At some point, I’ll add a post with a few that my friend Steve Fisher set to me…

Creek bed painted with Behr Premium "Fedora" paint.

I actually started work in Corinna late in the afternoon, because I wanted the first batch of color to be dry in time to start working with whomever came over. The first step was to paint the base coat on the creek bed. As usual for the base color, I chose the Behr Premium “Fedora” wall paint, and brush it on liberally. To urge the paint to dry a little more quickly, I used a fan, which worked perfectly. By the time Kevin arrived, the paint was completely dry!

Now that the base color was in place, I got out my reference photos and turned on my memory to start to work on the “look” for the water in this scene. One thing about the water in Maine that is striking is that it’s usually very clear. And, the bottoms of most ponds and streams like this have a kind of distinctive rockiness that needed to be captured.

I thought that one way to do this might be to use some “crackle” paint. Crackle paint is a thick, clear, gel-like substance that you paint over a base coat and allow it to partially dry. Then, you paint the still tacky surface carefully with a color that contrasts your base color. The thicker your coating of crackle paint, the larger your splits will be, so I applied a thin coat to the areas near the shoreline, and coming into the creek about 1/3 of the way on each side.

Bits of "Pot Topper" planted at the base of the spillway retaining wall

While waiting for the crackle paint to dry, I started setting in some of the additional flora that would be growing near the base of the spillway. I decided to try another experiment here, this time using bits of “Pot Topper” material to represent the vibrant plant life that often grows near creek beds. I had seen magazine articles about this material, but I was still skeptical until I saw it on the layout. The stuff looks perfect, and is a fraction of the cost of the Silflor products. It looks as if you could either use tiny tufts like I did here, or even plant large chunks wherever you need some bright ground cover.

Mixture of "Slate Gray" and "Concrete" paints swirled onto the crinkle paint

By this point, the crackle paint had been drying for the prescribed length of time, so I applied a light coat of some lighter paint — a swirly mix of Woodland Scenics “Slate Gray” and “Concrete” colors. Initially, I wasn’t too happy with the look, so I added some more water and swirled it around a little more. The result looks fairly wrong here, but once the “water” gets poured on, things tend to darken up a little, so I decided to go with it.

Stones and rocks added to the stream bed

I also decided that a few larger rocks were needed in the stream. In this case, there wouldn’t be a lot, but a few definitely were in order. We selected some of the flatter pieces from a bag of aquarium/terrarium decorative stone, and I placed them in the creek, above the bridge.

While all of this was drying, we turned our attention to Kevin’s bridge module. Unfortunately, we didn’t take any pictures, but the effect we wanted there was a typical central Maryland/Pennsylvania creek. These creeks tend to have a sandy bottom with a jumble of rocks and stones.

For the sandy bottom, we used one of my favorite sand/dirt base materials — sanded grout over the Fedora paint. I tend to treat the grout just like any other scenic texture. I spread it over the still wet paint, and then soak it with “wet water,” and then continue to build on top of that. Once I have the look I’m after, I spray on some more wet water, and then saturate the area with diluted matte medium. For me, this is a tried-and-true method that always produces something that looks good.

By this time, lighter color paint on the Corinna creek bed was dry, but the crackling wasn’t happening. I decided to go ahead and pour the water anyway. And, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to try a material that I had previously had very bad luck with: Woodland Scenics Realistic Water.

First pour of the Woodland Scenics Realistic Water

The Realistic Water pours on a milky gray, and eventually dries clear. I know it’s supposed to. I’ve seen it. Of course, that was not my result the first time I used it, and I ended up having to start over. “On hand” sometimes trumps common sense, however.

One interesting thing happened, though — after the water was poured and had been setting up for a while, the crackling started below the surface. The result was looking almost exactly like what I had in mind.

And, as I headed out the door this morning, I went down and too a peek at the creek. So far, it looks as if it will actually dry clear, although there’s been significant shrinkage. After dinner tonight, I’ll do some more work in the area, and then another pour. And, of course, more pictures!

Last Thursday morning, I went down to the basement to start prepping … and I couldn’t get a train to run through the switches to save my life! After much sweat and swearing — and nearly swearing of modular railroading and, in fact, model trains in general — I finally got things running, and it was time to pull the modules off the wall. I was fully expecting another episode like when I had to separate the yard modules. To my surprise, the sections came apart with little more than a suggestion. Maybe things wouldn’t be such a disaster after all… Of course, half of the scenery fell off the module when I set the center section on the floor prior to moving them upstairs. Oh, well.

Kevin, and his helper, John arrived, and we racked up the three sections, loaded them in Kevin’s SUV, and off they went. I headed back down to the basement to continue packing stuff up.

And then things really went south…

While transloading stuff from my car to Kevin’s, my equipment cases dropped. What a mess — freight cars and locomotives and structures in a big jumble! The freight house took the worst hit, of course — the roof was bent and the wall peaks snapped off, and a door broken off. Fortunately, it will be only a fifteen minute repair job. There was no mechanical damage to any of the locos, and the one that took some cosmetic damage was good as new after about five seconds.

