Rainbows in the Lehigh Valley Gorge

[TMo]

Chalk up one barf bag! Thanks, Tom. Glad you could make it through to the end.

One thing I did not include was some road dust - typically gray. Definitely need to address the pilots with that for sure. I'm working on the final installs of the railings. The bright yellow horizontals were harsh on the eye in comparison to the grime on the rest of the beast, but again, the burnt umber wash took the shine off. Maybe some pictures of a finished product early in the week. I'm taking it in to work where there's a guy with a fondness for the Reading. He might not make it to the bathroom in time.

[Amalynn]

Wow Tmo that looks awful in the best way possible. I like the makeup brush idea.

[TMo]

Yep - can't remember where I got that tip on the makeup brushes, Amanda, but I did steal it from someone. I think I got the full kit at Rite Aid or Walgreens (pretty cheap if I recall), and I do remember the cashier giving me a bit of an odd look. The fellas at work got a kick out of the finished product today when I brought it in to handle, and one thing I can say, is that the camera doesn't really capture the extent of the weathering. The common theme was "man, that thing looks BEAT!" Mission accomplished.

[Amalynn]

I upgraded my makeup brushes a few years ago but could never bring myself to throw them out as they’re still perfectly good, but the idea of passing them on to someone else (despite being clean) was gross to even consider, so they’ve just been clean and sitting in a drawer ever since. I think I finally have a use to put them to!

[TMo]

It's raining today.  Didn't stop me from getting the pressure washer out to clean the patio, the patio furniture and the back of the house.  We're hosting my granddaughter's first birthday at the end of the month and another list has appeared.  After getting soaked doing that I figured washing the truck was also doable.  After delivering the 25th load of mulch this year, I thought she deserved a bath.  But after all that, I'm back in the house warm and dry with no aspirations for going outside again.  

Started working on a little extension to the Hazleton portion of my layout in front of the Hazleton backdrop.  It's about 31 inches wide and between 15 and 25 inches deep - it'll give me a chance to add some more buildings and interest to the south of the breaker.  

A couple of cleats on the wall have been added and I'm working on the plywood/foam board open-faced sandwich to fill the gap.  1/4" plywood supports a 1" styrofoam board with a 1-by strip on the front to protect the foam and give a little structural integrity (the 1-by strip is shown in the photo bridging the gap between wall and the previous boundary of the layout).  

   

Dug in my pile of leftovers and found just about everything I need - might be a little short on styrofoam.  

   

I also need to permanently affix the backdrop (after some touchups), and I think I'll to that by taking the painted backdrop down and contact gluing the cardstock directly to it while it can all be place on my workbench.

[TMo]

Game on!  Looks like there's going to be a contest coming up - "Pick your poison".  You pick your project and see what everyone thinks.  I like the idea so much that this new corner of my layout is going to be my entry under the "scenery or layout edition" category.  Start time is likely on June 1st, so I'm getting some stuff together for the project.

The plan is for this corner to be heavy on industry and structures to front the backdrop, and I still plan to run the terrain from high on the front to the lowest point at the backdrop.  The structures will start with a coal focus closest to the breaker and devolve into other things getting closer to town.  I'll have to accommodate some roadways and parking areas.  Because I don't have a whole lot of depth, I have to do a lot of compression from front to back, so I may have a lot of structures that get chopped and mounted against the backdrop, and some built-in disguising techniques.  I don't typically do a lot of "paper planning" for my layout, preferring to build or place structures and then fiddle about with the possible, but with a start time of June, maybe I should force myself to put a rough draft on paper.

As usual, I'll be working back to front, but I'll be doing a lot of playing around before anchoring anything down in a permanent location.  And as usual, a lot of the structures will be paper models from Clever Models, Inc.  Two that have already caught my eye are the "Coal/Grain elevators" Clever Models Paper Models for the 21st Century - Catalog Pg 17X (squarespace.com) and the "Coal Dealer" Clever Models Paper Models for the 21st Century - Catalog Pg 08X (squarespace.com).  The Coal Dealer kit has some nice accessories that include a coal loader and some coal bins that I'd like to incorporate.  I'm also looking forward to adding a sandwich shop for the employees to visit, and I think Lucky's Lunch Counter is going to make an appearance near the breaker Clever Models Paper Models for the 21st Century - Catalog Pg 14X (squarespace.com).  There are a couple of other options that include a Hamburger stand and a Hot Dog shop.

Starting to get psyched about this!

[TMo]

I've decided to go dark on anything related to the contest submission in the attempt to generate a surprise reveal (hope it's worth it).  I will be updating the blog on my own website with my progress in case anyone's really desperate.  Any non-contest related actions will still be documented here if I can find time to squeeze additional effort into The Gorge.

[TMo]

Well, I have to say the contest was fun and it inspired me to try to get on my high horse in a portion of the calendar that I normally don't devote much time to model railroading.

