Rainbows in the Lehigh Valley Gorge

[TMo]

Good thoughts - stuff I'll have to ponder and keep in the back of my mind when we go to look at properties in a few years.

[Tyson Rayles]

Your water area looks great!

[TMo]

Back to railroading.  I've been gone for way too long.

Real life got in the way, and I think I saw the freight train coming right after the new year.  Wife got a bee in her bonnet to do some renovations in the kitchen and bathrooms, I had the usual outdoor work to do (always heavy lifting in the spring) at Mount Morris (4 acres that I've spent way too much effort landscaping).  I'll pick up my last (of around 25) load of mulch or compost from the county landfill on Friday.

Golf season is in (ha ha) full swing and I'm being pulled in quite a few different directions. I don't mind the madness, but it has definitely meant that absolutely nothing can be reported on progress in the Lehigh Valley Gorge until late last night and earlier this afternoon, when I added some token "puffball" trees to the turn in the gorge near the (removed for renovations) railroad bridge just south of White Haven.  A picture of that (the ends of the push pins clue you into where the new work is taking place, the scenery there is so steep that I have to secure each clump with a pin while the glue dries):

   

And a casual shot through the town of White Haven during the dog days of summer.  My guess is that I'll be spending more of the hot days down here in the basement, and I'll be spending more time with my Big Blue brethren.

   

[Charlie B]

Hey Todd
        Glad you are back.  Darn it, we were worrying about you. I thought the worst. I am relieved and glad you are OK.  We are all busy so I understand. Looking forward to more of your progress. 
Charlie

[TMo]

Nope! Still cookin', but thanks for thinking about me. I'm getting the itch to run trains on my viewing level, so I need to finish scenic work here under and behind the bridge. I'm thinking that should be finished before the end of June and I should be able to provide some great shots of freight coming over the bridge shortly thereafter. Until then I'll be further boring this audience by pictures of trees, rocks, shrubs and water.

[TMo]

Moving along at a glacial pace...   I should double that pace now that I've found an additional stash of straight pins.  On this steep of a slope, a dab of glue will adhere the scenic material, but only if you pin it in place until the glue sets up.  So, it's pick a piece, dab it in glue, position it on the scenery, and then tack it with a pin.  I then try to remove all of the pins for reuse - I stick them in a piece of medium density foam.  Occasionally I'll look up and see the head of one of these pins in a piece of scenery that I finished years ago.  A couple of shots below.  I'm looking forward to detailing this area.  I need to look into some fisherman, some canoes, add some wildlife, some garbage.  Possibilities are endless.

       

[tompm]

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. I know how it feels with the slow pace. I am going through it myself.

[FiatFan]

Moving along at a glacial pace...   I should double that pace now 

Global warming?  

Tom

[TMo]

Global warming is always a good guess. Nice a cool here in the basement. My only excuse is the time it takes for the glue to dry, the time I have between waking and sleeping minus my time at my real job, and the time it takes to get me off of the chair in front of the computer and back to the gorge.

[TMo]

Well, I finished the background tree installation, aided by global warming.  Scratch that, extra straight pins, which you can see in some of the photos below holding the green tree shapes in place.  I then laid waste to the area below those background trees with a smattering of Titebond glue and threw (literally) my plastic jar of "brown stuff" at the glued areas.  Tomorrow when it's all dry I will retrieve the pins and all of the extraneous brown stuff (and there's lots of it) that didn't stick and decide how much more brown and green stuff to add in the 2nd coat.  

   

I'm working from back to front here in this valley since I have limited room to work.  Just like in Mud Run, I'll be adding detail shrubbery and trees to this area after I've established the scenic background.

[TMo]

The glacial pace was renewed over the last week.  Busted my butt on a bunch of stuff on a 3-day weekend and spent very little time down here in the basement.  I did add some ballast to the old CNJ mainline that once run under the LV right here at the bridge (first picture below).  By 1976 the CNJ tracks (a double main) had been pulled up in this area but the underpass still remained (and still is accessible via a Rails to Trails project that you can access right from White Haven (which I did back in 2006 I think - that's the picture on the bottom).  Scale's different, but the feel is the same I think.  There have been a number of areas on my layout that are deliberately compressed and this is one of them.

       

[TMo]

I also added some "brown stuff" to overlay over the brown paint and some of the rock areas, and I'm about ready to add some "green stuff" over that layer later tonight.  

   

The green stuff's nothing more than chopped up moss and the like that I'll glue in a hodgepodge manner over the rocks and brown stuff.  Next layer will be some shubbery (rhododendron and mountain laurel-looking stuff) before getting to the addition of foreground trees. Since space is limited for getting hands and other parts of my body in there to work, I'm only focusing my attention at the moment on the areas behind the bridge.  I'll then do a full rinse and repeat when the deep parts are complete. 

The "tannish" streak running from the right of the right abutment toward the middle of the shot is that ballast I put down for the CNJ mainline.  It will fade off into the distance and get covered by trees and shrubs as it progresses back behind the bridge.  Another "selective scaling" thing that I've incorporated into my scenery, which I think is something to consider in every scenery project - how can you convey the feeling of much vaster space on a model railroad layout?  Backgrounds help, layering helps, use of color, texture, changing angles of view, working with scale - all are important.  When it works, it's magic, but it may take much trial and error.  My suggestion is to try things and always be willing to scrap what you've got and start over.

[FiatFan]

You did an excellent job capturing the essence of the underpass area. Well done!

Tom

[cn nutbar]

Very well done Todd---good to have you back on board.

[tompm]

The underpass area definitely has the feel of the prototype.