Taking the first 6’ section for Westville, I painted the plywood my fascia color so bare plywood would not show through once the grasses were applied. I used a circular saw to cut the edges along where the tracks would rise to go over Timber creek. I also cut out where the Barry Brothers fuel supply would have the raised trestle since I will have to drop the table level somewhat to accommodate the plastic coal trestle I have. This was all done in the garage and driveway to keep the construction mess out of the loft. (I am sure the new neighbors think they have a resident nut on their hands.)
I laid out the tracks putting them on an angle to the front edge. (Laying tracks parallel to the platform edge seems to make the trains look more toy-like.) I used cork roadbed and Atlas code 80 flex track. For cost avoidance purposes, I soldered leads to the rail joiners myself to provide power. Since I use old DC wiring, I put in appropriate rail gaps to prevent shorts (Peco Electrofrog turnouts) and sectionalize the wiring. I then took the construction to the back yard, covered most areas with newspapers and sprayed the tracks roof brown (wiping off the rail tops).
Back to the garage to drill holes for the track leads and put in the highway overpass. I used corrugated cardboard web strips glue-gunned together to create forms for the highway overpass and hill (to separate from the blue backdrop). Not having any grocery store paper shopping bags (they use those dumb plastic bags now), I grabbed some of the heavier envelops salvaged from the paper trash to cover the cardboard web (yet another mistake!). Traditionally I have used hydrocal dipped paper towels for my scenery base. They are messy and difficult to color with tints. So I tried Sculptamold for the first time. It doesn’t seem to have the strength that hydrocal gives but is much easier to color. I poured in a ¼ cup of earth colored latex paint, ¾ cup of water and a cup of sculptamold. It seems to have worked well.
Working in the garage on a pair of sawhorses I managed to yank off 2 wire leads which then had to be re-soldered.
Next I used the old Woodland Scenics road system learning kit. I liked the foam road forms but had difficulty getting the roads leveled and unpitted.
I then put the WS blended grass down using their scenic cement and then painted the roads with a concrete color. I started putting concrete separators in using a small black Sharpie but it was too thick so I shifted to a black pen. I need to get a white paint pen to do the lane separating lines.
Then the 6’ section was lifted and unfastened grass knocked to the floor to prepare for the journey through the living room and upstairs to the loft. The section was then screwed down to the bench work. When the bench work was constructed, I hammered in large staples to channel the wiring. The next step will be install terminal strips and attach the track leads to them. Then I can work out any problems with the track before the ballasting begins.
In the meantime I have loosely placed some buildings and cars on the layout to get a feel for what I must do with the scenery
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