In December 2000, I tunneled through the wall and made two tunnels going into the next room. I used 4 inch shelves around the room and put a tunnel through to the closet. Inside the closet is a loop where I will be doing a mountain and a lumber mill with a small town. The canyon is only styrofoam right now. There are 6 different bridges in Rock Canyon and 5 are different and two are the same except ones black and the other is silver. One bridge is scratch-built. Two bridges are curved. Can't wait until I start scenicing it. When completion of expansion, this will give my layout about 4 (N scale) miles of running track.- The track going across the window pulls out for the purpose of window cleaning or maintenance on windows, etc. The loop inside the closet will be mostly inside of a mountain with an open access underneath to the track. The 2 outsides walls are not going to have any background behind it. This is my wife's room and the guest bedroom. The olny detail I will have is Rock Canyon and the mill in the closet. The track is ballested and ground detail inplace. But that is it...
UPDATES
January 30, 2001. I started plastering and painting part of the canyon... It is starting to look real good. March 1, 2001. Enlarged closet - March 15, 2001. Hung shelves along outside wall and board in closet. - Started laying road bed and track - First train to run was on March 24, 2001 - 46 feet of main line track was laid not counting Rock Canyon. That is just over a mile in N-scale. April 20, 2001. Ballast most of track along the two walls with windows. Also ran my Santa Fe Super Chief passenger train with no problems for over an hour. But still have some problems with smaller cars and engines. Bugs are being worked out. July-August 2001. Redid loop in closet and made passing siding longer and added a logging mill. I purchased the logging mill on Ebay, only a single building. I will be adding the sawdust burner, a small engine house, power plant, conveyer and logging camp in the near future. November 2001. Worked on turn-outs, got the bugs outs and ran both my passenger train and my 2 new Atlas engines pulling about 28 car with no problems... Things are looking up....March 2002. Scratch built 2 more bridges. One curve girder bridge and one steel frame bridge. Added more styrofoam and a little tunnel in the canyon. Almost ready to plaster and do some more painting. Painted a little country church and detailed it for the logging town.
March 2002. Building a sawdust burner from Master Creations. made cat walk around top of it from scratch. Scratch built two logging trailers and put together two semi trucks. Purchased 3 flat beds cars to put lumber loads on from the lumber mill. I built a metal storage shed, kit bashed a brick power plant from Kestrel Designs 'Water Tower', also kit bashed/scratch-built a one stall engine house. Some of the parts are from an roundhouse kit I got off Ebay. May 2002. Put a white facia board on the canyon area. Started plastering more of the canyon area. Pictures will be soon. As soon as I get some more plaster down and paint it. I am waiting on a background before I can add trees. I am looking for some one to paint the background or maybe a professional backdrop or picture cut outs like I did in the main room. September 2003. Put styrofoam, wire base down for mountain in closet. Started plastering mountain. October 2003. Plastered most of mountain in the closet, painted rock, laying dirt and underbrush. Started making aspen trees. 2 tunnels are done. August 2004. Bought crane off Ebay and modifing it for my logging yard. August 2005. I purchased the background for the canyon. I bought it from BackGround Warehouse
January 2007. Started back plastering and doing rock and ground work on Rock Canyon. Spring 2008. Did more rock and plastering for Rock Canyon. Have background and figuring how to fit it in. Redid the track as was having track problems. All works great now. December 2009. Did a little more work on the canyon. Put more plaster on the montains, I finally added my background. Check pictures below to view update.
Pictures without Background - Click on picture to enlarge
January-February 2010. Most of the plastering is done. I have been painting the mountins and rocks. Found a picture I could put on the right side of the canyon so it does not just run into the wall. I then blended the colors to match the picture. Added a few small trees on top of the hills. It is starting to look good.
May-July 2011. Pulled up track from the canyon, and started working on the mountains and hills behind the track/river. I have it all done and detailed with trees. All of the canyon is plastered and painted. The river will be next.
August-September 2011. River is done. I used Woodland Scenics Realistic Water and Water Effects. I put about 4 layers of Realistic Water in the river. My 5th layer I tinted it blue with blue food coloring. While the top layer was drying I tapped with a hard brissle brush to make ripples to the river to make it look like it is flowing. I then took the Water Effect and mixed with white paint and added white caps around rocks and curves and at the bottom of the water falls. I also made the water fall out of the Water Effects. Laid the track back down and ran my trains for the first time in months.
September 2011. Track is all ballest in the canyon, Planting lots of trees along the river, and the veiwing side of the layout. I have just a little bit more to go and some fine details and the canyon will be done. Pictures of Rock Canyon ...Videos of canyon.
January 2012. Finally mounted and installed an Horse Head Oil Pump Jack my friend Tom bought me a few years ago for Christmas. The Pump Jack actually works. The Pump Jack is made be Walthers Cornerstone. Click here to see pictures of it. I also had to fix a section of track inside my tunnel which was making my 3 wheel truck on my PA lift off the track. Instead of cutting a hole into my mountain or messing things up. I trimmed off the foam road base that stuck out from the ties. I then taped the rails with masking tape. I then spread plaster on both sides of the track, took a 1/2" peice of plastic and clamped it down holding the track in place until the plaster dried making it level. This actually worked and no problems.
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Rock Canyon Pictures
Pictures of about 2 feet of the 9 foot canyon that I have been working on the right or North side which is not yet finished. These pictures is when I was working on that area. Will have updated pictures as soon as I finish that area.Click on picture to enlarge
Pictures of about half of the left side of Rock Canyon - Completly finished. - Some pictures were taken before 100% finished so some trees and bushes might not be in those pictures.
.. .. Here are my first videos of the canyon. Two with with a moving train and two with no train but shows more of the canyon. As I learn what to do and not to do with lights, the camera and etc. I will post more videos as I get a chance.
Logging Mill & Area Pictures
Click on picture to enlarge
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North East Corner Pictures
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There is no background nor pictures for this area. This is just a 3" section of self with two tracks.
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