After completing the retaining wall and walkway behind the station all the problems with the mocked up scenic area became too much of a glaring issue in my mind and started keeping me awake at night.
So, in one of those spurts of energy, I tore everything out and have decided it is time I need to create the non-mockup scenery modules for the area behind the station and speeder shed. I am using the 1/8 inch thick plastic from the 4'X8' sheet I bought at Zap Plastics a couple of years ago as the foundation for the scenic modules. These are intended to be completely removable so I can work on the scenery at the dining room table from all sides as well as ballast and finish the trackage behind. The hillside with the water tank will be a smaller separate scenic module.
Monday, had a real burst of energy this afternoon. The full sheet cutout for the scenic module is heavy enough it doesn't move on top of the Woodland Scenics foam underlay. I don't plan on using an adhesive at that level. If it needs more positional stability I can screw it to the cross stringers of the benchwork. Still easily removable that way.
I may need to glue some support under the sheet where it is not supported by the two benchwork modules to avoid any sagging.
This is with the buildings placed where they will go
This is what the flat raised area behind the station building looks like today. The retaining wall runs diagonally on the left side of the picture. This is 60 years after the section house house and other buildings were removed. I think the concrete pad visible in the lower center of the picture was the floor of the water treatment building.
The next challenge will be building the elevation levels above the module base level to resemble the actual land form south of the retaining wall. For this, I just lucked out a bit. I vaguely remembered a huge Woodland Scenics landscaping module kit I had purchased for Steve, my son, when he was interested in building a module for his collection of N scale Wheels of Time commute coaches and FM trainmaster diesels about 2005. He is no longer interested in it and gifted it back to me for any modeling purposes I needed back in the days of my Brixham, Devonshire, layout.
I found the Woodland Scenics kit tonight buried in a bedroom closet. All that was left in the large box were 2 18X36 1/2 inch thick sheets of very dense styrene foam. Perfect for building the elevated section which is 1 1/4 inches high over the new styrene base. And of course water resistant as I have some scenic plaster cloth also from the kit to model non-flat areas. I have two of the 2 X 2 foot x 2 inch pinkish dense foam tiles from Home Depot. You can have them if you want as I also have the large 2 inch thick sheets of very dense architectural terrain modeling foam that I bought many years ago. It shapes easily into ground forms. The architectural foam will be used for the tank hill and the small bit of sharply rising terrain at the east end of the layout.
I have to paint the base sheet with the camo sprays on the garage floor and then build the ground elevation which will be the challenge for the rest of the week.
I have put off final versions of the structures until I can get full access to the CSRM library and the microfilm records that are not available to order prints online. Hopefully they have the specific plans for the station and section house. Maybe even the plan for the water treatment facility.
I may get the layout back in order by the end of June but then will be involved with the 2021 Virtual NMRA National Convention so it will be mid-July before I have much time to return to my own model railroad.
That's all for now.
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