Building the RK&M: The Farm House Area

[tompm]

Another area of the layout I am working on is known as the Farm House. It was originally going to be a diorama but has since been added to the layout.

I completed the part of the road a while back and now I have begun working on the extension of the roadway.

I started off with coloring the road. I painted it with Folk Art Dark Gray. I then drybrushed it with Folk Art Charcoal Gray, Light Gray, and then again Charcoal Gray.

 

[tompm]

I now have added some dirt shoulders with Woodland Scenics Fine Turf – Earth. The barn is shown in its eventual spot.

 

[PNKFLOYD]

Tom- Your seam in the road would be more logical if you were to put culverts on both sides of the road.
The back side would be just a hole to collect water from the barnyard and have a drain pipe sticking out of the near side to direct the water into your ditch.
Just my 2 cents worth, but a great start on your scene.
Mikey.

 

[tompm]

I finished adding the medium green fine turf a couple of weeks ago. I finally got some photos of it.

Here we are with the farm buildings temporarily in place. I still need to do driveways.

 

[chrismoore93]

Excellent work Tom great job!
Chris

 

[RexHea]

Nice going Tom! Your doing a great job on the landscaping. If it weren't for feeding the chickens, milking the cows, slopping the hogs and etc. (i.e. work!), I would move in.

 

[OldGettysk]

Looks pretty darn good Tom !!!

 

[tompm]

Thanks folks!

I added some WS turf – Earth before we went on vacation to lay the base areas for driveways and areas around the barns.

 

[tompm]

Here are some shots with the buildings temporarily in place.

 

[OldGettysk]

Nice work Tom it's coming along !

 

[tompm]

Thanks Paul!

Here are a couple of progress shots of the foliage along the ridge behind the Farm House area.

I used WS Clump Foliage, Fine Leaf Foliage, and foliage to make the scene.

 

[tompm]

I finished putting in the foliage.

 

[OldGettysk]

Like your foilage job there Tom !

 

[tompm]

Thanks!

Here are the buildings attached:

 

[tompm]

Here is the small barn after I spackled around the base.

Here it is after I finished painting, and adding the turf.

 

[grove den]

colors...

Hi Tom,

Love the pictures and the scenery you make/model!! just great!
btw What inspires you to make the scenery( shrubs/trees/grass and other vegetation) like that. I mean the diversity of textures and "colors" I am curious... is it the beginning off fall/indian summer?? or is it your translation of what you like atmost of making "vegetation"on a layout..( or is it just the photo lights that make the pictures look so "warm"and i don't mean that in a negetive way...I like that a lot

Jos

 

[OldGettysk]

Tom as always your farm looks ready for milking some cows !!

 

[UP2CSX]

Great looking work, Tom, but I'll echo Mickey's suggestion about the culvert. You have a natural area of drainiage right in front of that barn and your road is going to wash out in a heavy rain. You can just remove a little more material from the barn side of the road, use two short lenths of brass or plastic tube to simulate the culvert, and continue the drainage ditch down the side of the road. This is a freqently overlooked area of model road construction but one that causes problems for real road builders.

 

[tompm]

Thanks guys!

Jim
I have been thinking about the culvert idea for a while. I will probably do something when I start working on extending the ditch to the left. I still have a lot of detailing and such to do to the ditch and road.

I also need to build a field crossing over the ditch and the tracks to access the plowed fields that will be on the other side of the tracks (closest to the edge). Farm field crossings were common around eastern Pennsylvania and there are still some today.

Jos
One great thing about being a highway designer is you get a lot of opportunity to walk along many roads and see how they look and what is happening to them. Also doing this job for the last twenty plus years I have driven and in many cases walked over most of the roads in southeastern Pennsylvania. I have also done quite a bit of traveling to different parts of the state. I guess this what has influenced the way I do my vegetation. After I got back into modeling and starting looking at the vegetation along the roadside the first thing that amazed me was how many shades of green, brown, and grey there are. Before this I thought everything was just green. I tend to like the early fall before the leaves have started to change or the early spring when things are first opening up. These times seem to have the most colors. I don’t like summer because everything is dry and muted around these parts.