Rainbows in the Lehigh Valley Gorge

[TMo]

Done with paint brushes on the rocks.  First dump of "green and brown stuff" (leftover ground foam, sawdust, coffee grounds, sweepings, etc.) went down over a coating of wood glue - I'll be vacuuming up the extra after the glue dries and seeing if I need to apply another coat.

   

[TMo]

Making some additional headway into the tricky portion of this project, a lot of it done with mirrors to see what I'm doing as I suspend myself over the mountaintop to add glue into crevices and near the track to apply the brown and green stuff.  The first layer went down with nothing more than a coat of straight wood glue followed by the vaccum and then dressed again to get the coating I liked.  Followed that up with a dribble of alcohol with a syringe and then a 50/50 mix of white glue and water (just like you'd do track ballast) over the new added material.  When the green and brown stuff dries, I might add some areas of static grass on top as an experiment.  They come shrubs, and finally trees. Here's a shot from the bridge end of the project.

   

[tompm]

Looking good. It is coming along nicely.

[ngauger]

Looks great so far!!!

[TMo]

Thanks for cheering me on, Tom and Mikey!

The big flat piece of Masonite that I installed as a support for the mountains I'm currently working on was bringing me down a bit.  I'd turn around from my desk and see a big brown slab of nothing.  I inherited a couple of watercolors when my Mom moved from her farmhouse in Reeders down to Northhampton, PA.  She just didn't have room for all of the paintings in her new place.  These were painted by one of my favorite teachers in middle school, John James.  Immensely talented - I could watch him draw, sketch and paint all day.  His niche was a combination of watercolors and markers, and at the end of the year if there was a teacher in the middle or high schools that was retiring, he'd make a collage to present to them - the stuff was magic.

Anyway, the two watercolors I inherited were on the wall here in the office, but I thought maybe one of them could be mounted on the Masonite. 

   

Immediate improvement, and the subject matter is tied in a way to my model railroad.  The Erie Lackawanna mainline used to run from Scranton through Monroe County down to Delaware Water Gap.  Before it was the EL, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western (Lackawanna) ran through Cresco, PA - and I believe Mr. James got hold of an old black and white taken before 1930 as the basis for this painting - a 4-4-0 powered passenger train headed up the mountain out of the Cresco station.  This station (I believe) still stands and I used to pass it a lot on trips up to see my aunt and uncle in Mountainhome, which I believe at one time was also a stop on that same line.  I believe that a portion of that line (from Mount Pocono through to Scranton) is still in use by the Delaware and Lackawanna Railroad, which also helps service Steamtown excursion trains.


   

My other watercolor by Mr. James is another railroad-related painting, but this one is focused on the New York Susquehanna and Western Railroad, which is even closer to home for me.  Prior to 1939 there was a line owned by that railroad that ran up from Stroudsburg through the village of Reeders (where there was a branch that serviced ice facilities at Trout Lake), around Big Pocono Mountain and on to Wilkes Barre.  My aunt's father once owned the Reeders General Store, and the line ran right next to his property.  My parents also used to help an elderly woman who lived in a farmhouse that bordered the line and at her death, bequeathed her remaining property to Mom and Dad.  Most of the NYS&W's line through the Poconos was bulldozed to build Interstate 80.  This one hangs in solitary on the entry wall to my office.

   

[TMo]

Detail painting done, ground cover of brown and green stuff done.  Now on to adding some shubberies....  (Hopefully, I will not encounter anything like this... The Knights Who Say "Ni!" - Monty Python and the Holy Grail)


   

[TMo]

Made it all the way to the bridge planting shubberies upside down with a mirror.  Nice parlor trick, but I'm glad that's mostly over.  I'll run some trains through there to aid in identifying potential snags (you can see one glaring example in the photo on the inside of the track).  Due to the nature of the effort, I think I'm going to go right to trees in the same space to avoid having to reach over shrubbery on the top of the hill and plant those as well while there's less stuff to interfere with.

   

[BR60103]

I once asked my dentist if they did a course of "Arts and Crafts n a Mirror". No answer.

[ngauger]

Love the watercolors and the shrubbery!! I'm a huge fan of the Wyeth family's works. I visit the Brandywine River Museum whenever I get the chance.
The railroad is looking great!!!! I've also ridden the Steamtown train along those D&L RR tracks.

[hillyard999]

Tmo,

Very nice!

You've put a lot of effort into this, and it shows!

[TMo]

Pushed myself to get downstairs to build and install some more trees in the new section of the layout.  Maybe with a little more goose I'll get this portion done before the it gets cold outside.

   

[ngauger]

Looks great!

[Charlie B]

I totally agree It is really a great scene. 
Charlie

[TMo]

Thanks fellers!  Your encouragement buoys progress.  Another day, mo' trees, mo' trees, mo' trees.....

   

[TMo]

I've had Intermountain on my mind. Well, I can actually thank Charlie for that. His difficulty with his unit has gotten me thinking about the Intermountain chassis that I adapted an Athearn blue box SD40-2 into. I haven't run that particular locomotive for quite some time, so I decided to do a little consist shuffling and put it at the front end of my mixed freight which generally runs clockwise around my viewing level. I have only two switches on this main level, one of which is quite dependable (fortunately, since it's inside a tunnel), the other.... occassionally drives me to drink.

Every time that SD40-2 wandered through that switch (with or without the rest of the consist).... derailment. Looked at the running gear, the height of the snowplow, coupler issues... no AHA! Turned everything off and slowly pushed that locomotive through the switch. There were two areas that I felt some additional resistance. Donned the magnifying headgear and on the inside of the track I felt a two little bumps of silicone. Apparently, they've been there since I replaced that switch at least 5 years ago. A little surgery with an X-acto knife and we're now cooking with gas.

I'm running the big blue with a couple of Alcos including my C424 and noticed that the rear coupler was too high on the C424, it kept dissembling itself from the consist. After inspection I found it had an underset coupler on the rear. Swapped that out. Then one of my Reading box cars decided it didn't want to play. Haven't figured that out yet, but put it on the desk for later.

Got the camera out to take some pictures.... dead batteries. Been that kind of evening down here, but sometimes nights like this are a good reminder to take the time to run trains.