Modern NJ Layout: Roads, real roads

So much for the "next week" post. Buying a house has tied up nearly all my free time lately. And posting fell by the wayside. 

Since I'd never made real roads before on a layout, I wanted to start with a kit, even if it's a more expensive option. Woodland Scenics Smooth-It is very easy to use, especially once you practice a bit. For the next round of road construction, I plan to purchase all the separate supplies, like the road tape, plaster, etc. to save money. 

Before tackling the roads, I built up the terrain around the factory. This area will eventually have scenery added to make it look like the industrial sites in The Meadowlands. And before you ask why I have sharp rises in what should be a swamp, I can assure you there are large formations sticking up from all over The Meadowlands. The trick will be adding long enough grasses to mimic the tall reeds that give the marshes their signature look.

I don't have a whole lot of commentary to go with these photos, so just scroll through and you'll get the idea of how things went. Overall, really well. 

Modern NJ layout: Curves fixed, factory built

 Once I made the switch to a modern-era layout set in New Jersey, I ran into the problem of curves being too tight for longer passenger cars like the NJ Transit coaches. After some unexpected construction and a few purchases of wider radius curved track, the issue is resolved as best as I could hope for. The only other option was to tear up most of the foam and completely rework the frame. That wasn't going to happen. So here we are. 

The track realignment was really stressful, having to add extensions to the "east" end of the layout and fill in the angle inside the squares. You can see the old curve inside the new. It's not a small correction. 

Old curve with new curve on top.

Track ripped up. 

Adding the new expansions consisted of cutting new frame pieces and some new plywood that hugged the planned curve. Took about a day to complete, using leftover foam chunks on top. The other addition here was to go with a double track mainline. I figured since I had the space now, why not allow space for a full freight or passenger train to bypass the other. Ultimately, I'd like to add separate power to the inside line and allow for independent operations within that, including the industrial area. 

After adding the new expansions and the first plaster cloth application.

I spoiled the building reveal with that photo, but it's actually the only one I took of the new section before more was added to the scenery. The double main line will be very nice and give much more depth to the layout and operations. 

Factory

Back in November, we picked up a Walthers George Roberts Printing Co. building set at the Edison train show. This spring I finally got started on it. It was surprisingly simple to construct and took about three days from start to finish. And that was only because I had to wait overnight for some of the big glue phases to dry before moving onto the next. 

Sprayed white, with dry-brushing brick. 

Since I wanted the brick to have the older look, I sprayed the base white as the mortar before using a dry-brush technique for the brick color on top. I had to be much heavier with the brick color than I thought. The concrete sections used a dark gray color. I debated whether to use a more tan/beige color, but the gray worked out just fine. I thought the red fire exit doors came out pretty cool in contrast to the rest of the building. 

Finished factory. 

Those trailers are about 40 years old, and too short compared to
modern 53-foot trailers. But they look cool. 

I've got a backlog of updates to post. Just have to write them out and get photos together. Expect another post next week that includes adding real roads and more scenery to the central and eastern portions of the layout. 

Zouaves! Collis's, to be specific...

While work on the modern era layout continues, so does work on the Civil War layout, even if that work doesn't involve having an actual layout to work on. I've thrown myself back into painting figures. There were about 15 U.S. infantry that were 90 percent completed, but I had just stopped. So I finished those and started a new batch of privates. Never enough privates. But... in my last GHQ order I had gotten a pack of Zouaves that closely resembled the uniforms of the 114th Pennsylvania, "Collis's Zouaves." Four of them made it into this round. 

It's intimidating to start these. I've done something like 100 or more standard U.S. soldiers, but nothing as specific as these Zouaves. The only sacrifice at this size is some of the piping in the jackets. But I was able to get the tombeaux portrayed on the breast. Tough to see, but you'd notice if it weren't there. 

The 114th Pennsylvania was raised as a company, "Zouaves d' Afrique" by Charles H. T. Collis in 1861 and served attached to other regiments until late 1862, when nine more companies were raised to complete a full regiment. That regiment spent most of the war in the Third Corps, but often companies were detached to serve at headquarters. 

I'm not exactly sure how I'll use them on the layout. All the Zouave figures sold by GHQ are in the "advancing" pose like the ones above, not at right-shoulder shift. So whatever they end up doing will have to be a little more active than just standing outside headquarters at shoulder arms or marching to another duty. 

After another round of figures painted, I think I'll do a morning roll call and set them all up to see everyone at once. 

Don't forget you can follow me on Reddit. 

