Guardrails for the Interstate highway

It's been awhile since I have posted anything.  My wife and I have been traveling but are back home now and I have started again to work on this layout.

Continuing to finish up the area around Winnemucca I realized a need for some highway guardrails along Interstate 80.  For the bridges that pass over the SP line I used 2 sets of modern concrete railings from Rix Products.  Each set has four 50 foot long railings and my bridges are about 80 feet long.  I cut 2 railings in half and used those in combination of a full length section to get a 75 foot long railing.  These are designed to fit along the edge of a bridge.

For the areas along the sides of the highway where there was a steep hillside and for in the center areas I picked up Kato  set # 23-213 from their DioTown series.

This set includes highway guardrails as well as some fencing of a type commonly found along the streets in Japan.  The package contains 3 each of what is shown in this photo.   The lower one is what I used for this project and the upper on I will use on some of my Japanese modules.

I painted the railings with old silver and left the posts white.   These railings are designed to fit into holes in the DioTown street plates so I needed to drill some holes into my highway.  To make it easier I removed the highway and brought it to the work bench to do the back and center divider rows.

Along the front edge when viewing the highway I drilled the holes into the scenery along the edge of the highway as it was an easier reach.

So here is how the area now looks with the guardrails installed and the scenery touched up.

The bright lights of Winnemucca

At the west end of the scenicked area of the layout is Winnemucca, Nevada.  In the era I am modeling Nevada had only a handful of towns with a population of over 10,000 and Winnemucca was one of them.  It sits right on Interstate 80 and has all of the types of businesses that are common along Americas Interstate highways but because it's Nevada there also has to be at least one Casino.

I found this little Miller Engineering sign on ebay which just seemed to be a good fit for a small casino.   This kit is designed so that it could be mounted on a wall or on a billboard frame which was included.

I found out later that there actually is such a sign on Fremont Street in Las Vegas but without the casino part because it was a topless bar.

Next I needed a building that could work for a small casino.  I have had this kit sitting around since the 2000 National Train Show when Bachmann was giving building kits away and decided to use it.

After a bit of work this is what I came up with.  This is most of the lower level of the Bachmann building.  Some windows are covered with posters.  Could not get the etched metal frame for the sign to fit right on the roof so made my own from Styrene strip.  Still need to develop the site for the building.

Re-working the Melarkey Street overpass.

The Melarkey Street / US 95 overpass in Winnemucca is intended to be the western exit from the layout for the Western Pacific line.  From here the line enters the helix down to the staging yard.  This is a common arrangement on model railroad layouts and in this case it resembles the prototype location.    I have used this same setup just a few feet away with the Southern Pacific line exiting under the Interstate 80 overpass.   I have never been entirely happy with the the way the WP track left the layout under the US 95 overpass in Winnemucca.   I suspect this has kept me from really finishing the Winneumcca area.

Here is a view of the US 95 overpass right after I built it back in July of 2017.  It seemed fine then but I had not yet built the sky board.  After the sky board was in place I was not as happy with this arrangement.

Here is what the area looked like after the sky board was installed.  I did not like the fact that the inside of the helix could be so easily seen and the gap between the bridge and the sky board.

So I reshaped the hillside just a bit to align the bridge to be parallel with the sky board and painted the area of the sky board that would be under the bridge flat black.

This view is from the other side of the sky board inside the helix.  Using a scrap of PVC drain pipe I made this tunnel liner.   I painted the inside of the tunnel liner and the bench around it a flat black color.

The track in the foreground is the SP track which enters the helix at the Interstate 80 overpass.

I replaced the bridge columns on the outside with a solid bridge abutment and have started to build a new bridge.

This photo shows how it looks now.  I am patching up the scenery and need to finish the bridge but already like this better.

Blending the scenery with the backdrop

This summer has been quite busy for me catching up on some projects around the house but when I have gotten out to the train room I've been going through and adding some scenery.  About 10 feet of the layout already had basic scenery done so it is mostly adding hundreds of small bits of Woodland Scenics clump foliage to give the layout a similar look to what is in the backdrop.

It is always a challenge to disguise the sharp horizontal line between the layout and the backdrop.  Buildings and fences are great in city areas but this layout is mostly open country with no large trees.  This line is quite noticeable in this photo.

Using the backdrop as a guide, I am placing bits of Woodland Scenics light green clump foliage along the edge in front of where brush in on the backdrop to help break up this line into shorter sections.

