The Little Rock Line

Not sure how one does it? After I got some ballast glued I sprinkled on some of the earth ground foam/grout mix to fill in the ballast and glued it. Then brushed on a black "soot" weathering powders, misted some water/alcohol over it to set it and once dried I used thinned glossy Mod Podge and brushed it over the tracks and areas I wanted spills.

 

Very well done!

 

Thanks

 

Amazing work. For some reason I am focused on the hose I guess it is coming from the little maintenance building or shed, I guess it is? What did you use for it, if indeed that is a hose? Amazing the small details different people pickup on A testament to your detail work! Me thinks I also see some Red hoses too in the other pictures? I think?

 

Thanks for the props!
It is a hose, originally for connecting to a fuel truck to fill the tanks. Now it can be used to connect to a tank car I guess.

It's a section of 1/32" solder.

Yes you thinks right, those hoses were made from insulated solid wire, the red and black color is used for a different chemical.
With the insulation, it made it hard to lay flat so I had to hold them while the glue dried. I was told to try a section of solder, it stayed in position and was much easier to work with.



Which reminds me, I need to go back and weather the concrete, piping and tanks in this scene as I didn't even give it a thought to weather this before installing it, but not as much as I did for the engine house.

 

Epic, and I quote, " Yes you thinks right", love it. A few more questions and a request. Can you take a closer picture of the Red & Black hoses and include the grass in it? Is that the Static stuff with that Electrical sifter? It all looks awesome, keep seeing different things catch my eyes Great work!

 

Thanks in2tech!
Yes, that's Woodland Scenics static grass 2mm & 4mm that was applied with a static applicator.
Sure, I'll try to get a closer pic in a day or two.

 

Is that a MAC kit from Pikestuff in the background? BEAUTIFUL scene!!!

 

Yes it is. Thanks!
Here's a couple of links to a blog post that shows some more images of it:
https://thelittlerockline.blogspot.com/2019/04/gavilons-main-building.html
https://thelittlerockline.blogspot.com/2019/06/gavilons-greening-up.html

And one where I started weathering it:
https://thelittlerockline.blogspot.com/2019/05/attempting-to-weather-gavilons-buildings.html

 

Can you tell me about the vertical cylindrical tanks, for the 4 fuel (?) tanks, and the ones by the elevator? Kit or scratch, or a little of both?

I tried poking around on your blog site, but there's too much eye candy!!! Look at that! Wow, what's that over there?

I'm thinking about similar kinds of commercial/light industries for an industrial park on my upcoming layout.

 

Both.
The four are made by Tomytech: https://www.plazajapan.com/4543736257509/
The ones by the elevator are made from PVC

 

Here's closer image of the four tanks by the elevator.

 

Wow! Even in close-ups, your models look fantastic!

So, that looks like maybe half-inch PVC pipe sections, with plates of some sort glued to the top, and rounded into the sides?

I've been eyeing the elevator kit too, but I never considered it for commodities other than grain... It would stand to reason such elevators should work well handling other (non-corrosive?) bulk materials that may be sensitive to spark ignition, depending on the era.

 

Thanks

I think it was 1" PVC with a layer of styrene glued on the top and yes, rounded over.

The plan is that the cars drop off granulated chemicals that are held in the four vertical tanks.
I've seen others use this same elevator at feed mills, grain elevators and industries that use sand.

 

Here a couple of the close ups you asked for.
I just got this area finished but never got around to weathering things, something I should have done before I added it to the scene like I did with engine shed.
Also the grass is a little heavy, since working on this scene I've started doing the grass a bit differently. Someone on another forum mentioned that it looked TOO GREEN, like a golf course.





So I kept that in mind when I started revamping the main yard. I've added a few pics of that as well to show what I'm doing differently.
Now I'm starting out by adding a thin layer of ground foam for the base of the grass and weeds.



Once dry, I add full strength glue with a small foam brush and then sprinkle on some static grass, let it set a bit then vacuum up the excess.
Ground foam only on the left, static grass applied on the right. I still want to add some grass between the rails, which I'll probably try to do with some home grown weed tufts.



As I mentioned before, the grass looked too lush and green, so I started adding dirt in patches around the foam base before applying the static grass.







Hope these help?

Here's a quick video of how I applied the weeds in the yard.

 

Wow!

 

Amazing work. I like Golf course grass It all looks good to me whether it is the green look or the other's when you added to it. And thanks so much for the extra pictures, much appreciated.

 

Sticking the proverbial fork in the Biddle engine facility

While I'm sure there are probably a hundred or more things I could to do to it yet, and thousands more detail parts to add, I'm calling it done for now. The only thing that I may still add to the facility and yard would be some of the grass/weed tufts that I've made.

I've had a real enjoyable time working on this scene! Over the past couple of decades of reading, watching and soaking up ideas for modeling, I was finally able to bring a lot of them to the front burner and see what I could do with them. This includes anything from trackwork to scenery to weathering and finally some photography.

I also wish to thank Mike Confalone for posting images of his Madrid engine facility which gave me the inspiration for my facility.

Here are some images of the current scene of the Biddle facility.









These are a few images that I played around with Helicon Focus and added backdrops to, but I've still got a bit of learning to do.







Now I need to figure out what to do next?
I've got my Ouachita River bridge scene.
My Flappers Chicken complex.
Rip out and redo the tracks in El Dorado.
Or I've got a couple of locos that's been acting like paper weights for the last year or so.
One thing for sure is to clean the tracks and try applying the infamous NO-OX and see how that works.

 

@Bendtracker1

Allen, very nice scene! Now, if something could just be done with those disease'els...