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Building the Modular Layout. When it rains, it pours.
Building the Modular Layout. When it rains, it pours.
Part 2 Retaining Wall, Hills, and Road to the Indian Princess Mine.
It is amazing how things happen.
I had a Naval Science Instructor who once told me that, "once the ship sinks beneath you, all you can do is hold on to your buddies and try to look after them." When he told me this, he was actually speaking about life. My wife and I had already had one very early miscarriage "during the time of Covid." I think she actually had 2. I was very upset, and saddened. However, I had to take care of my wife. Remember, like Senior Chief Irish said: "hold onto your buddies and try to look after them." Well, that's what I was trying to do. I was holding onto my wife, who was naturally distraught, dealing with life in the time of Covid, helping my parents work on their house, helping take care of my 97 year old bedridden grandmother, helping a friend deal with a crazy family estate problem, and working myself into the ground at school. I had Covid in 2020 and 2021. There were shortages of food/supplies, as well as inflation (which is only getting worse). I even lost half a tooth around 10AM in class one day, and still taught the rest of the day.
We packed up at the end of the school year, and went home. I got an email to come back into one day school, and I thought it was my annual performance review. I had gotten awards for teaching, so I felt good about it. After being told how the students love me, how the school loves me, how I do great work, how I am a great teacher and person, etc., etc., etc. I was told I had one hour to pack my stuff and leave. Covid cost me my job. When they told me, I must have looked insane, as I was confused and still smiling because my wife had told me she was pregnant again not an hour before. When I told them this, they could not look me in the eye. They would not even shake my hand on the way out. I had to offer it to them.
A few months later, after the shock from my old job had settled, and the new job had settled in. My beautiful wife asked when am I going to work on the layout again. So, I did.
The next step would be the hill behind the Indian Princess (Pocahontas seemed too Virginian Railway, sorry to the nice person who emailed me suggesting it; however, your other wonderful suggestions will be used in another article) and the retaining wall. Having lost my job, I could not justify spending any money on myself. That presented several engineering problems. Everything I was reading said don't use regular Styrofoam for sculpting hills. I took that under advisement and used that, as it was free. Glued it down with foam friendly glue weighted down. A friend had done some insulation work and he graciously gave me his leftover glue. It was 2-3 different types of glue, only a few ounces left per tube, but that is all that was needed.
I wanted a stone retaining wall behind the mine. But not just any old rock wall... I wanted a Pennsylvania Slate. You can buy it on eBay for around twenty bucks, but I don't have a job, so no money. A friend was going to a local models/trains swap meet and asked if I wanted to tag along. I said yes. My wife wanted to give me some money for lunch out, isn't she great, but I packed a sandwich instead. Need to save money for the baby, I told her. Growing up without a lot of money taught me to be inventive, and this payed off dividends now. I had $5 of my own money leftover from Christmas. I noticed someone had a Lionel locomotive for sale and that a guy was thinking of buying it. It was missing a part and that put him off right away. I also noticed the required part for the locomotive was being sold on another table for $4.
I spoke with the prospective buyer and he said he wanted it if it was fixed. I then purchased the part, and spoke with the prospective seller. After I fixed the locomotive and the sale I made a commission of $5. I took the $6 I had and bought an old Revell model kit and sold it to a guy I knew would want it at the show for $8. I took the $8 and purchased some weathered boxcars, which I swapped for an old locomotive and $4. I got some tools from my friends truck, and did a quick fix job on the locomotive to make it run. I then cleaned it, and sold it for $25. With my newfound $29, I purchased an already open, half-fused, rubber rock wall (dry fitted slate like I wanted) for $20, bought my wife a very small present for $7, and got a cup of coffee for $1.15. I detest coffee, but water was $2 and I wanted to saved 85 cents. Waste not... and so forth.
The wall accidentally fit perfectly! Which meant it was time for the shaping of the hills. After thinking about it... I decided to camouflage the backdrop seam. If you think about early camouflage for ships, all it was were crazy lines and blotches to break up the lines of the hull and superstructure. That is exactly what I did. The hill slopes down towards the viewer. If I had made a 90 degree angle, it would make the transition between the 2D backdrop, and the 3D terrain obvious. This way, the eye is drawn up a slope that makes it more gentle than a hard right. It is the same principle used by Howard Pyle when he painted the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Woodland Scenic lights (another article) were placed underneath the hill before building it. The buildings have full interiors. American Art Clay Company Sculptamold was used to cover and shape the hills. Along the back, especially behind the town of Blackwood's Crossing, a rich-brown, sometimes called red-brown, was used for the damp fall forest soil color. I love small details, and a small layout was going to allow me to do that. That will be shown in Part 3.
I wanted the retaining wall to look like slate, and I wanted it to look dirty. If you think about it, all the coal dust, dirt, and industrial stuff in the air will get all over it that close to the mine shaft. which is located behind the tipple. To show all this grime, I gave the bottom half of the wall a good rubbing down with dirt. This was simply a wet paper towel dipped in sifted fine dirt from outside. This barely shaded and dusted the wall. Then, a black wash was prepared. I took a little cheap Folk Art black paint from my wife's paint set. Just a dab and mixed it with water. Then, applied it with a paintbrush over the rock. This allowed it to pool into the deep recesses. The previous small amount of dirt then absorbed some of the mixture and began to create very small/faint streaks on the rocks near the bottom, just like kicked up dirt would after it rains. I then blew some powdered coal dust onto the wall before it dried. This was an easy half an hour getting it just right.
Like I said, I love the small details. The road to the mine actually meets with one in the background, and the ground cover will only blend everything together more. Perfect for a great model wagon to help blend that 2D to 3D transition. Also, for my taste, I have seen so many huge layouts covered in track on every inch of space. While that makes for interesting and complex operation, it looks like a toy. If trains are the actors, the scenery is the stage. Therefore, I want the best stage to show off my actors in our humble little play! Part of the stage is the road to the mine. That was easy. Some time ago, I purchased Woodland Scenics Ballast. This was poured out and leveled with my hand. Then, glued down with Woodland Scenics Ballast Glue. Finally, it was painted with a Folk Art tan brown paint mix. The hardest part was leveling the road.
The sculpting of the hill helps with this. Size and lines are something the human eye always looks for. It is left over from our ancestors millions of years ago. This is to help us detect predators or prey first. By sloping the hill, it allows the eye to have a gentile transition, giving a slight false sense of depth and with the sharp drop where the wall behind where the mine is, this actually draws the eye first (forced perspective), which is the point. I want the viewer to look at the Indian Princess Mine first. After all, without a mine for revenue, there is no reason for a railroad to be there.
In real life, trains move through the landscape and are actually very small. So, you have to give that feeling of scale, and of the train "in its natural habitat," so to speak. But that is for part 3 of Blackwood's Crossing.
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