Nebraska’ish based layout progress

Hopefully no one takes this as spamming, but I’m so excited that things are moving forward. Here’s a video of two trains running:



Would be just great if there was a way to speed match analog locos thou… I have two more cables unused on my control board connectors, so I think I add one more RC02 speed controller for the hidden track section, where I can slow down the faster train, rather than doing it at the front of the layout. The hidden tracks are easy to take off and add insulators.

-Eino

Einot,

Your work-in-progress vids are much appreciated.

Not an easy thing to do is to document one’s work while working.

You’ve added granularity to your base landform or terrain. Looks like the addition is topical. I do that too—Apply various size sands by taping them in cheesemaker spoons while Sculptamold is setting.

some suggestions

• Two-tone minimum for anything having to do with texture or color. Let that be a guiding principle.

• Work with two turfs. (Two-tone minimum.) You can lay one over the other. You can mix the two in varying proportions. You can contrast one tone against the other. Lots of variety available with two tones. Consider Scenic Express model landscape supplier in the US.

prototype ballast

(A) Ballast I see never touches the surrounding terrain. More often than not, cinderbed is visible between the ballast and turf. That is my observation from life.

(B) Ballast tends to be at almost the same height as the railroad ties. More often than not, then, railroad ties appear sunk in. That is my observation from life.

For me there’s a (C) and (D) too.

Not sure if you’re competing, but you don’t necessarily need more than terrain and turf for something to look complete. That may be something you may wish to consider.

Very impressed. You’ve taught me much. I’d raise a glass to you, but it counters my six-miles a day exercise.

I thank you.

Scott

Thank you for your kind words guys.

I totally agree with the 3 tone minimum. I use three different tones of Woodland Scenics fine turf for the grass.

For the ground cover I use a mix a playground sand with beige and stone tile grout with different ratios, so that the dirt has some variation in colour. I plan to use weathering powders later on also.

Scott, can you please ellaborate this: "More often than not, cinderbed is visible between the ballast and turf." there maybe a language barrier for me?

BR,
Eino

“Scott, can you please elaborate this: ‘More often than not, cinderbed is visible between the ballast and turf.’ There maybe a language barrier for me. … BR, Eino.”

What country you in, if you don’t mind?

There’s a kind of railroad earth between the bottom edge of the ballast and the surrounding terrain. That “railroad earth” railroaders refer to as cinderbed or railroad mud. The color comes mostly from years and years of steam engine soot. When modeling that railroad mud, many actually mix in soot black. There’s a bluish tinge too. For that many actually mix in a lapis-like blue. This is why you sometimes see in the magazines Payne’s gray as being mentioned for a useful model railroad color. Payne’s gray is different from India ink and charcoal, as it is a kind of slate gray. The original Payne’s gray was French ultramarine blue reduced with soot black. (Payne was a British watercolorist. French just means the common deep shade. Ultramarine means beyond the sea because Italian Renaissance painters used to wait for blue stones to come into port.)

Scenic Express offers a good example of the shade of which I am speaking. In fact it’s cinderbed in a bottle. Well, whuddya know? … They call theirs cinder blend and offer it under ore as a granular material:

www.sceneryexpress.com/Loads_Ores/products/1291/

For me cinderbed is not a shade of ballast but the color of the ground along side of it. I am suggesting that tone not as a ballast but as an earth mix.

Point is, no matter what the time or place, look for that transitional tone between ballast and the land through which the train is travelling. You will see a kind of railroad earth … MOST … OF … the time. The attached model Western Maryland locomotive photo shows transitional tone. (Googled: railroad cinderbed.):

Most model railroads look like roadbed laid on a golf course. Witness the attached model Baltimore and Ohio locomotive with no transitional tone:

That you don’t want. Something to think about.

MOST … OF … the time,

Scott

Thank you.

Thanks guys!

Scott, I’m from Finland, thank you for asking.

Ah, now I understand what you mean. I don’t think cinder has been used for several decades now?

At least in the reference photos I’m using there’s no cinderbed visible.

Like this for example:



BR,
Eino