We also still had a surprising amount of prep to do before departing. By the time it was all said and done, we were about 3 hours late departing.

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful, and we had a generally good time. Our next big outing will still be Hickory in September…

Kevin describes the advantages of the drill guide

Kevin’s module end plate drilling template continues to be a big success. It’s a great idea, and if we can get more groups to adopt it, we’ll have a great ability to securely connect modules from many groups together, regardless of the spec. The next update to the MADmodules spec will include using the same guide pin and a bolt hole locations.

Newell Sage clued me in to another piece of track planning software. The only drawback I can see right off the bat is that it’s available for Windows only. I’ve loaded up the demo version on my Windows7 laptop, and am so far very impressed. While there’s no library for Micro Engineering track, there is one for the Light Iron Track/Fast Tracks HO track, and the geometry of the #5′s is close enough — and I may be using some of the LITCo turnouts where I need so special trackage.

#6 steams in the yard in Corinna

Les finished up #6, and it now fits right in with #9 & #10. #6 represents an older loco, and the C&S shops have had to make a few repairs to the old wooden cab. Les has #4 now, and will get #5 to finish up as soon as I get the Mount Blue wood cab built. Numbers 4 and 5 are the 0-4-4 Forneys which, once completed, will represent the oldest locos on the line.

I picked up the rest of the parts I need to build the engine house at Corinna, though I’m still not sure what I’m going to do about the turntable itself. I know what I want it to look like, but the locations of adjacent tracks are going to make the installation tricky — I probably should have cut the hole for that prior to laying the caboose/MOW track.

Speaking of track, I’ve stocked up on enough Micro Engineering track and switches that I should be able to get all the way around to where I expect the “upper yard” to be — and maybe into the yard itself. I also found a few more Maine railroad books I wanted for the library, one of Deerfield Laser’s newest kits and a few more of the Grandt Line SR&RL freight car trucks.

Finally, I got some great hints on tree making from the Connecticut Shoreline guys. I’ll post an article on how they make conifers and deciduous trees in the future.

We had a heck of a ride home — the weather was simply terrible, and got worse and worse the closer to home we got. In fact, within about 15 miles of the house, we encountered downed trees and power lines and had to detour around for almost 45 minutes across back roads to get around.

[UPDATE -- Turns out that the mess close to home was caused by a tornado!]

So that’s it for the show report, with one little exception. Someone mentioned that they had seen On30Guy wipers for sale, and that they thought that someone else was making them. If anyone out there knows anything about this, I’d appreciate knowing about it.

As I mentioned, our small modular setup was a great success. One patron flatly pronounced our little layout as “the best thing here,” and today I was absolutely elated as a child loudly announced that he liked our trains better than the rest. Our layout put the trains right at his eye level, and with no ropes to keep him back, he was able to put his nose right up against the fascia and be completely enveloped by the scene. He followed our little train around the layout a couple of times, while his father tried to convince him to move on the the “easier to see” toy train layout next to us.

Maybe there is hope for the hobby yet!

One thing that there may not be hope for is the “general interest” train show. I had a conversation with some dealers who have been finding that they have much greater success at the specialty shows, like the various On30 meet-ups or the prototype modelers’ events. The concensus among dealers is that this area can no longer support the Great Scale Model Train Show four times a year, especially with 3-4 Greenburg shows a year happening at the same location. In fact, the crowd was so thin on Saturday morning, one exhibitor were prompted to quip, “I hear they’re going to open the show up any minute now” — an hour after the doors were opened.

One vendor I spoke to today, while eventually happy with his weekend’s work, was really concerned yesterday morning when, by 11AM, he had sold exactly nothing. He usually enjoys fairly brisk sales early on Saturdays.

One highlight of the show was the combined modular layout of the Sipping and Switching Society of North Carolina, The Ohio Valley Sipping and Switching Society and Capitol Free-Mo. The layout stretched the entire length of the North Hall, and reached easily 30 feet into the room. It featured 750ft of mainline track, with a total of 4,100 feet of track. And, there was even some quite excellent modeling. But, for overall quality, I still think that the local Four County Society of Model Engineers display was much more impressive. While a big display is great, a great display is not always big. In other words, the emphasis really should be on quality, not quantity.

That said, kibitzing with the Sipping and Switching guys is always a great deal of fun, and we continue to learn a lot from them every time we see them.

Corinna off the wall at the GSMTS

I spent the past weekend at the Great Scale Model Train Show in Timonium. As planned, I took Corinna for the On30 modular setup, and everything worked a treat! My modules ran well, and were a subject of much curiosity and discussion. There are more pictures at the MADmodules site.