If you were following what ended up as two contest entries (both devoted to the layout addition I'd planned for Hazleton), I spent most of my three months fabricating buildings for Hazleton from cardstock kits from Clever Models.  They included what I decided will be a coal storage silo:

   

"The Coal Dealer" (minus the portable loading elevator that I started and abandoned):

   

Lucky's Lunch Counter

   

and a kitbashed warehouse complex I'm calling the Duplan Silk Mill (after what once was the largest Silk Mill in the world located in Hazleton):

   

as you can see in that last photo, I also generated an extension to the backdrop behind the warehouse, and I also built a slide-in module for the back right corner of the Hazleton section that slips behind the breaker:

   

That's all old news if you've been following the challenge.  While waiting for some parts for a locomotive that I'm working on, I also dug into a couple of "Freebies" that I'd collected from Clever Models.  Back in their heyday (at least up until 2023), as kits were bought there was a counter that counted down to zero.  Once it hit, there was a new Free kit on their website to download.  New freebies have been promised, but no new ones have appeared recently.  One that struck my fancy (and is still available for anyone to download for FREE) was a little two-story metal sheathed shed (The  O Scale Silver City Tool House Kit) that shares a lot of components with the Silver City Factory flat which I'd like to incorporate somewhere in the Hazleton scene.   And here it is without any of the roof details finished.

        

The current plan is to finish the roof and then there's another freebie that I may build called the O-scale Haunted House before I move on to building a multi-section industrial building of theirs called The Cream City Tool Works that I plan to purchase in the coming weeks.  I believe once all of those builds are finished that I'll have enough buildings for Hazleton, and I can start to arrange them in the space (including elevation).  I'll then generate the terrain to include roadways and then add scenic details.  To think that I believed I could have completed all of that in 3 months!  Sheer folly!

[tompm]

Looking at your summary you did accomplish quite a bit during the challenge. The current building you are working on is coming along nicely.

[TMo]

Thanks Tom!  Yeah, the addition turned out to be way too ambitious for the Challenge.  Lesson learned, but as you said, there was still a bunch of work that did get done.

Prior to putting on the roof layers, I decided to put on a few very small detail parts with the kit to include an electrical box with meter and a bunch of rafter tails (see the picture below).  This kit's a great starter kit for familiarization with their products, but there are still some intricate options that just take time, but sometimes details make all the difference.


   

[TMo]

Once the last of the rafter tails was applied, the roof went on rather quickly.  She's ready for a possible inclusion in the Hazleton addition.

   

[TMo]

Dug out another freebie from Clever models.  It's billed as a "Haunted House" but is basically a small abandoned and abused house.  I'm not exactly sure I'm going to use this in the Hazleton layout addition, but we'll see.  I messed up on the front bump out and if this was going anywhere near scrutiny on the layout, I'd be redoing it.  However, it's supposed to look shabby, so I'll let it stand for now.  As I look at the picture I realize that one glaring lack on this kit were any semblance of stairs leading up to the front door, and if I do decide to include it on the layout, I suppose I'll have to address that lack.

   

I did buy a couple more Clever kits for Hazleton - The Cannery, which is an elderly clapboard T-shaped structure with a tin roof and a cupola, as well as the first of four buildings that make up the Cream City Tool Works (Building A).  The original Cream City kit was complete with a set of 4 conjoined (or separate, builder's choice) brick buildings.  However, Clever redid the kit a couple of years ago and now sell it as 4 separate kits and they advertise that they've added a whole lot of detail to them, so I swallowed the bait and bought Building A.  Once I have both of these built, I'll start thinking about how to locate all of these in the space available, and then decide whether I'm going to purchase any of the other 3 buildings for Cream City.  Plan for both of these is to incorporate local Hazleton businesses that would have been around in 1976.  So, more work and future pictures.

[tompm]

Nice looking "haunted" house.

For the steps just add some scrape wood to represent wooden steps that have decayed and fallen apart.

[TMo]

Good thought, Tom. I know I have some kits with step risers, so I could certainly make that happen.

[TMo]

So, after a little bit of searching, I've decided that The Cannery is going to can beer (I can't take full credit for this, Clever had shown the Cannery as a brewery on someone else's layout)! The Pilsener Brewing Company was another one of those industries that came and went with the rise and fall of coal. The brewery was on the corner of Diamond and Seybert in downtown Hazleton just down the street from (you guessed it) the Duplan Silk Mill. Unfortunately, that was only true until 1958 when the massive brick edifice was pulled down for.... a parking lot.

But, what the heck. 1976 were some very hard times in Hazleton, and I feel they still deserve an alternative universe in which Pilsener was still operating - just not out of their original building. It's good for the building to have a purpose and I can try to tailor at least some signage, and I'll have to find some kegs or find something I can turn into kegs to place out on the loading dock.

I'm still hunting for a good enterprise to operate out of the larger Cream City complex.