Modern-Era shelf layout: Tunnel hill construction near complete

This is the biggest scenery build I've ever done. It's not very impressive to serious model railroaders, but for us it's a big step in learning. The foam was relatively easy to work with, and reduces the weight by a significant margin compared to the old layout that used much more plaster and heavier wood. 

Tunnel hill skeleton prepared for plaster cloth.

Two things I forgot to do: paint the foam before the plaster cloth and add more than one layer of the plaster cloth. This would have reduced the need for more paint and ground foam later. But the section came out really well. It still needs some detailing, like inside the tunnel and additional coverage touch-ups. The tunnel portals look good, though I should have raised the ground level around the tracks before installing them. Trains clear just fine, but for realism purposes, it would've looked a little better. 

Tunnel hill 95% complete.

Those are real New Jersey rocks above and around the tunnel portals, along with some real dirt along the track bed. I still need to ballast the track, which will help a ton visually. 

Civil War era Pennsylvania Rail Road passenger coaches

Told you I was going to do some painting. I finally took the Bachmann Central Pacific coaches I got in that huge lot last year, stripped them down and repainted as Pennsylvania Rail Road cars. These are your standard Bmann Old Timer coaches. I custom mixed the paint to resemble something like a Tuscan Red, as I have concluded PRR didn't use dark green back then. The roof, trim, and trucks are the Testors rubber color, which is like a very dark brown. Decals are from the MicroScale Civil War era sheets. 

Apologies for not cropping the photos first. I'll need to do some minor adjustments to the couplers, both with height and to allow for a tighter turn radius. Right now at least one truck derails each time they go through the S-turn coming out of the loop. I should be able to file the coupler pocket a little wider. These coaches look sharp in person, and I can't wait to do more painting projects like this. I really missed it. 

Civilians and Colored Troops!

After some kind suggestions from the Civil War Railroads group, I ordered some 10 mm civilian figures from Thoroughbred Models. It's been a few weeks since then, and they're finally painted. I chose a mix of the poses and characters. While I was at it, I also painted some additional soldiers. There are some of the Good Ground Minis figures, for comparison. You can see the GHQ (soldiers, general officer, and Lincoln) and Thoroughbred (civilians() figures are very close, but the Good Ground (general officer and staff officer) figures to the far right are much larger and chunkier. 

Sampling of the newest figures, including civilians!

I realized my collection of figures wasn't historically accurate for scenes behind the front lines. What was missing? Black soldiers. They were used heavily for duties like supply and labor. I took some of the artillery crews, which looked like they were lifting something heavy, and made a few new soldiers. 

The soldier climbing the boxcar comes from the siege artillery crew set. It's one of my favorite little vignettes. The soldier sitting on the water tank is from a limbered field artillery set. He was originally riding a caisson. 

The civilians aren't exactly Civil War era, more like the 1880s. Particularly the women's skirts don't have the large hoops under them. But I'm not going to get that picky. You barely notice, anyway, because they're so small and the scenes are busy enough to distract from any historical inaccuracy of the fashion. 

Seeing all these figures at the station platform, however, leads me to think the building is too big for the 10mm figures from GHQ and Thoroughbred. I don't have the math done in my head, but the doors look at least a few "inches" too high. But I'm not going to change it out now. 

This is the kind of small accomplishment that offers big satisfaction. I'm planning on making a new video tour of the layout soon (I know, I know, I've been saying that for months) and having civilians in the station area will really add depth to the scene.

New engine and the repainted Clarke, plus some buildings

It's a big deal whenever a new engine joins the roster, so this post is a big deal. There are usually about three to five Civil War era Atlas 4-4-0's on eBay at any given time, but they're almost always overpriced, at least for my wallet. So when a locomotive is available and in my range, I have to pounce. 

Newest addition to the roster:
Atlas 4-4-0 #7 of the Detroit & Lima Northern. 

That's what led to the No. 7 being purchased. It's got a great Russia iron boiler jacket, and has minimal ornamentation. The latter is perfect for when I can repaint it. I don't have any engines with mostly blue livery yet. The No. 7 should look great. I picked up some new paints recently and the color scheme was definitely incorporated in that. 

One of the B&O twins is now the USMRR Clarke.

Speaking of paint, after a horrible misstep (more on that later), I was finally able to paint and decal one of the B&O twins and make it the USMRR Clarke. I'll have to figure out a better solution for covering the number plate on the boiler, and the drivers will need some paint work. But overall I'm very happy with this one. 

This was also one of the engines I wanted to experiment with Bullfrog Snot. You saw the video of the Scout pulling 27 cars after getting the treatment. Here's a pic of the Clarke under the knife a few weeks back. It's a very easy process, but tough to truly master right away. Practice makes perfect.  

