Roughing in a Gully

New England terrain is anything but flat, and I wanted to represent that on my layout. Even in the railroad town area, where most of the land would be level, I thought a little dip and bump along the front might be nice. Also, I wanted to add a little water feature along the edge such as a gully where trash collected and weeds grew.

I started out by using my hot wire tool to cut away a portion of the foam. I didn't really know exactly what I had in mind but I was sure I didn't want it near the edge of the benchwork. Like before, I struggled to find how to optimally use the knife. 

Then, a layer of ground goop was added.

I smoothed it with a chip paintbrush and water, and then sprinkled on a layer of real, fine dirt.

Finally, some ground foam and brush were added. I need to finish more of the scenery in the back and sides before I work on this further, as the water should be added last. I also need to add the fascia boards before the water, and that is likely several months away. But it is a start.

MRC Sound... a decent option

I like sound effects for a layout... in moderation. Sound equipped locomotives are fun for about 10 minutes and then start to get on my nerves. Most people have them turned up too loud anyway. Other sound effects like car horns, crossing gates, animal noise, etc. can also be enjoyable in the right setting but are easily overdone. I think they should be just barely heard, not in our face. 

On my old HO layout, I had purchased the MRC City and Country Sound Station and the MRC Sound Station 312. Both are now about 20 years old, and both are simple sound systems with a handheld controller that features about 18 buttons including a couple of on/off slide switches, a power switch, and a volume knob. They are hardwired into a pair of speakers, and my version of the Sound Station 312 has the power supply also hardwired in (the City and Country one has the power cord on a plug that disconnects from the back of the speaker).

They are pretty basic but I enjoy them. I actually own three of each, with the first being used on my N scale layout and the second used on my HO layout. The third pair are new in box from my local train store that I bought during a going out of business sale for $5 each. Not bad.

For my O scale layout I wanted an easy way to mount the speakers underneath. They have no mounting holes or brackets and are designed to just sit on something. So, I built some L-frames out of scrap lumber. Then, the speakers were cinch-tied in place to the wood. A pair of metal L-brackets from my stash were attached to each wooden frame and then they were screwed to the underside of the layout's plywood. 

Since the speakers are physically hard-wired together, I had to move it all as a unit and that made installation a bit awkward. But it worked. I could always cut the wires and then splice in longer ones in the future, but it isn't a problem now.

I mounted the Sound Station 312 under my left section of benchwork because it features railroad and automobile sounds. That is where my road crossing with flashers will go so it seemed to make sense. The City and Country system with animal sounds is being reserved for another portion of the layout that will feature a farm.

The sound isn't as crisp as modern sound systems and the sounds are just generic noises but that's okay. It makes Harrison and me happy, which is all that really matters. 

A new flatbed truck

With the dearth of 1:48 scale vehicles appropriate for the 1970s-1980s period on the market I tend to jump at anything I can find. Previously I purchased an Atlas F-100 pickup truck and I would buy as many more as I could. But, I accidently fogged up the windows when I got careless with the Dullcote and thus it doesn't look great. I want to move it from being so prominently visible in the lumberyard to somewhere else. Hopefully, with its cab facing away from the aisle my mistake won't be noticeable.

That meant I needed another vehicle for the lumberyard. I found some 1950s era box trucks from Menards which would work but they are a little too old for my liking. Then, I stumbled on a listing for a Menards Gold Line Green Mack Truck Limited Edition in 1:48 scale. It looked good, but I wasn't sure if it fit my era (I can barely distinguish between a pickup truck and a DeLorean). I asked on the O Gauge Railroading magazine forum and was informed that it was common during my time frame, so I bought one.

When it arrived I unscrewed the chassis from the body. I had hoped to remove the cab window glazing to avoid it getting obscured from Dullcote, but it was fused in place. There was no easy way to remove it without cracking it so I did a quick mask with blue tape and then gave everything a flat finish. 

