1943 model train layout

Question and opinion regarding modeling
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Blitzdough
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Blitzdough » Thu Sep 29, 2016 8:03 am

Hi Lee,

I just saw this for the first time. Great job, it looks really good! The coloring/weathering of the buildings & cars is great and the ground looks natural (I'm betting that's not easily done).

Chuck


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Lee Bishop
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Thu Sep 29, 2016 9:26 am

Blitzdough wrote:Great job, it looks really good! The coloring/weathering of the buildings & cars is great and the ground looks natural (I'm betting that's not easily done).
Thanks, Chuck. It's been a learning experience as this is the first real model train layout I've ever built.
At this point, I'm adding trees, bushes and getting ready to put a lot of detail parts and items out there.
Along those lines, I was looking for one of these push mowers for a long time and finally found one, from the front of a Woodland Scenics structure.
Small details like this is what I'm focusing now, and I'm really enjoying this part of the layout build!
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Thu Sep 29, 2016 10:24 pm

I took some general photos with a better camera and played around with them. Mind you, this is without any special lighting and no tripod was used...

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Mon Oct 03, 2016 11:23 am

At a model train this past weekend, I found this small (4" diameter) copy of a locomotive number plate. Yesterday, I screwed it onto the fascia of the layout. I think it looks really good where it is, as opposed to putting it on the wall, given its size.
While the back of the plate mentions another RR, it's a good replica of the plate for ET&WNC # 11, which was the favorite locomotive of the crews for that railroad and is represented on the layout.
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Carolinamv » Mon Oct 10, 2016 4:44 pm

It looks amazing, I did a HO scale current day freight train with Military Vehicles being hauled.
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Tue Nov 01, 2016 5:36 pm

Last night, I swore I saw the scale ghosts of conductor Cy Crumley and engineer Sherman Pippin*. I snapped some shots, thinking when I looked at the photos later, they'd just be of empty track. But this is what I saw once the photos came out.
They just walked out of the cornfield at the Ensor farm looked around, and Cy walked down the tracks to near the grade crossing at Sadie. Sherman went directly for # 11, which was sitting cold at the time. A chill came over the air...
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As these two were gentlemen in life, I expect no evil from them now. As the locals said after I showed them the photos (taken from my Speed Graphic box camera), "Them ain't haints, they's wouldn't do nary a bit of evil h'yar!"
To translate Hillbilly to English, such distinguished men wouldn't come back as bad spirits. At the worst, I was told I might get tiny letters of admonishment over some conditions on the layout.


*Yes, these were real people. The figures are 3D prints from photos of these men and this is how they looked out of the box. I'm still looking into the best way to paint them...
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Tue Nov 01, 2016 9:57 pm

I took a bunch of long-term exposures and played around with smoke/steam effects (in real time, using a twist paper towel moved around while the exposure was going) and I think it turned out pretty well. This is some practice for the photos I'll be taking for my upcoming magazine article...
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Jon » Thu Nov 03, 2016 12:28 pm

Love the jeep on the flatbed.....Smoke effect looks great too btw Lee.

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Thu Nov 03, 2016 12:47 pm

Jon wrote:Love the jeep on the flatbed.....Smoke effect looks great too btw Lee.
Thanks, Jon. No WW2 Jeep owner would miss out on having one on their model RR layout, right? They all have non-surround stars, have white bumpers with custom-made (fictional) RR operating battalion markings. The Command car I have on the layout has the same stuff. They're all quite weathered for rough stateside usage, though in real like they probably wouldn't be that rough looking.
As for the smoke, that was just a test. My plan is this weekend, I'll be getting a thin dowel, putting cotton all around it, expanding to a cone-shape. When I take more long-time exposures (the most recent ones were 25-30 seconds), I think that'll really look like steam/smoke from the stacks. A lot of people are photoshopping real steam smoke into photos in magazines, but it's obvious what it is. My technique is seamless, and provides for s shadow of the exhaust that you'd of course see in real life.
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Mon Nov 07, 2016 11:09 am

I took some funny 'pacing' shots over the weeknd, considering that I don't run my trains more than 20MPH, scale speed...
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The following day, I took some poly puff pieces out, sprayed them with adhesive, dipped them in a bowl filled with ground foam, then covered the whole lot with several coats of cheap Hairspray. This will cover the 'hills' in the backdrop in the back corner:
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Not bad for less than a half hour's work, huh?
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Fri Nov 18, 2016 12:45 pm

I got a bunch of trees onto the layout last night, using a mixture of trees I’d made and some premade ones from various vendors...
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It's all about the details...

Post by Lee Bishop » Tue Nov 22, 2016 9:34 am

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I am now adding all the little detail stuff I've wanted to add to the layout. More figures are going in, and things like mailboxes and such are showing up now. Also, I weathered the Ensor farm house as it looked way too clean as it was.

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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Wed Nov 23, 2016 9:25 am

I did some weathering one of my locomotives, the one I don't use all that terribly often on the layout. I didn't go completely insane with the weathering, but it's probably more heavily weathered than they allowed the locomotive to actually get back in those days. Still, it looked way better and this photograph tells the difference between the weathered and the factory stock ones.
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I's hard to see in this photo, but I also made my own custom builder's plate and printed it on a decal sheet. The Bachmann builder plates are opposite of what they should be (black letters and a bronze-color background, not the other way around that real ones are). I even used the actual Baldwin builder # for that exact locomotive. I have them for every ET&WNC ten-wheeler, even the ones I doubt I'll ever model.
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:37 am

Last night, I finished painting and installing several castings on the layout. In a couple of places, you can see where the glue is still drying, so please for give that (as it doesn't look like that now, of course).
First, I split a grouping of birds up into two segments, half of them are now pigeons, and the other half are crows. The crows, naturally, are in the cornfield or sitting on the posts around it. I kept one in my extra parts box for the eventuality of getting a scarecrow someday.
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Next, I painted and weathered enough shovels for all of the locomotives, and placed them on the fireman's side of each tender. It just seemed to be needing that.
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Then, I finished a group of passenger car step stools, weathered them, then place them on the back decks of each end of each passenger car.
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Re: 1943 model train layout

Post by Lee Bishop » Mon Dec 12, 2016 10:02 am

It's a small thing, but I filled every depression and hole on the layout and lined every path with real dirt from the place the layout takes place. I also placed a few small pebbles in certain spots to represent large rocks on the surface. Those also came from where the layout takes place.
Before I started the layout, my Mom and Dad actually collected a jar or dirt and a bag of small rocks from the area, just so I could do this once the layout was built.
It means a great deal to me to have several small actual pieces of Stoney Creek on the layout.
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A couple of days later, I took some photos for a planned magazine article. During a few, I'd forgotten to close the blinds and the light made some shots unusable. But I thought I'd post them here to give you an idea what the finished shots looked like. One shot I'm not posting yet turned out great, with realistic venting from the cylinders as well as smoke. None of this was photoshopped and was done in real-time for a long term exposure, using old-school methods...
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