Motrak Models HO scale "Little Depot"

I also went a little wild on the shopping front. In addition to some basic scenic supplies for the layout, I went ahead and bought a few things for the HOn30 project — a MinitrainS Plymouth diesel set and a very nice little station kit from Motrak Models. Stylistically, it’s a perfect match for the other two HO station kits I have already on hand, and so will work very nicely on the mini-layout.

I was not able to see all of the available Peco track for HOn30. Apparently, it’s not all available in the states — we’re limited here to a “medium” radius turnout and meter-long flex track sections. The Peco medium turnouts are pretty similar in size to a regular Atlas snap-switch, but with chunkier ties. I’m going to spend a little bit of time to see if I can find someone in the UK who ships to the US to try to get a couple of the “set” series HOn30 switches. If I can’t do that, then I’ll just go with Atlas and bury it in the dirt.

As an aside, I previously mentioned that Tom Bell was designing a few conversion shells and whatnot for HOn30. Since my last posting, he seems to have increased his offerings on the Shapeways site, and he now has models in HOn30, TTn3 and On30 listed at very reasonable prices. I’ll probably be ordering an item or two from him in the next week or so…

In the mean time, I’ve decided it would be prudent to build a “proof-of-concept” mini-layout prior to going all-out on the three-piece display. I’m thinking that 20″x30″ or so will still be the size to get going with — just a loop with a switch or two for fun.

Larry Rickert has his usual excellent show report posted. Visit this link to see.

Alan Carroll - the master of the bash

Kevin Hunter and I took a day trip up to the Mid-Hudson meet yesterday, and had a great time. I spent a couple of hours with Alan Carroll, who chopped a pair of 2-4-4′s down to 0-4-4′s for me (they’ll be nos. 4 and 5 on the roster).

I learned a huge amount from Alan yesterday (I do every time I talk with him), and got to see first-hand just how well S-scale standard gauge freight work as O-scale narrow gauge cars — 40′ double sheathed box cars are almost exactly the right dimension to represent a 30′ Maine 2-foot boxcar! I picked up a Showcase single-sheathed car from Alan for reference purposes. The length and width are dot-on, while the height is only off by about 3-scale inches.

The Showcase cars aren’t perfect in several areas, but only one really bothers me. The car ends are far too modern, being steel “dreadnaught” ends. While the details are all too small, they’re not that far off. And, they look right nice behind the Forneys.

Kevin Hunter - building a railroad light-n-easy

Kevin Hunter demonstrated his methods for building model railroads and modules to an attentive group of almost a dozen onlookers. We also demonstrated our “gate legs” for modules, and sold several leg kits.

I missed the tree-making clinic, which was one of the things I specifically drove the five hours for. Hopefully, it will be repeated in the spring.

Les Davis - Mr. DCC

Les Davis, as well as being “the man” when it comes to weathering, has taken on the mantle of being the DCC programming expert. I’m glad someone knowledgeable has stepped up to do this, as well as offer the service of installing and setting up locos for people who can’t do it themselves. I really hope he never tires of doing it, because he does it so well.

On the ride up and back, Kevin and I talked extensively about the plans for my railroad (a conversation we continued late this afternoon). We’ve decided that my layout will have no legs. Instead, the parts around the walls will be cantilevered out on steel brackets, and the peninsula will be suspended from the ceiling joists. Track will be code 70, and will be mostly hand-laid. The exception to the hand-laid track will be Corinna, which will be Micro Engineering flex and turnouts. If all goes incredibly well, you’ll be able to see the town of Corinna in person at the 2011 National Narrow Gauge Convention in Hickory, NC. next September. After the convention, the Corinna sections will be permanently installed as part of my home layout.

I also came back with a few structures from Deerfield Laser, an additional NCE CAB04 and USB Interface, some details and a couple of rolling stock kits.

So, back to the track. I’ve never had good luck with Micro Engineering track in the past. But, the tie size and spacing is pretty much perfect for representing Maine 2-footers in On30. And, I got the Code 70, which is the right size to model the 35lb rail. My plan is to build a small section of layout, and, if I like it, I’ll switch over (so to speak). All that Clem had on hand was two pair of switches, so I’m probably going to ask him to send me a couple — just as soon as I decide what I want. I’m thinking that the arrangement for this layout section will be based loosely on Monson Junction on the Monson. However, what was “engine facility” on the prototype will be a couple of small industries on the layout — and the town will represent Corinna. Some sketches will follow…

Not far from the meet, we happened across this nifty building that could’ve/should’ve been rail served at some point in its history. With its funky rooflines, I think it’s a natural to be “Maine-ized” and included in some compressed form — likely as a low-relief model up against a background somewhere. I took a few pictures to use reference for building a version from scratch.

Needless to say, I’ve got my model railroading groove back. We’re going to decide in the next couple of days if we’re going to stay in our existing, crappy townhouse and refinance, or try to buy a new home. Once that decision is made, I’m going to get into construction gear!