Redesign of B&M Junction

I took out the B&M junction that consisted of a switches hidden in the back left corner of the closet, a crossing and inverted wye that I fit in when I laid the track hoping to have a dynamic junction in which a B&M train came out of staging to swap cars in the interchange and then would head back to staging. I have operated trains over the Junction and felt that once scenery was installed and the switches where out of reach, except for ducking under the layout, that it was going to be less than reliable. Although I had only had an isolated derailment in the area, as many of you know once access was limited Mr. Murphy would rear his head. The hidden switches were removed and a simpler junction was put back in close to the original plan it will be used to move cars on and off the layout between sessions. New cars coming onto the layout will be spotted before an operating session and cars headed off will be removed after the session.

The left track is a pulp wood yard, had to add this since I have so many scratch built pulpwood cars I spent time building.

The center track is the mainline heading into Portland staging.

The two tracks on the right are the B&M interchange tracks.

Bridge Installation

I started the installation of the first bridge on the layout. After removing the existing track by cutting the rail to length, I sawed out the section of laminated roadbed where the bridge will go. After making two abutement backs, I installed the deck bridge structure. It is a simple Atlas deck bridge section with a microengineering bridge tie section installed on top ILO the Atlas snap track that comes with it. I then made the gaurd rails from code 70 rail and supper glued them in place. I will work on blending the scenery base into the bridge abutement. I will post again when that is complete. I am waiting on some material to complete the abutments.

Additional Cars

This car was done using my own custom decals created for this scheme. The weathering is from a photo out of the MEC in Color book Volume II.

This is an old MDC car, after researching I determined the car and paint scheme are totally inaccurate for the cars number, still it looks good and after all it is my railroad.

Additional Cars - MEC Cement Hopper

Weathering Break

All of the covered hoppers in this image were weathered over the last day or so, I use washes, direct application of paint and pastels to create the weathering. I used to use an airbrush but have come to find I like the pastels better and feel I can create an appearance much closer to the actual look of the weathering in the photos of equipment. If I can find photos of the actual car type and paint scheme of the railroad I will use that to do the car. If I can only find the car type I will pick a photo that I like the weathering I see on the car and use it on the model.

Back Drop Painting

The back drop was painted using a basic green to start the shape and profile. After that the trees and foilage was added using various shades of green. I added tree trunks in areas I plan on having the forground trees thin. I used both brushes and sponges torn into random shaped to get the desired affect.

Update

I am ashamed to say I have not updated for months, however job related travel has kept me on the road for most of the year. When I have been home I completed laying the rest of the trackage, installed the DCC wiring, installed ground throws on all the switches and have painted the back drop. On my last week at home I put the basic scenery form in the blob area using a combination of foam and cardboard strips and then covered it with masking tape and gray paint from a previous room painting. The panoramic image above shows most of these items.