Decided that after 6 months it was time to lift up the last Christmas layout and change things up a bit. So I started with some upgrades. Mostly() basic stuff, just adding landscaping to existing structures:
Foamcore base, Life-Like sawdust grass and loofah trees.
The flowers are loofah scraps glued to unraveled manila rope.
The diner got hedgerows to look more like the 552 and 442. I think it resembles the Flyer diner a bit too.
The firehouse picked up a flagpole along with a pair of loofah trees.
The factory also got a homemade flagpole and an urn.
But let me see....
I think there was something else....
Oh yeah!
THIS:
I've been working on this for awhile now! It's a mix of materials: foamcore, corrugated cardboard, illustration board, posterboard, textured cardstock, styrene, brass, wood and misc. The brass is confined to the 6 plates (4-BRIDGE #300 and 2 oval LIONEL LINES), the styrene was used to make the supports for the railing on the sides while the gold railing itself is a wood dowel. The lettering was done on inkjet printable decal paper. All the rest of the exterior of the bridge is paper. The other materials were used solely to build the tower cores and the base.
When you work in paper, you have to make concessions and take out artistic licensing agreements befrore you start otherwise things go wrong very fast. For example, if you look carefully you'll see the green columns in the arch section aren't straight. (The posterboard I used was a bit weak and I probably should have doubled the thickness.) To compensate for the sag, which was A LOT worse, I made triangular columns and installed them inside the arches. Similarly I couldn't leave the arched windows on the pillars open as Lionel did, so black paper went there and in the end doors.
But all in all it looks good for 10 bucks worth of materials.
Becky
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Becky,
Wow! That is amazing! That has got to be in CTT sometime!!! I know you wrote one time about how you cannot sell plans, but surely there is some way to get a how to do it article in CTT. They have all these project railroads, but this is pure craftmanship!! Wonderful, wonderful work!
Keep on training,
Mike C. from Indiana
Thanks guys!
It's hard to say what CTT and Kalmbach would have to say about the idea of a how-to article. As far as making structures out of cardstock goes, I think they'd be all for it. But when it comes to teaching someone how to duplicate something that one of their advertisers manufactures, well, that's a bit different. True, paper aint steel. But it's very grey, I'm not sure it would fly. I've never asked.
But anyways. The secret is simple. So simple it's easy to overlook.
Here's why the bridge looks like it does: Ebay.
No, I didn't buy anything I'm trying to pass off as my own. (And it wasn't a kit either! ) As an aside to all the layout building I do, I also spend an hour or two every day surfing ebay and/or the net in general to see what I can learn. I'll bet a week doesn't go by that I haven't seen something on ebay I never knew existed in the toy train realm. It's a treasure trove of information.
And that's where the bridge comes into play. Sometime in the last few years, and I really have no idea when it happened, a seller put a 300 hellgate up for sale on ebay. What was special about that particular auction as compared to all the others I've seen is that the seller took an almost perfect broadside photo of the bridge. A photo so straight and so clean I was easily able to use it as the basis of a full size template. Other auctions provided me with template worthy views of the topof the arch, the base (which I elected to simplify) and tower sections as well as most of the individual parts in various conditions and levels of assembly. Books and modern catalogs provided me with the bridge dimensions. (Which beats the @#$% out of guessing based on how big the door is on a #33 or #8! )
So I use ebay to collect photos.
That bridge is awesome. What's next?
Jim
AGAIN --->
Maestra, you've sent us all back to school again! Just stunning! Well done!
As always, great job! I know in GR they have similar articles all the time...
Stunning! Fantastic!
Started back to work on the "Big D"
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