I considered repainting the cab or at least changing the graphics from Menards to something else. They don't have any stores in New England so it doesn't quite fit my layout's theme. But, for the moment I can live with it. 

Burnt umber oil paint washes were applied all over to give it a dirty appearance. The deck bed received a bunch to highlight the planking. Then, I let it dry for a week.

I painted on some tail lights with red paint, and I added license plates front and back from the Microscale set (#48-509). I used Texas plates because I had come to the realization that from 6" away you can't read them, much less from two or three feet away. To hide a large visible gap in the chassis between the rear wheels I glued in place some styrene pieces painted black.

Then, I took some of the brown latex paint that I use for my scenery and watered it down and weathered the underframe and wheels of the truck. This helps to tie it in to the rest of the layout, as the color of the dirt matches.

A load of scale 2x12 lumber, cut 12' long, finished up the truck. I didn't add any strapping to secure it, but I am thinking of adding a figure that suggests the truck is currently being loaded. The lumber is glued together but not attached to the truck, nor is the truck glued down.  That way, I can change it up in the future if I want..

Finally, it went into the lumberyard and the pickup truck was driven to another location. I am still working on sourcing an appropriate forklift and found a 3D printed kit online, but that is another project. 

Correctly sized wooden pallets

When I was working on my lumberyard scene I built up some wooden pallets using HO scale ties. They looked great, but were about 25% oversize. That didn't bother me at the time, but the more I look at them the more I realize they are too large. But cutting lots and lots of stripwood to make scale ones didn't interest me. So I turned to Ebay.

I found some that were laser cut wood which needed to be assembled, and some cast resin pallets. While both involved work, the resin ones seemed easier because I only had to paint them. I bought mine from a seller named ThatTrainPlace, and the price for 20 pallets was just over a dollar each. Not great, but having tried the easy way first (HO ties) I was willing to pay a little bit more for something nicer.

I took ten and sprayed painted them Rustoleum camouflage tan. Then, based on picture I saw online, I painted ends and boards various colors. I don't really know what pallets were painted in the 1980s... do you? In any event, I tried to do everything random and kept pulling ones I did before to add coloring or weathering washes of brown acrylic paint. In the end, I had a motley bunch that look a bit odd as a group but when spread out over the layout will look fine.

 You can see in the picture below six of the new, scale size pallets and one of the older, larger ones I built from wood.

I won't get rid of the ones I already built though. I swapped them for resin ones on the layout, and took all the rest and set them aside for now. The next time I build a boxcar with a door open I can stick some in there, where their excess size won't be noticeable on a moving train.

M.O.W. boxcar scene (part 1)

One of my favorite things in real life is discovering old, abandoned track. While I would much prefer that it be operating track, there is something exciting about uncovering the remains of long-forgotten railroad infrastructure. I suppose it is industrial archaeology in a way. For the left side of my layout, I had built in two sidings. One would be in front of the layout and home to a small industry, and one would be in the back and lead to an Agway.

Having nearly finished the righthand side of the layout, I decided to start planning the left side. First, I had to clear everything off.

Then, I caulked some of the foamboard joints to give me a nice flat surface.

I had designed this front portion of the layout to include a Maintenance of Way boxcar shed that I built a couple of years ago. It's construction was featured in the October/November 2024 issue of O Gauge Railroading magaine. I also wanted to model a portion of track that was buried in grass and weeds and clearly abandoned. Since the overall length of the siding was only a couple of feet long total, this seemed like a good place to do that. If I stuck any meaningful industry here it would only encroach on the MOW scene, as well as whatever I built in the back.

I had one leftover piece of Gargraves flextrack that was the perfect length for this siding.

After cutting it to length, I removed every fourth tie and then respaced them. I don't know how visible they will be under the greenery but it seemed like a good idea.