Here is another area near Winnemucca where the hills on the backdrop are closer and I used the same technique to help blend the hill on the layout to the hill on the backdrop.

Creating railroad service roads

The railroads maintain signals and other track side infrastructure with trucks and those trucks often use crude dirt roads.

I show this reference photo again, this time drawing attention to the dirt service roads.  I had always planned to include this in the layout and seeing this photo I thought my modeled scene of this area would be a good place to start.

Remember that as a first layer of base scenery I had used sanded grout then added layers of Arizona Rock & Mineral, and Woodland Scenics scenery materials.  Using a scrap of styrene about 1/2 inch wide, I scraped off these upper layers to expose the finer and lighter bottom layers

Then I sprinkled a thin line of the sanded grout and spread it along the path of the road with a brush but a finger also works.   The area was then given a coating of scenic cement or mat medium.

Besides using the contrast in texture to define the roads, adding some scrub brush in the areas where the road isn't also adds to the suggestion of a beaten path.  I have been using a combination of Woodland Scenics foliage clusters and Scenic Express prairie grass tufts.

There will be those places where ruts have formed when the ground was wet and remain long after the rain is gone and the soil hardened.   I wanted to represent some of that in a few locations.

Where I wanted to create ruts in my service roads I had applied a thicker than normal layer of basic landscape material (sanded grout).  After that dried I dragged a scrap of Kato Unitrack over the path of the road as shown here.

The roads done so far cross the tracks in 2 places.  I used angled wood grade crossings from Blair Line at these locations and added some RR crossing signs left over from the old layout and used those. My experience has been that these are the most vulnerable details so I had better make up some more for spares.

The Melarkey Street Overpass

The Western Pacific track will exit the west end of the layout at the US 95 / Melarkey Street overpass in Winneumcca and then enter the helix.  This overpass is a two lane road.

On the prototype this bridge is about half a mile away from the I-80 overpass that the Southern Pacific track passes under but with the compression necessary in the model world it is only about 700 scale feet away.  Also I am representing the line as a single track where as in the real location it has become 2 tracks plus a siding.

 

The overpass was made from leftover parts from a Rix Products kit.  I have used and re-used several of these kits on other layouts.  The clever design of these kits make them easy to modify to fit almost any situation.  While primarily an HO manufacturer, Rix Products does make several other N scale injection molded kits.

To see more of their N Scale kit products visit the Rix Products Inc. website.

This company also makes modern concrete barriers as a separate set and I have ordered some of those for the Interstate highway.

Here is the small bridge assembly I put together to represent the Melarkey street overpass.  I used extra roadway sections to extend the road onto the top of the hill.

One pier was assembled and it's height adjusted to match the retaining wall on the hill.

Here is the bridge temporarily set in place.  The short lengths of round column seen the the prior photo fit into holes drilled in the bench work.

There is still much left to be done on this scene, the biggest part being the creation of a back drop.

Striping for the Interstate highway

Many of our model roads end up being narrow lanes without any striping.  In this project I have a relatively modern divided 4 lane highway and overhead photos show the types of striping so that is what I am trying to re-produce.

I have been using an HO scale product from Builders in Scale with good results on my Japanese prototype modules so I decided to use them on this project as well.

These are 4-1/2 inches wide in HO scale which would be about 8 inches wide in N scale.

Here is a view of the highway overpass as it is now.  Besides painting the highway section and applying the stripes, I have painted and weathered the retaining wall.  Still need to add some guard rails.

I have also started to add ballast to the tracks in this area starting with the black cinder layer.  In the photo I had just applied the glue solution and it is still wet.

Modeling an Interstate highway

As mentioned in the very first post on this blog, I had first gotten the idea for this layout while driving along Interstate highway 80 parallel to the rail lines.  In fact 80 closely follows the path of Southern Pacific line much of the way across Nevada and crosses over the tracks a few times along the way so I plan to represent the highway at some of those locations.

The first such area to be modeled will be at the west end of the layout where the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific lines diverge just west of the junction at Wesso.  This will a convenient way to have the tracks exit the layout.

Here is an overhead view from Bing maps of the area I am speaking of.  The orientation is about the same as it would be on the layout.  That is the SP tracks that are going under the freeway.  To simplify the scene I am going to leave out the 2nd street off ramp overpass.

The dirt roads are no doubt used by the railroad for access of MOW trucks.

I started with laminating 2 layers of 1/4 inch hard board together, one layer for the roads with a gap in the middle and the other to hold them together. Plastic strip was added along the edges where the bridge will be.

