Playing around with some foam to try some new formations on the hill.  The foam would eventually be covered with scultamold (where i’ll try my hand at cliff making) or something like rubber rock molds.

Shaun Scenery

Been doing a little off and on work on the scenery this past week.  Mainly I’m trying to get the “terrain forming” done for the hills and tunnel portals.

This morning I finished up almost all the cardboard webbing.  After taking the pics I started putting down masking tape but ran out! So I didn’t get very far there.

One spot I left open to give me access to the interior of the hills for where the overpass is (see pic #1).  Still working on what to install here, so I left this open so I can get and install a tunnel interior or something.

Shaun Scenery

Decided to swap out the searchlights for the signal bridge as originally planned.

The bridge is a N.J. International kit built with searchlights by Richard at Custom Signal Systems.

Shaun Scenery

After having the garage looked at, no structural damage was found. Yay!

So it was time to bring the modules back in and put them back together. Eek!  Luckily everything worked as planned except for one piece of track.  It was a curve that bridged two modules. I re-laid the section of track using rail joiners at the module break so hopefully next time it comes apart it’ll go back together nicely.

For the bus wiring I switched from the previously used Anderson Powerpoles to crimp bullet connectors and labeled wires for the connections between modules.  Much cheaper and much faster/easier to assemble.

After the layout was back together I decided it was time to fill  in the “blue foam hill”.  I used cardboard strips to fill in the empty spaces, then covered the whole thing in masking tape and painted.  I ran out of tape so I still have a little to do.

And while I had the paint out I also gave the plywood top a coating. Looks much better than seeing all that bare plywood.  Got about half the layout done so far.

Shaun Benchwork, Scenery