Another important consideration was the location of the road crossing in this area. I wanted to incorporate blinking crossing lights onto the layout and the road into the lumberyard didn't seem appropriate. But I wanted a road leading to the Agway as well as Northeast Chemical, and I had to account for it now. I had two options (assuming it didn't come from the side of the layout, or from the back): through the switches or to the left of them. To the left would mean that the siding would never amount to anything, so through the switches it was.

Enough planning... time to get to work!

Wiring connectors

The grand plan for my layout involves two 3'x6' layout sections in front (Phase 1), two end curves (Phase 2), and the back two sections (Phase 3) which will ultimately form a loop. There will be six layout joints, and wires will need to pass and connect between them. Already I have had to disconnect and separate the first two sections as I work on scenery so that I don't accidently glue them together while applying scenery. It is only a couple of wires, but it is annoying. 

I wanted to plan ahead so I purchased some trailer hitch plugs online at $11 each. They were expensive but looked like what I needed and had 12" wires soldered to each side. Unfortunately, once pushed together they were nearly impossible to separate. No matter what I did, it took a screwdriver to wedge them apart. That wouldn't work. Worse, the company only offered credits instead of refunds so I am stuck with a credit I will likely never use.

After looking around some more, I finally settled on NAOEVO 6-pin connectors that I found on Amazon. They use 16g wire in multiple colors, are easy to connect and disconnect, and were priced right at under $3 a pair. The only downside, which I realized after receiving them, was that the wires were a scant 4" long. This wasn't long enough to pass down and under the edges of my benchwork and connect, and I certainly didn't want to drill holes in the ends of the benchwork large enough to pass the wires through (I don't mind them dangling down for now). Something had to be done. 

Note: I looked online again for a better option but I could find nothing that had 12" wires attached. So, I was back to fixing what I had. This involved soldering 6" wire extensions to each of the six wires on both sides of the plug. Then, I applied heatshrink tubing (which thoughtfully came with the plugs) over each joint. After that, spade connectors were crimped on the ends. 

I found that I could do one in about 20 minutes, and once the first was finished and checked to make sure it would fit underneath my layout I took a break.

In the picture below, the NAOEVO connector is on the bottom and the original Del City connector on the bottom.

Once wired up to the underside of the layout, they didn't hang down too much.

I can live with that... at least until I find a better solution.

Chemical Dealer scene (more details)

By this point I had let the project sit for awhile. The building was painted green, but nothing else was done. This time off allowed me to figure out what I wanted the name of the company to be (documented previously), and how I wanted to lay the scene out. 

I realized that the parking lot was too small. So, I pulled out my Gatorfoam and cut another couple of pieces to expand it in the back. This was suitably painted, weathered, and finally glued down. It doesn't match the other stuff perfectly and I may try and address that in the future, but from normal viewing angles it is pretty close. 

The tank car unloading building still bothered me so I repainted it again flat white and weathered it even less. The hoses were painted black to simulate rubber and silver for the stainless steel hardware. It was originally designed as a tanker truck loading facility but I didn't have a lot of room (even with the concrete lot expansion) to model much of that. 

As for unloading the tank cars, some places just hook up pipes to the bottom of the tanks and turn a valve. That is what I wanted for my model. Simple. And I didn't know how that building would fit into the grand scheme of things.

I kept staring at the building and moving it around but it didn't work for me. The color was still wrong, and when it faced the track it had too many pipes to be a simple tank car unloading facility. So I dug around in my parts bin and found an HO scale air conditioner unit that was part of a Walther's structure roof detail kit. I painted it white and planned to glue it to the building. But then I turned the building around so that the truck unloading area actually faced the road (like it was supposed to!) and it started to make more sense. 

I removed the base I had previously glued on, as well as the ramp, and then I painted the building green to match the warehouse. I liked that better. True, it might look clean and nice for a humble tank car unloading support structure but it visually tied together better. The A/C unit was glued onto the back and some light weathering was applied to everything. 

