In 'Ronville', located somewhere in the CO Rocky Mountains, the narrow gauge Trim Creek & Western RR meets a standard gauge line (loosely based on the D&RGW). At the Western end of the railroad yard both lines disappear into a nearly vertical rock wall of the 'Mineral Ridge'. The SG line enters a helix leading down to a staging yard, while the TC&W starts the climb up towards the narrow gauge terminal, 'Trim Creek'.
My layout is divided by a roughly diagonal backdrop into two parts - a mountain section with the NG terminal and the flat Ronville section. Those two lines mentioned above leave the flat section in a corner of the layout. The situation is shown on the track plan below. And the photo shows the finished portals.
Boss of the Trim Creek & Western RR (H0 & H0n3)
Running through the hard-shell mountains, not around them!
I wanted to model two separate portals, side by side, but they sould show a sort of family resemblance. I decided to build up two connected, look-alike concrete portals with different sizes for SG and NG. And I decided to model the portals with my favorite modeling material: cardboard.
Pics: 1. The two tracks leading away from 'Ronville' - SG (D&RGW) at left, NG (TC&W) at right. First I installed a Masonite contour board along the layout edge.
2. + 3. Thick cardboard (from a commercial box) with the openings, positioned against benchwork blocks. Seen from the outside (2) and rear view (3)
Boss of the Trim Creek & Western RR (H0 & H0n3)
Running through the hard-shell mountains, not around them!
4. The concrete framework around the portals was modelled with thin cardboard (cereal box cardboard) and some balsa strip wood. I also added retaining walls - each one a sandwich of a thick cardboard triangle between two thin cardboard covers.
5. + 6. The next step: Painting the face of the portals with acrylic paint.
On cardboard models it is important to use the first layer of paint full strength out of the tube to prevent warping. Therefore I applied a first coat of stone gray, then let it dry for a day. After this I added a first weathering coat. On a palette (a cheap plastic plate will do!) I mixed stone gray, light gray, black, and a few tiny drops of ochre and brick red to get the somewhat mottled look of concrete.
Boss of the Trim Creek & Western RR (H0 & H0n3)
Running through the hard-shell mountains, not around them!
7. I decided against building real tunnel tubes, but at least I used some black paint to darken the inside of the future tunnel.
8. The result creates quite nicely the impression of the tracks disappearing into the dark tunnel bore. (The 'roof' above the tunnels is the base board for a structure: I'll plant the famous Haunted House (Alexander kit) up there.) The tracks are now protected with masking tape for the forthcoming mess of scenery construction.
Boss of the Trim Creek & Western RR (H0 & H0n3)
Running through the hard-shell mountains, not around them!
I think it was former Model Railroader editor Linn H. Westcott, who first introduced the terms 'hard-shell scenery' and 'zip-texturing' in the late 1960s. The methods were described in detail in Bill McClanahan's book 'Scenery for Model Railroads' (printed by Kalmbach).
9. Before building up the real hard-shell I built up a vertical rock wall at the entrance to the narrow gauge tunnel. For a start I took a piece of white Styrofoam board, which I treated with some light dabs of lacquer thinner. The stuff sort of melts away at the surface and thus resembles somewhat a blasted rock wall. I glued it to the contour board with unthinned white glue, fixing it with sprung clamps. I let dry for some days.
10. This picture shows the rear 'wall' of this landscape section. Again it is a contour panel (this time made out of thick cardboard).
(Directly behind this panel I'll install the double sided backdrop shown on the track plan section above. So the 'mountain' I am building has the footprint of a triangle between the layout edge and the scenic divider.
11. And now the construction of the hard-shell scenery starts in earnest. To model the rough contours of the landscape, I ripped some newspapers to pieces, then I formed loose wads from them. These wads were fixed between the two contour boards and the flat ground with masking tape. You can always correct the shapes by tearing away or adding some more paper wads, until you get the rough outline of the landscape you have envisioned.
Boss of the Trim Creek & Western RR (H0 & H0n3)
Running through the hard-shell mountains, not around them!
Now the real fun starts - and it's getting messy! Before you really start, make sure that you have spread ENOUGH papers or plastic foil below your workspace to protect the floor, benchwork and/or underground tracks from plaster drippings!
All those paper wads are covered with strips of torn-up paper towels, which were dipped into Plaster of Paris (PoP), into Hydrocal or some other sort of spackling compound.
First, in a shallow bowl you prepare a PoP-'soup' with the consistency of pancake batter. Always dump PoP into water, then start stirring - not vice versa! This way you'll have almost no problems with air bubbles and/or lumps.
Then you pull your paper strips through this mass, covering both sides of the paper. (Another possibility is the use of medical plaster bandages which are normally used to fix broken limbs. They are sold in rolls. You cut off the desired length and dip them shortly into water.)
Then you cover the newspaper wads with these strips, overlapping them about 1/3rd of their width. After you are through, repeat the whole thing and put a second layer over the first. When the plaster finally hardens, you get a stiff shell which is both light and rigid. The more layers you add to the shell, the more rigid it gets.
