Finally, Real Foliage

It's a bit ironic that as we enjoy the beautiful colors of fall outside my home in western New Jersey I am finally learning to add foliage to my layout.  Thanks to a neat product called 'Super Trees' by a company called Scenic Express, I am learning to build my own trees so that no two are exactly alike, and am able to do that in about 2 minutes a tree, at a cost of about 50 cents a tree (!!).

How do they look?

I am really excited about how they appear, both individually and even more so in a group.  The first piece of the layout to get more trees is the M&E.  While the above group is all the new trees, the one below includes a few of mine mixed in with some commercial trees I had installed previously.

At this rate, I am very excited about the future of the appearance of the scenery for the railroad.  The challenge now is to find time to do it, mixed in with mechanical projects, real-life commitments, and a new future extension project - extending the Island Running Track to allow for more flexibility during operating sessions!  This winter promises to be full of potential on the Onondaga Cutoff.

~RGDave

Adventure on the Montana Rail Link

A temporary hiatus of progress on the OC, and thus a lack of blog updates, is the direct result of limited time.  But, this time, that is due to a generous donation of effort by my wife to cover the home front so that I could make a trip to see the Montana Rail Link, which has long been on my list of railroads to visit in depth.  While having passed through MRL country in 2003, this was the first time I could do it properly.

It was an epic trip, one that exceeded all my expectations; THIS is a modern railroad to be excited about!  While we did get to see the SD45 show, and while it was a highlight, the pride and focus of the operation promises a bright future, and the modern SD70ACe power isn't going anywhere soon - and it it has a sound all its own.

The rest of the photos are available for viewing at https://www.flickr.com/photos/77452817@N08/

More modeling will be coming soon, but I figured I'd put a note up here to document time well spent watching trains in Montana in September/October 2014!

~RGDave

Trackside on the OC

Even on a busy railroad, there's down time waiting for things to move.  And so we take photos of what we can, of things we find visually interesting.

MP 281 on Conrail's Chicago Line, adjacent to Onondaga Yard, sits in the afternoon sun, marked by a classic New York Central concrete milepost, denoting this spot as 281.0 miles from the end of track at Grand Central Terminal in New York City.

Over at Euclid Yard, cars for M&E's afternoon outbound train to Onondaga sit and wait for a few more switching moves.  Maintenance crews use the route of a former track, now a rough dirt road adjacent to the tracks, for vehicular access to the trains.  

Scenery makes the hobby much more enjoyable, and lets our imaginations wander from 'how should this look?' to a new dimension of 'what is happening here?'  We go from imagining visual images to imagining the entire operation, which is far more interesting!

The next big challenge for making scenery is building trees - stay tuned for how that works out!

~RGDave

A Bit More Scenery

I am working lately to continue to develop techniques for scenery, among a busy summer of family activities!  I'm also playing with photo angles and lighting in advance of finalizing scenery - it's amazing how much tighter angles get when suddenly there are 'big' trees that suddenly spring up.  On the M&E, modeling a Central New York forest scene was always the plan, so that's where I am starting scenery in earnest.   Here's a photo presented in 'black & white' that shows the recent progress.  Compare this to photos from the last few months!

This weekend will allow for some additional 'field time' to take a look at prototype scenes in Central New York - can't get enough of that.   Happy Labor Day to all!

~RGDave 

Scenery Musings

As the summer draws to a close - hard to believe - I have been able to spend more time on scenery.  Note that spending time on scenery, at least at this early stage, does not mean spending time building scenery!  Much time goes into trying ideas and into dreaming up how a scene should look.  I am using a small part of the M&E mainline near Skaneateles Creek to test some ideas for scenery construction and materials, and so far, the results have been educational, with some being good enough to be used systemwide.

Looking railroad-North along the right-of-way, we have a quick grab-shot from the iPhone allowing us to see some of my newly-modeled cliffs, including overgrowth, and some lineside vegetation.  I am going to take my time with overall scenery so as to make sure it has the effect it should - deception.  I still have a ways to go.  The track here is a work-in-progress, and needs better weathering and finished shortline-style ballast.  And in fact, since this photo was taken, I have added several layers to the area at right.  What is seen here, though, are cliffs made from aged locust tree logs, accented with polyfiber ground covering from Woodland Scenics.  Future additions include highlights with leaf particles from Noch, as well as some paints to add variety.  The trees here are commercially-made, and soon will be joined by handmade trees.  Like most northeastern layouts, I will need many many more trees!

Comments are always appreciated - feel free to comment here or drop me an email.  I want the scenery to be as effective at setting the locale as the signals are.

Best wishes for a safe, happy Labor Day weekend!
~RGDave

Some Video of the Latest Operating Session

Just a quick post tonight to share a few impromptu videos from a recent operating session - these capture a slice of the experience we have every month or two when on an evening, 8 to 12 model railroad operators converge on the Onondaga Cutoff and run it like a railroad.

Here, SEBU is finishing a setout and pickup at Onondaga Yard and is shoving back to put their train back together while TV-7, a fast Boston-to-Chicago piggyback train, comes around him on Track 2.

We take it seriously enough to keep things organized, but the point is and will continue to be having fun, while trying hard to capture the experience of mainline railroading using actual schedules, scale models, and Conrail and NORAC operating rules.  Here, train BRSE from Chicago to Selkirk comes east through CP282, passing the signal crews who are out removing the old manual signals in the interlocking.  The train is led by a pair of run-through locomotives borrowed from the AT&SF Railway.

Excuse the poor quality of the videos - I think the sound and sight of the experience is worth sharing!

~RGDave

Playing with Scenery

Scenery is the last big frontier for the Onondaga Cutoff.  While there are some expansions planned here and there, most of the trackwork is complete, and we have worked the bugs out of it.  The CTC signal system is functionally complete although we are tweaking it here and there.  As these major initiatives wind down to basic maintenance, it is - finally - time to put some serious thought and effort into permanent scenery.  This will include not only trees and landforms but also structures and, eventually, people.

Recently I ripped out the temporary foam surface along the M&E at Skaneateles Creek, replacing it with a first stab at modeling rock faces and the edge of the forest.  I need to work on blending the 3-dimensional scenery into the 2-dimensional backdrop, but when viewed along the tracks, this is a marked improvement to bare plywood and pink foam 'cliffs' - the lighting reminds me of humid summer afternoons along the tracks:

Modeling Central New York terrain and rocks means finding a way to represent the undulating, sedimentary rock that is so prevalent in that area of the country.  Once that is glued in place, we go back and add ground foam and trees to represent a forest.  The M&E wanders through the woods between Euclid and Onondaga, and I hope that operators can feel like they are in the woods with it!

The other extreme is the industrial landscape at Onondaga Yard, especially at night.  Here B23-7 1987 and a clean CN GP40-2L(w) 9549 share the fuel pad, long after dark on a humid July 21, 1994.

There's some exciting features being added to the signal system, too - namely, modeling the approach-lit signals so common throughout the Chicago Line.  These signals are only lit when a train is in the block facing the signal, so as to save power and light-bulb life.  Thanks to the CATS software, we can add this feature to the hardware already installed with some LOGIX computer programming that runs on top of JMRI and CATS during an operating session.  More on this soon!

Enjoy the long summer days!

~RGDave