A few progress pictures

[foulrift]

Lately I have been working on the backside of the layout having finished installing the roads on the front side.
The first couple of shots are of the newly installed parking lot for the freight handling area.It is made of .020 styrene. I scribed expansion joints,sprayed it with concrete color and then weathered it.




The next pictures are of the road I recently installed. It too is .020 styrene. It wraps around the cafe and has two exit points-one for normal traffic and one for vehicles entering railroad property. I also allowed some room in front of the cafe for parking.
You will also notice that at this location the road does not cross the tracks. It would have come too close to guard rails and switches.The one road crossing the tracks is in the freight area.Some imagination has to be used to envision how traffic exits the top area and re-enters the lower area.





Well,that's all I have for now.Next up will be ballasting the tracks.Not exactly my favorite thing to do. Bob

[Sarge]

Nice work Bob

[ocalicreek]

All of the structures seem to have the right feeling for buildings down near the tracks. Not quite shanties, but not prime real estate either, if you know what I mean. Roads look great!

Galen

[foulrift]

Jim-Thanks for the comment.
Galen-Thanks-That was my intention.The industrial park if it existed (modeling the 50's) would have been located in a wooded area and near a river so they would have tended not to look their best.
Here is an aerial shot showing where the park would have been. The tan area would have been the park only larger. The railroad mail line is above the park and it follows the Delaware River. Bob

[Trucklover]

Cool Bob!! I love the expansion joints in the yard, thats a nice touch, keep it up

[foulrift]

Thanks Josh-I sent these to you in a recent e-mail. For the expansion joints I measured out 12'x12' squares and used a straight edge and the side of a #11 Exacto blade to scribe the lines. Only a couple of passes were needed to make them deep enough.

[Ralph]

NICE looking parking lot! I like buildings placed under bridges. It suggests a busy urban area and is typical of scenes all over the country.
That well worn fence is a nice touch.

Ralph

[Charlie B]

Bob, I'm glad to see you have posted.
The fences are what catch my eye.
I remember when the country went on scenic beautification for Lady Byrd Johnson.
There was an auto wrecking yard that had to build a fence to hide their operation, of course all the law said was a fence to keep the unsightly stuff out of sight.
The owner took all the old car wheels and welded them together to make a fence that was 8 feet high and at least 500 feet long. It had to have cost 10 times what a plank fence would have cost, but he showed the politicians. I sure wish I had a picture of that fence.
Charlie

[nachoman]

I'd say that fence isn't doing much good anymore It definitely looks like you have a cool layout in the works!

[Trucklover]

Thanks Josh-I sent these to you in a recent e-mail. For the expansion joints I measured out 12'x12' squares and used a straight edge and the side of a #11 Exacto blade to scribe the lines. Only a couple of passes were needed to make them deep enough.

Shows how much i check my e-mail :oops: when i go on and check it, i usually have about 100-150 e-mails from forums lol

**EDIT** And i will totally agree with Stein below, your pictures have improved BIG time!! GREAT job

[steinjr]

Hi Bob --

Whatever problem you had with your camera, you seem to have it licked now - nice, crisp pictures. I also really like that really worn fence and the parking lot - looks good !

Smile,
Stein

[cnw1961]

Really nice layout you’re building. I love that fence . Your layout has reached the same stage as mine, track work is completed, streets are laid out, ballasting will be next. Just like you, I dislike ballasting and I delayed doing it as long as I could .

[foulrift]

Thanks for all the comments and kind words. I really appreciate it.I guess it takes people like you to help me get over my phobia about not posting.
As far as that well worn fence goes,that was produced by Alloy Forms. The fence is soft metal and is still available.Just go to Jaksprod.com and click on Scale Structures Ltd.The fence is part #SS4127.They also have a lot of other really neat stuff and the prices aren't bad either. I liked it so much that I tried to replicate it using scribed styrene cut into irregular panels glued to 4x4's.Here's what that looks like-

More photos soon-Bob

[doctorwayne]

Glad to see that you took the plunge and decided to post some pictures, Bob. I don't see anything that would upset the Modelling Police or the Rivet-Counters Union.
I like the idea of roads dead-ending at the tracks, and structures under bridges - it all combines to give it a "down-by-the-tracks-in-not-the-best-neighbourhood" kind of feeling. The fences look good, too - I think that your home-made one looks even better than the one from Alloy Forms.
Campbell makes corrugated siding in aluminum, in various lengths, which is also a good choice for this type of fence. I build the framework from strip styrene, then use contact cement to fasten the panels in place. The easiest way to do this is to use a brush to coat one side of the siding material with the contact cement (try to estimate how much siding you'll need for whatever application you're doing), then, after the cement has dried to the touch, use a sharp blade to cut it into individual sheets. Make sure that the cut-out sheets don't come in contact with one another, though: they don't call it contact cement for nothing! I spread them out, face up, on some newspaper. Once the cement on the fence framework has dried to the touch, you can start slappin' the panels in place, making sure, of course, to "slap" carefully, as you won't be able to adjust them once they touch the framework.


You shouldn't dread ballasting, either. It's actually pretty simple, and, other than painting your rails, is probably the most "bang for your buck" in our hobby. I'm going to post a ballasting how-to in the Scenery Forum - no pictures, as I wrote it after I figured out how to do it through trial and error, but it's pretty easy, and cheap, too.

And, now that you've got the hang of it, Bob, keep those pictures comin'.

Wayne

[LynnB]

Your pics look great Bob, although the Jaksprod.com link doesn't go any where.