars and maybe some rust spots on a few other cars.


----------



## Gramps

Nice work!


----------



## cid

Very realistic, and attractive layout, Mark!!


----------



## Stumpy

Very nice!


----------



## dsertdog56

Nice layout! Love the weathering!


----------



## MichaelE

Fantastic work MarK. I love that bridge.

Makes me wish I had designed in a few viaducts on the mountain spur to better replicate the Rhätische Bahn, had I known before I would be modeling this.


----------



## JSwhite64

Mark very impressive work. As a new guy I appreciated all the detail on your build. Thanks


----------

