City Curve update....

The city curve rebuild project is going well, although it is quite the mess! Silva Spring and its neighbor are now back in position sitting atop new bases sporting Scenic Express cut stone Flexi-Walls. While a bit pricey, they worked well, and with some of my painting and detailing tweaks, look a lot better than what I had before. I've also got more clearance around the outside of the curve through this part of the layout as part of the deal. To tell you the truth, I could only run my Allegheny and Challenger in one direction through here due to my shoddy construction! Eventually, these walls will skirt the bottoms of all the City Curve buildings, extending from Silva Spring to almost the front of the layout. Silva Spring also got a much needed facelift, with new paint and weathering and some added details. Part of this building was also slimmed down for better curve clearance. Now it's Carbon Controls' turn and I'm in the process of slimming part of it down, adding cut stone walls (plaster copies of the above Flexi-Walls), and new hand-carved rocks. New details will also be added to make it more visually appealing. The plaster copy walls mentioned above were created using GE Silicone molds using tips provided to me by my good train pals Bob and Dan. At some point I'll take a couple of quick shots of these in use on the workbench. Photos are still in the works, once a little bit of the dust settles. Once Carbon Controls is back in place on the layout, I can get to work on Marcus Furniture II. All this effort just goes to show you that no layout is ever finished and everything can always be improved.

Where I'm headed.....

I spent the past three nights weathering more trains. Eventually, I'd like to have everything on the layout sporting some level of environmental influence, whether it be a light dusting of soot or a heavy cloak of grime. Below are some photos I shot of my latest efforts using my new S3. I've come to enjoy working with this new camera and have learned a few neat tricks already. I applied some dark pastel chalks with a stiff brush to this MTH N6b before lightly coating it with some Grimy Black and Dust. The pastel dust settled between the boards helping to give this plastic model a bit more depth. A Lionel Pennsy K4 got the treatment. Here it leads a passenger train made up of K-Line and MTH heavyweights. Each car was weathered to a slightly different level of intensity to impart a sense of believability. Be sure to click on each image to see the full version!