Scenery Dilemma (What Would Koester Do?)


I model the highly unpopular post-C&O/pre-Chessie era, for which very few scale vehicles are available.

Ken: Alternative would be to go lightly with the traffic, a single tractor trailer one way and a car or two in the opposite. Interstates weren't always gridlocked 24-7. 1964 - 1974 ain't the 50s but there are some reasonable vehicles of that era around. The focus becomes the whole scene, as opposed to a single point. One won't notice the train, until it's very visible.
 
You could stage a wreck on the overpass which would divert attentsion and provide for stopped traffic!
 
Sherrell, I think a road construction lane closure would be a bit more benign...I try to avoid having "tragedy" scenes. Plus I have an Athearn Mack B-series cement mixer as a prop.
 
Sherrell, I think a road construction lane closure would be a bit more benign...I try to avoid having "tragedy" scenes. Plus I have an Athearn Mack B-series cement mixer as a prop.

LOL - Yeah, but with an accident you stop both directions of traffic ... at least out here with all the lookie loos - just sayin. You could have the cement truck overturned? LOL
 
I've been agonising over how to camouflage that hole thru the backdrop. To address this, one thing I've decided to do is shift the overpass toward the right so it covers the entire hole. This solves the problem of having it hidden when you are standing up beside the layout:

OverpassMockUpRepositionedTopDownView.jpg


Trackside "railfan" viewing is a different story. Because of the curvature of the track, I can't really put in a large pier that would block the view of the hole. But I made an interesting discovery as I was reviewing the trackside-level test photo. Since I was in bit of a hurry, I skipped setting up and shining the floodlight - and the area behind the backdrop now appears almost the same color as the backdrop itself:

OverpassMockUpRepositionedTracksideView.jpg


What this tells me is that if I use the right arrangement of lighting, I don't need to worry about hiding the hole itself - only its edges. I can use a wider overpass that will extend a few inches out toward the left, then position a set of twin piers right against the backdrop underneath - one on either side of the right-of-way - that should take care of hiding the vertical edges of the hole. The overpass itself will cover the top horizontal edge. And in the area behind the backdrop, I'll throw down some foliage that resembles trees. That way, any discrepancy between the blue of the sky behind versus in front of the backdrop will be hidden.

SouthernmostSceneWithOverpassRepositioned.gif


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No turning back now...

Well, I've just bought the last four Rix Products 150ft Modern Highway Overpass kits from MBKlein, plus a set of their Modern Highway Dividers (a.k.a. Jersey walls) to split the lanes. This will save me the trouble of trying to scratchbuild the entire structure - only the piers, since the ones in the kit won't work for my intended purpose.

I calculated the footprint and determined that the 4 kits would provide me with just enough road sections to model a six-lane freeway (2 travel lanes each direction plus a shoulder):

OverpassPlanningTemplate.gif


...now it's just a matter of waiting for the kits to arrive!:rolleyes:
 
Here's some stuff I did yesterday evening, but didn't have time to write up because it got too late.

First order of business was to gather all the road sections, lay them upside-down against each other, and temporarily tape them together in the general shape which I plan to use them. Since the overpass will be going in at an angle, I need to cut it diagonally across the bottom end, so I penciled-in the cut line and assigned numbers to each piece that I would be using:

OverpassRoadPiecesNumberedAndMarkedForCut.jpg


I drew the cut line first on the top and then on the underside surface to help in identifying and numbering the pieces. A heavy-duty pair of scissors was all I need to cut the individual sections. Here they are ready for assembly:

OverpassRoadPiecesReadyForAssembly.jpg


Connecting the road sheets end-to-end was easy because of the interlocking "lips" cast into the ends; the side junctions, however, needed to be reinforced with some .005"-thick sheet styrene:

OverpassRoadPiecesHeldBy005Styrene.jpg


(I wasn't concerned about cutting perfect straight lines since these styrene pieces are going to be hidden...) I had to do this on a piece of 'junk' masonite since the Plastruct PlasticWled I was using might soak through.

...and here is the assembled road surface, ready for the next phase of construction: attaching the I-beams.
OverpassRoadSurfaceAssembled.jpg


With all the wet weather being predicted for this holiday weekend, I should be able to make pretty good progress with this structure!
 
Got the girders and guardrails installed today. Here is the top structure prior to painting:

OverpassTopStructureFinished.jpg


That was the easy part. Now I have to use my imagination to come up with piers that can properly camouflage the hole in the backdrop, since the ones in the kit are too open...
 
Here's a pier made with styrene over plywood.
I have bigger ones boxed up somewhere.
BTW, there's just one pickup truck in the background.

IMG_2164.jpg
 
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Made some significant headway on the overpass project this weekend.

On Saturday evening, I was assuming I was done with everything except the piers...wrong! I still needed to assemble the cross supports (top sections of the piers that come with the kit). They not only had to be assembled, I also had to shorten a few of them so that when they were strung together, they would extend the correct distance across. This was a few hours' effort.

OverpassWithCrossSupportsInstalled.jpg


At this point however, I didn't permanently attach them; I still needed to determine exactly where the middle ones had to be positioned. This was dependent on where I could place the piers in such a way that trains - specifically, 89ft loaded auto rack cars - would clear them. I cut a few pieces of pressure-treated 1x4 to the desired height and width, and placed them:

OverpassPiersTestPlacement.jpg


Once I had them optimally positioned, I was able to mark off the exact places where to glue-on the cross supports. As soon as the cement was dry, I did a test fitting; this is the view an operator would see from a standing-up position:

OverpassTestPlacementOperatorView.jpg


Obviously the backdrop needs a few more tree silhouettes painted on, as well as some actual 1:87 trees placed directly in front to obscure the spot where the road meets the backdrop.

Here is how it would potentially look for "trackside" photos:

OverpassTestPlacementTracksideView.jpg


Again, some trees and shrubbery placed in the corner behind it, plus some more in the foreground toward the right, should effectively hide the unnatural-looking shadows cast on the backdrop "sky".
 
Rick - I missed your reply because you posted it while I was composing mine, sorry I didn't comment sooner. Great looking piers! Is the whole overpass scratchbuilt? The guardrails don't look like any of the pics I've seen in the Walthers catalog...

I'd like to do some 'Y' shaped piers like you have, but that won't work in my situation because they won't completely hide the hole in the backdrop.

Sherrell - you're seeing the plywood molds that the concrete gets poured into :rolleyes:
 



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