New kicks.

But before all this, there was a disaster. I had rubbed off as much of the old lettering as I could, painted the tender and old name plate under the cab window, and added new decals that very closely match the original Clarke. Then came the clear coat of spray. UGH! I was too heavy on the first coat. The decals degraded and smudged. All that work, about four hours, down the drain. Some people I talked to online said it could have been the decals. They were an old sheet, so it's possible. 

The moment I was ready to scream.

Now for the buildings. It's easy to get too heavy with the non-dwelling structures, so I tracked down some houses that fit the era. You wouldn't believe the amount of time I spent debating what color to paint this first house. Most wood houses were white because that's what was cheap. But I needed something else, so a nice yellow with dark green trim was the choice. The roof was simple black paper, weathered with some diluted white paint. It may not be completely accurate for the period, but I don't anticipate many stitch-counters visiting my layout anytime soon. The second house is a simple white farmhouse, similar to what you'll see across many battlefields. I might add a stone faux-foundation to it using a stone pattern printed on paper and wrapping it around the pylons. 

Typical house that could serve nicely in the Civil War era.

The last building is sort of a kit-bash, even though I didn't actually bash two together. Ok so it's more like just a modification of a kit. Anyway... this was my first experiment with covering a building with paper to give a non-wood exterior. This one was brick. It's the same Micro-Trains co-op kit that was painted green and you can see in the background of all these photos. I covered a few of the windows, and did not add the loading dock or subroof. I did move the loading dock bay door down to ground level, which was very easy since the original door opening is now covered by the brick paper. Looks pretty good, but I can't put it on the layout as it stands right now. It's too noticeably-similar to the green building. But it'll fit nicely when I can build the bigger shelf layout with several "towns" or whatever they'll be. 

Sort of a kit-bash. Changed up some of the doors and windows,
and added a brick exterior to the Micro-Trains co-op. 

Since I'm not building that shelf layout for at least another 18 months, I'll keep working on the current layout to hone my amateur skills. Here's an overhead shot of the area I plan to work on. The wagons and escort are where I plan to build a road, bordered by either fences or stone walls. The 32-pounders are just too great to leave off the layout. Even if they don't exactly fit what I'm portraying here--What exactly am I portraying here anyway? I have no idea!--I'll need to construct some kind of earthen fortifications straddling the road. If I put the guns emplacements a few inches more to the left in this photo, that should look a little better than them being right on the little farmstead. Plus, if I can get a "fort" scene going on, that'll open up a ton of new possibilities for scratch building, like chevaux de frise, which I've been itching to build. 

Needs... more stuff.

I'll have a new update sometime in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

The 'Scout' arrives, cannons, and warehouse

It's been a very long time since the last substantive update here, so I'll give a few with photos. The pandemic has been difficult here in North Jersey. We were one of the first hot spots in the nation. Our county saw the state's first death. I've been working remotely from the office since March, though the second job remains in-person, as it's essential. That would normally be a formula to get plenty of work done on the layout, but not so much in this reality. The boys are home from school, too, meaning all our extra time is devoted to working with them and other parental duties usually reserved for only non-school hours. Still, I've managed to get a few things done.

The 'Scout'

The Scout.

I've been waiting a long time to finally dive in and re-letter an engine. The PRR 1510 was the first candidate since I already painted over its old letters and numbers. Now it's the locomotive Scout, and I must say it looks very handsome in its new digs. I don't believe there's a prototype photo for Scout, so it's really up to the modeler with this one.

It retains pretty much everything from before, including the Rogers style smokestack and strap iron cowcatcher. I did add another coat of bright red paint to the cowcatcher to better align with the nameplate and tender letter accent color. Needs a little more detail work, but for now it's a great improvement. Next up will be one of the B&O twins.

Bring up the guns! And new warehouse.

In my effort to avoid doing difficult track work or layout redesigns, I've focused on fleshing out the scenery and miniatures. This round brought six 3-inch ordnance rifles and caissons, three barbette rifles and platforms, and three stacks of cannonballs.

I thought I took some closeups of the barbette guns, but will have to come back with those later. Right now I have no place for them on the layout, but there is a photo of those guns in Alexandria guarding the port. They're definitely for use in prepared fortifications. I don't have anything like that on the current layout. If I make any major changes to it, maybe I'll add some kind of fort. Otherwise, these guns will have to hibernate until I can build the new layout next year or the year after.

The six-gun battery of 3-inch ordnance rifles are lined up in storage at the yard. This is one of the best reasons to model in N scale: volume. In most larger scales, six cannons and caissons would be a major expense. In N scale, this entire battery cost less than $100.