For the actual unloading apparatus, I drove to the nearby Surplus Chemicals facility and took some pictures. Though much was behind fencing, it was easy to see through and over. I noticed that underneath the cars located off-spot (waiting to be moved into position later) there were grates and what looked like large pieces of paper or foam or cardboard underneath. Likely to catch any drips or spills.

One of the areas was a bit torn up.

For the cars in place to unload, they had more grates but none of that paper. And I saw nothing set up to unload the tank cars from above or below. Perhaps the grates underneat are lifted up and pipes and valves and such are hidden underneath? There weren't any friendly employees standing around to ask either. 

To inset my unloading station into the track, I had to remove part of the middle rail. If this were mainline track that would be a bad thing to do as all the center-rail rollers on the bottoms of engines would hit the gaps in the rail and lose electrical contact and damage the rollers. But here, no engine will be traveling to the end of the track so I was comfortable with it.

What I didn't count on was the exact spot of rail I had chosen to remove was the place where the middle rail feeder wire was. Grrrr. Thankfully, the switch leading up to it was power-routing switch that I had added jumpers to, and in fact the feeder wire I had cut wasn't necessary as power was still getting there anyway. After testing it to confirm that I was okay, I pulled the feeder out and plugged the hole underneath with caulk.

I built a simple frame from 1/8" styrene angle and painted it brown. I decided to model the facility for above-ground unloading with a pipe, so I installed a piece of white paper suitably weathered to replicate the prototype pictures I had seen. The tubing is a piece of solder painted black with brass "flanges" made from guitar string ball ends on each end. I may come back at some point and replace it with some molded piping and flanges that Plastruct sells, but for right now it looks okay to me.

If I'm being honest, I had to go back and rebuild it again as I didn't account for oversize tinplate flanges and my tank cars could get past the first chemical drip pan I built. Oops.

Every commercial structure needs garbage dumpsters, so I asked online what they looked like in the 1970s and was given some helpful information. I considered scratchbuilding them which would have been fun, but I have been pretty busy lately so I bought some 3D prints on Ebay from "StarMerchantLLC". 

Their covers looked a little too modern for the 1970s-1980s so I repainted them dark green and switched out the corrugated plastic lids for older plain flat steel panel lids that I made from styrene. I also added wheels from more guitar string ends that I painted black. Then, random bits of junk were stuck inside. Since it till be difficult to see inside I didn't waste any expensive castings. It appears naked without the name of the company on the side, but pictures from that time period showed they were usually blank.

I also had a horizontal propane tank left over from my N scale days and decided to reuse it here. It had an old decal on the side so I lightly sanded that off. Then, the entire thing was painted gloss white and a safety warning placard and a Suburban Propane company sign were printed off online and glued on. Some light weathering with powders was next, and finally I glued it on. A few crash posts made from brass tubing and yellow paint finished it off.

After extending the parking lot out it was time to surround it with greenery. I started with my trusted ground goop mixture and then finished with lots of various colors and sizes of ground foam.

A healthy dose of water and white glue was applied and everything was left to dry overnight.

Some concrete barriers from Ebay (Robson's3Dprints) looked like they would fit in the scene nicely so I purchased a couple. I painted them gray and weathered them, and now they prevent cars and/or delivery trucks from backing off the property (and through the eventual fence).

There are some details I may still add in the future like a metal screen security fence and an access road. But, the road will cross the benchwork section and lead into the next scene on the left which will be an Agway. I haven't figured that out yet and I don't want to hamstring myself by building a road in the wrong place. So that will wait. I do think a picnic table for the staff to eat in if it is nice outdoors might make a good addition, as well as a few old pallets.

It is difficult to find era appropriate 1:48 vehicles. I bought an old panel truck kit off of Ebay for a delivery truck of sorts and started to work on it, but it has problems that I didn't expect so it will wait for the future.

Without the backline of trees or brush, the back scenery joint looks very abrupt and sterile. I hope to change that. And of course, there is the static grass and weeds and fallen dead leaves that really set the fall scene. I plan to work on them soon.