Then I built up the hillside / embankments that support the the highway assembly along the front edge.

As seen in this photo I have started to add base scenery to the area.  The .010 sheet of plastic protects the back drop.

A wood support was installed to support the highway on the rear side.  With built up edges on both supports the highway assembly will snugly fit into place but can be removed to access the track.

Here is an over all view of the area as it is now.  Still lots to do on the highway assembly, retaining walls, etc.

The base scenery on the hillside is still a bit damp but as it dries will blend in nicely with the existing scenery.  It's drying fast as it is really hot today.

The white hills of Winnemucca

After taking some time off from working on the home layout to work on my Japanese prototype modules and take part in a 1 week long layout exhibition I am now back to working on some scenery in the Winnemucca area.

Winnemucca is the western end of the scenery on this layout.  On the prototype both the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific rail lines pass under bridges so I am using this feature to exit the tracks from the layout.   First step was to build up some low hills from building foam and some wadded packing paper then drape on the plaster cloth.

In the photo above the SP line is on the left and will pass under the Interstate 80 overpass.  The WP line curves off to the right and will pass under the Melarkey Street / US 95 overpass.  In reality these two spots are almost a mile apart and a couple miles from Wesso but as we often do on our layouts I am compressing the scene into a smaller space.

First trains reach Wesso from the staging yard

With all the track connected from the staging yards through the helix and the Wesso sections of the layout, it was time to run some test trains trains.  There is a limited amount of track east of Wesso junction but short trains can be run through the cross overs and return on a different line than they went up on.

A pair of UP GP40's will start from the upper staging yard and a pair of SP SD35's will start from the lower staging yard.  Each pair of locos has an Aztec track cleaning car in between them.

The SP train goes out first.

After climbing the helix the SP train arrives at Wesso and takes the cross overs from the SP line to the east bound paired track.

The UP train leaves next, starting it's climb up the helix.  Because the upper level staging yard is one helix turn higher than the lower yard, this line has a one turn shorter run in the helix.

The UP train leaves the helix, passes through the  small Winnemucca section which does not have scenery yet and approaches Wesso junction.

The UP train takes the cross over from the WP / UP line to the west bound paired track.

After passing through the cross overs, both trains arrive at the end of line both in terms of track and scenery just past the dry creek area.  The UP train on the west bound track and the SP train on the east bound track.

After all of the points of the cross overs have been aligned, both trains begin moving west bound to return to the staging level.  This time the UP train is entering the SP track to the lower level and the SP train is on the WP / UP track to the upper level.

On the trip down to the staging yard the UP train has the smaller radius and moves ahead of the SP train.  The SP train however will leave the helix one turn before the UP train so they both end up in the staging yard at about the same time.

Here we are back at staging with the trains in opposite yards from where they started.

For the first time there is a connection between the two staging yards although it still requires a reverse move in one direction.

Connecting M/E code 55 to Atlas code 80 track

The Wesso section has been bolted into place and the cork road bed installed on both line connecting the road bed between the helix and the Wesso section and it was time to make the track connections. The Atlas code 80 track from the helix would need to be connected to the Micro Engineering code 55 on the visible parts of the layout.  There would also need to be a gap in the rails at the point were the helix and main line DCC power districts meet.

This was the first time I had connected Atlas code 80 track to Micro Engineering code 55 track.  I started by making a plate from PC board material as I had done for track gaps in the staging yard, but this time I added a pair of .020 thick brass strips on one end.

The brass strips brought the code 55 rail up to the height of the code 80 rail.  Then it was just a matter of aligning and soldering in place on the plate.

It is not pretty but it works.  These will be out of view behind the sky board near the helix.

The isolation gaps between DCC power districts on both lines will be in the visible areas of the layout on the code 55 track.   For that I am using a product called Gapmaster from the American Tie and Timber Company.  These are 4 tie sections made from PC board material with a gap in the middle of each tie.

In the case of the WP line shown in this photo, I had two sections of M/E code 55 track where I used the Gapmaster instead of rail joiners. Then just a couple of passes with my razor saw to remove the PC board plating and complete the gap.

On the SP line I removed 4 ties and replaced them with the Gapmaster, then sawed through the rails.

I had already used the Gapmaster with very good results on the double crossovers at Wesso.

This photo shows one of those after the track was painted and ballast was applied.  After the ties are painted they blend in with the rest of the ties.