At first I was going to use the Parrott Rifle barrels, but decided to use the 3-inch ordnance since they were far more common during the Civil War.

In the background, you'll see a small coal shed kit I picked up, too. With a little weathering, it's the kind of building that adds necessary detail and depth. 

Probably should've cropped this photo better, but it is what it is. The new warehouse is the Micro-Trains Grain Co-Op kit. It has all the right lines for a structure of the Civil War era. And with a sharp coat of dark green paint with white trim, it fits very nicely. It's also the first two-story building on the layout.

I liked this one so much, I bought another a few weeks later super cheap on eBay. I obviously can't paint it the same color as this one. I'm still working out what I want to do there. Also under consideration is a bit of a modification to make them look a little more different, but again, still thinking about it.

The USMRR Armored Train Set

Below you'll see a couple photos of the U.S.M.R.R. Armored Train set from Micro-Trains Civil War Era line. This arrived a while back, but after I took a break from posting. So with all the catching up, I wanted to make sure these got into this post. The set is very nice, as is nearly all of MTL's stuff.

However, I'm a little disappointed in a few things. The first is that they included a conductor car / caboose, when a standard box car would've likely been the better fit. Next, the armored cars are decently detailed, but not as much as I'd hoped. A little weathering will go a long, long way with these. Lastly, the two Dictator mortars are nothing but plastic, when I was expecting either GHQ-quality or similar. The bores don't even extend far enough into the miniature so you can't see where it ends. They look very toy-like, rather than model quality I've come to expect from MTL. But overall I have no regret purchasing the armored train set. It'll go very well in a vignette on the layout somewhere.

Tedious but rewarding: Hand painting miniatures

I won't carry on with a big intro. Here are some photos of my work painting miniatures the last few months. You'll see the platoon of marching infantry, the supply and ordinance wagons, generals and staff, a cameo by President Lincoln, and a half-done platoon of cavalry. As of this post, I have two more staff figures almost done, and have started my first artillery pack. I also realize there are a few figures in these photos that are not perfectly placed. It was tough enough to get the time to set these up for a shoot, so I kindly ask for a little slack on that. Enjoy!

The trains have taken somewhat of a backseat lately, mostly due to the wall I've hit in their progression. I'll explain more later. But over the last few months, I've focused squarely on bringing more life to the layout, and the only way to do that was get painting. Following my reviews of both GHQ and Good Ground Minis, my mind was set on which company provided the best figures for what I wanted to do on an N scale railroad layout: GHQ.

Infantry platoon

I ordered these in the first batch back in July, and were one of the first packs I started painting. There are 24 soldiers in all, including an officer, drummer, and color sergeant. The men are wearing mostly sack coats, and a 50/50 mix of blanket rolls and knapsacks. I figure this is about the size of a platoon (half a company) after early 1862. Attrition took a toll quickly following the very early battles, and most regiments fluctuated between 300 and 600 present for duty throughout the war in the east.

Cavalry platoon

When I started writing this post, the pack of 12 mounted cavalry was unfinished, but now I'm pleased to show you the final result. The officer and bugler at the head of the column, with 10 troopers behind them. I'm excited for this because of how sharp the yellow cavalry piping on the uniforms contrast against the dark blue jackets. My abilities as a miniatures painter are getting better with each set.

General staff and President Lincoln

These are actually a mix of GHQ and Good Ground figures. The riders in this scene are Good Ground U.S. mounted command set, but the officer is different than the example shown on the GG site. The horses and all standing figures are from the GHQ headquarters set. You can't really see it on the GHQ site, but the field officer in the set has his sword drawn. That didn't really work for what I was going for, so I removed the sword and bent down his arm. The wall tent was used in another part of the layout.

The addition of Lincoln to the set actually helped me decide how to use these figures. The scene you see in these pictures depicts Lincoln arriving off the train, being greeted by a Union general and some staff, with a mounted escort at the ready. I may order another one of this set, even if I don't use a second Lincoln for anything. The officers, horses, and tent are very good and very useful.

General staff in camp

Good Ground made the Slovenly Yanks set I fell in love with, and here's another scene I just had to have. It's called Richmond is a Hard Road to Travel, featuring a standing general, standing staff officer, and two field officers seated on a church bench, and a table with map on it. Hey! I have a church! How perfect is that?

I really wish GG figures were closer in size to GHQ, because this set would go unbelievably well with the GHQ headquarters set. As I had mentioned in the original miniatures/figures post on this site, the two brands are too different in size to place any figures together in a scene.

Wagons

I'm writing an entire post on wagons, so you'll have to just check back in a few days for that one.