Building a swamp & a Roundhouse - Lights!


KB02

Well-Known Member
Really haven't been overly active on the boards lately, but I have been doing some work. I have decided that a "Temporary" structure on my layout is no longer going to be temporary and I figured I needed to dress it up a little bit.
Starting point:

I built this turn around area as a temporary structure as the long term plan has this being just a regular corner in the basement. The plan is to leave enough room for the dart board and work bench pool table. Well, after having the turning area built for a while, I cam to the conclusion that there was plenty of room for all three and no real need to take it down right away. Then I got the idea to scratch build a turn table, which I did and you can see. I then built a round house our of a simply balsa skeleton and cardboard walls and roof (covered with regular paper printed to look like brick walls and a roof. And that's pretty much where it has been for the better part of two years.
Fast forward a bit, and I built the next extension to my layout and a nifty little corner piece that was all decorated and pretty. This left me a problem of a "finished" section right new to a bare section.
Rather that re-design and rebuild, I figured I could just make do with what I have (that's the great thing about building a fictional RR). The big hole between the boards will become a swamp/pond. That big square board that sicks out for no reason shall be the parking lot for the round house workers.
Step one was to build the swap floor. I took some old screening that I had and stapled it to the underside of the boards. Then I took a few layers of drywall compound to the screening to seal and stiffen it. On top of that was some brown latex paint. I hit some other areas with the paint, too. I took some foam and cut out a few corner fillers and whatnot.
Then I needed a way to blend in the parking lot. What do crews do if they need to fill in a wet area? Fill it with stone! I literally took a small gardening shovel and a buck to the cemetery across the street from my house and scooped up some of the road gravel and used that. With the same technique used for ballasting, I built up the sides where the crews would have had to fill with rock.
And this is where I am so far:



Next step is some clean up of the rocks at the bottom edge and painting of the pond bottom. The pond is pretty multi-leveled, so that will be interesting. Then epoxy for the water. This may be a slow project, but I'll get it there.
 
Painted the bottom of the swamp in anticipation of adding water and then sanded over the parking lot and part of the road leading in.


Then some ballast work and little greenery for a small touch.


Then 3015 had to wait for the westbound freight to pass before heading out with some empty hoppers.
 
Little bit of work done on the swamp tonight.
Got some of the ends blended in with a bit of adobe:



Also planted some saplings. Those will most like grow into nice big pine trees eventually.
Then I laid some sod to help blend in the front section a little bit.


That's when I remembered the old advise of working on the back section first so you're not leaning over work you've already done.
Oops.
That's alright, though. I wasn't going to get it all done in one night anyway. ;)
 
I built a little woodland piece to sit in the back corner. In theory I could take it right off as it is just sitting there. But I used enough glue for the ground cover, that it won't surprise me if it stays put fairly well.


Then I got it blended in:


And, since everything looks better with a train...


Slowly but surely, the corner is coming together.

(Ignore the trees on stilts. Just not ready to glue them in just yet.)
 
Got some painting done on the floors of the ponds and ready to add the water:


Then I started adding in the two part epoxy. There will be several layers. The upper pond, being smaller, was easier to fill and is basically full with just two layers of epoxy. I brought some of the paint I used on the floor of the pond up onto the rocks around the edge and the effect came out great (the picture not so much, but...):


With the second layer still liquid, I took a little trick I found online and added in some algae around the edge of the upper pond:


The effect is really slick (in my opinion) and I was trying to get a better picture when Patience and I had another little spat. You see, Patience likes to say things, "You really should stop, wait, and let that dry before you do anything else." And then I tend to do things like stick my fingers in my ears and chant, "I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU! I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU!" Anyway, in my quest to get a better camera angle, I ended up dropping my phone into the epoxy. :mad:
A.) This is why I can't have nice things you should always put your cell phone in a good case that protects the screen.
B.) This is why you should always read the instructions so you know how to properly clean different materials up.
C.) This is where an active imagination can come in handy by doing things like creating a new story to explain mishap. :rolleyes:;)
When all is said and done, the case protected the phone and the rubbing alcohol cleaned up the case. And for the pond, the worst of it was the algae streaking a bit further into the pond than I had planned. We'll just have to blame a rouge otter for swimming through the green and trailing it across the water. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
 
Looks GREAT! I wonder, however, if you shouldn't have some kind of small tanker truck parked next to it with a guy in uniform (service station attendant's would do), holding a "wand" while he sprays oil on the swamp to keep the skeeter breeding under control! ;)
 
Nice job on the project. Looks really nice. Maybe it will jump start me to get the pond done on my layout.
 
Got the water finally filled into the full swap:


This little corner came out really well:


Then I got some more ballasting and ground cover done on the approach side:

You can see the aforementioned otter trail in the upper left corner of the pond.

Now I've got to turn my attention to the roundhouse and getting the track lead to it, and tracks into it, set up to look good. I'm not fully decided on the current plan for the round house. I basically just built it up out of simple cardboard and covered it with regular paper that I printed bricks on. I may build a proper building out of balsa and styrene. My eventual "End Plan" is to turn it into a derelict, abandoned facility. I saw that done on a layout once and it looked great. But, for now, it will have to stay as a working facility until the railroad expands further around the room.
 
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Got a little more work done around the round house. Buried the tracks a bit and laid a side track beside the building. This is where my broken down switcher will live. (I have tried many things to make this a good, usable, functioning engine, but when you start with crap... Anyway, it will still have a prominent location on the layout.) The glue is still wet in the pic so things are a bit darker then they will be. But I think it looks pretty good.
 
Making small amounts of progress, but its getting there.

At the end of this stretch I ran out of ballast. Gotta find some time to get to the hobby shop or order online.

Then the old, dead, switcher got parked beside the round house in front of some unused wheelsets (had to do something with all those old plastic wheels I'm no longer using).


Eventually, I plan to get a model of the prime mover and will place it in the chassis and cut the side doors off so you can see it. I have tried so many things to make this cheap little engine a good runner. It's a lost cause. But at least it can be on display, right?
 
Before I could go much further, I figured I needed to address the roundhouse next to the swamp. When I firth built this side of the layout, I just made a quick, cheap building out of cardboard and paper that I printed bricks and roofing material on:



I started another post in the structures & buildings board about derelict buildings with the thought that the Whistlestop may abandon this building as the expansion continues, but now I'm not so sure. I also thought about a whole new thread just for this building, but since it is the same corner as the swamp, I figured I could just tag it onto here instead.

Got some basic wall frames built using a jig so that they would end up being fairly close in dimensions. The first stall will be longer to accomodate the 4-6-4 Hudson:


Then I started laying in the floor:

I'll address the plywood you can see under the rails later. Kind of an afterthought that I will need to do something about that. Oh well.
Then there was a dispute with the contractor doing the floor (in other words, I ran out of the right sized balsa wood to finish the whole floor). We might be able to get him back so the floor will all look uniform, or there is also another contractor who bid on the job that could pick it up and finish it off. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, in the meantime, I got the rest of the basic framing built and put together:

Now I just have to do some bracing and then I can think about walls. I have been debating on whether I want to just buy some brick sheets or try modeling them myself. The second option would be Looooooooooooooooooooong and tedious, but certainly is possible and possibly cheaper. Option A would save me so much time, though... Either way the windows will be the killer. That's my weak spot in modeling.
 
That’s some nice framing on the roundhouse! Are you still planning on making it a derelict building?
 



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