1) Tunnels portals #1 and #2 are for the most part done. Just need to paint #2.

2) Got the framing in place for the river banks. Need to pick up a new roll of masking tape to finish it off.

3) Trimmed the fascia on the Marigny side down to profile.

I did dabble a bit with structure placement on the Elmwood side of the layout. The blue foam piece represents the highway overpass.  Not to scale of course, but gave me an idea of what it would like it.

Today I also ordered several parts from Plastruct to use to scratch build that overpass.  Pikestuff has their highway kits but it would’ve cost about $100 for all the pieces needed for a 4-lane 300′ overpass.  A mix of plastruct and Pikestuff parts brought it down to about $30 or so.  Plus I’ll have left over bits and pieces for other stuff.  So you’ll see photos of that in 2-3 weeks.

1) ‘Rust’ color

From left to right we have:

- Applied to ties and rail, wiped from ties with a kleenex
- Applied to ties and rail
- Applied to rail

As expected, it has too much of an orange color.

2) ‘Rail Brown’ color

From left to right we have:

- Applied to ties and rail, wiped from ties with a kleenex
- Applied to ties and rail
- Applied to rail

3) ‘Rail Tie Brown’ color

For this one I painted the ties with Rail Tie Brown, and the rails with Rail Brown.

From left to right we have:

- Applied to ties and rail, wiped from ties with a kleenex
- Applied to ties and rail

I liked the look of the “wiped” ties here.   Gives a good grimy concrete kind of look.

The painted rail is on the front rail, right side.  Compare it to left side of the rail that hasn’t been painted.

Here’s a look at the concrete rail.

The spike heads (or whatever they call ‘em on concrete ties) is the important thing here since this is pre-weathered track I tested.  I was concerned on how the heads would look because when you paint the rails with the pens, you can’t avoid painting them too.  Once the paint dried, I kinda like how it turned out.  It gives the heads a little more metal look rather than having them be the same color as the ties.  Tonight I’ll try out a piece of non-weathered track to see the full affect.

Hoping to the have other main completed tomorrow.

Previously I’ve been trying to pick a location for the layout so things would fit in to prototypical location. I’ve conclude that trying to do so is a PITA to me. I simply want to build a railroad with scenes, industries, etc.. and not worry about if it fits or doesn’t fit into the location the layout supposedly exists in. Basically I’m just pushing the layout into more of the freelanced world.

So anyway, welcome to the Elmwood And Marigny River layout.

You can find more info on the About Page.

So about a 15 day turn around on the upgrade. Not too shabby.