You don't have to work with great precision (hey, nature doesn't it, too). If there is a part which doesn't satify you, just cover it up with another layer. Or rip it out and replace with a new web of strips. If you put new strips over a shell which is already dry, you should wet it first with 'wetted water' (water with a few drops of dishwashing detergent). ALWAYS add new PoP only TO A WETTED surface! Otherwise the new PoP will not harden properly, because the dry shell underneath sucks out the water from the freshly added paper-PoP-strips.
After the shell has hardened, you can rip out the newspaper wads - you don't need them anymore!
12. - 14. The white base shell shows in many places, how the strips are laid out. You see that the strips also can be laid out in a criss-cross pattern, they can follow the 'flow' of the rock walls - or they follow no order at all! :-)
Boss of the Trim Creek & Western RR (H0 & H0n3)
Running through the hard-shell mountains, not around them!
In the next step I divert a bit from Westcott's original method. I paint the whole hard shell with a basic landscape color. Again I used cheap acrylic paints (light browns, grays, ochre, red...), mixing them while I painted. The basic color of the landscape (rocks, soil...) in the CO rockies certainly is different from the colors in the Ozarks or in Maine. Don't try to economize: Use plenty of paint.
(BTW: At the same time I painted the free space between the tracks leading to Ronville. Protect all tracks beforehand with masking tape!)
Back to Linn Westcott: Now the fun of zip texturing starts! Realistic looking scenery literally in minutes!
The basic idea is to mix of one or several dry powdered color pigments (also called 'earth colors' like raw and burnt umber, raw and burnt siena, lamp black (VERY messy, use VERY sparingly, if at all!), chrome green and yellow, ochre...) with a dry powdered spackling compound or PoP. You can keep these color mixtures (say one or several soil colors, grass colors...) in separate glass jars for years!
First you wet - and I mean: WET - the painted hard shell with wetted water. Then, with a spoon you pour a small amount of your coloring powder into a strainer. Then, holding the strainer above the wetted shell and tapping your finger against it, you start 'snowing' down the texturing color-PoP mix onto the shell. It will suck up water from the wetted hard-shell, the PoP starts to harden and thus secures the pgments in place.
In flat places this builds up to a somewhat crumbly looking surface, in steep places it clings to the tiniest ledges in a most natural way - namely exactly there, where soil or grass would stay in a real landscape, too.
You can even simulate natural erosion by spraying water over the landscape AFTER the application of zip color powder, washing down a part of it in very realistic rivulets. Then you can add more color etc. etc.
Just experiment around a bit - I assure you, it's great fun. And it is quick: In a few minutes you cover several square feet of landscape.
15. The painted hard shell around and above the tunnel portals. In my case I achieved a mottled look with an overall color impression of a light brown with a yellowish hue.
16. A first layer of zip texturing around the portals, using a pigment mixture of raw and burnt umber. I always start with a medium dark grayish brown (soil).
(Color powder which gets onto the 'concrete' of the tunnel portals can be washed down with a wetted brush. BTW, this adds a nice weathering effect of the concrete!)
17. Here I added lighter and darker green zip-texturing powder mixtures. Here and there I put a very small amount of ochre into the strainer and dropped a single tap onto the grass. This gives the illusion of patches of yellowish flowers in the grass.
Of course, you can add more structure to the ground anytime with Woodland Scenics ground foam etc. (This will be done here when I add the structure above the portals.)
Boss of the Trim Creek & Western RR (H0 & H0n3)
Running through the hard-shell mountains, not around them!
In the area ahead of the portals I used the same methods to quickly add a first ground cover - hard shell along the layout edge, a basic layer of paint and then zip-texturing the area between the RR tracks. Just a few impressions:
18. An overview just after zip texturing the whole area. The tracks are still covered/protected with masking tape.
19. The tracks are ballasted. I used two different ballast colors to give the impression of two different RR companies with different preferences. This is only the zip texture coloring. I only started adding WS ground foam in a few spots.
20. Here we are looking away from the tunnel portal. Of course the addition of weeds and shrubs enhances the looks of the landscape. Yes I know, the turnout levers look clumsy, but in H0 this has to be some compromise. Just avoid to place H0 plastic people (LPBs :-) near those oversize levers - and then most visitors will never notice the discrepancy!
Ok, I hope you enjoyed my little article. Any questions and critical remarks are welcome.
Ron
Boss of the Trim Creek & Western RR (H0 & H0n3)
Running through the hard-shell mountains, not around them!
Lookin' good, Ron. It's nice to see the step-by-step illustrations of how it's done, too, as many folks nowadays are familiar with only the use of extruded styrofoam for scenery construction.
Fantastic job! I had originally thought that it was a little weird that your lower portal on the left was taller than the higher portal on the right. Then, I went back and read through your text again and figured out why you did that. Cool stuffs.
very nice! I have a very similar situation on my layout, and you have given me a few ideas.
-- Kevin
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To TrainNut:
A little addition to your thread "HOn3 track - Shinohara?": The narrow gauge turnouts in the last picture you see are (from foreground to back) a Shinohara #6, then a handlaid #5 wye and a #5 right hand tunout, both built using Fast Tracks templates.
Ron
Boss of the Trim Creek & Western RR (H0 & H0n3)
Running through the hard-shell mountains, not around them!
Modeling vertical escarpments is tough to do... and then, you place not one but two portals in there as well. I'd say you pulled it off quite nicely if I may.
