Good Day, All.
On my Pittsburgh, Lynchburg, and Maritime South Portsmouth Industrial Yard layout, I wanted to have a destination for coal hoppers. Given the space I have to work with, a massive unloader/coal pier combination (like the one at Lambert's Point, for example) was clearly out of the question. I instead decided to install a simple barge loading facility instead.
I used a coal trestle from a walthers coal dealer kit to make the unloading track. A conveyer (yet to be built) will move the coal from below the trestle to the barge. In order to get to the trestle, however, I needed a hill. I used a 4% grade (from Woodland Scenics) to reach the trestle. Operationally, so far so good.
However, visually, it left much to be desired. So I decided to build a hill around the foam. I used crumpled up paper covered in masking tape to define the slope.
I then covered the masking tape with strips of paper towel soaked in a thin plaster bath.
Lastly, I painted it my standard earth brown color.
Next, I will have to put some ground cover on it, ballast the track, build the coal bunkers, etc.. but at least it lookes better than it did.
Don't throw away those small pieces of plaster that you have left over. you can put them in a nylon sock and smack them a few times with a hammer creating bric-brac. The plaster bric-brac pieces can be stained with 50% earth tone paint and 50% water in an old plastic container. White glue them to the sides of the hill for loose rock work here and there once the paint dries. It will enhance your hill when you add the ground foam.
Also, next time you paint a hill, dilute the paint with water. (50% latex or acrylic paint to 50% water)That way, you have a more suttle hue of the earth color than painting the hill with full strength paint. I like to blend colors on the hill. I'll choose red iron oxide, burnt sienna, and raw sienna and do the hill in layers. Of course these colors I choose for my layout is of a western railroad. Eastern railroads can use colors such as shades of grays, tans, and ochres. I like to paint the hill white and then with a misting bottle, lightly spray the hill with 30% black india ink/ 70% alcohol to bring out the cracks and crevices in the hill. Then I'll Stain 1/3 of the top of the hill with the lightest color, then the second 1/3 of the hill with a medium color, and the bottom 1/3 of the hill with the darkest color. you will see the diffenence using thinned paints rather than paint at full strenght.....chuck
As good ol' Coop used to say there cwclark: "Yup."
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
PL&M, I would seriously consider making some adjustments to your trestle approach trackage before going any further with your scenicking. In your photos the 6"-10" of track just before the trestle has both a sharp dip (grade transition) and an abrupt crowning to it. I'm really surprised that you can get your coal hoppers over the latter without incurring excessive derailing. If this spot hasn't given you trouble yet, be assured it will at some point in the future! Were it my layout, I'd definitely do some serious shimming up of the trackage either side of the dip. Likewise, doing so would also obviously help to some degree in reducing the sharp crowning in the tracks just beyond.
CNJ831
I noticed that PL&M RR's posted photos indicate a steam era/transition era layout hence I make a supposition that he is most likely operating 50 ton (short) hoppers; with that in mind his extreme crown and dip might not be too drastic. Your point there, CNJ831, is well taken, however, and reducing his grade to, say, 3% might require a lengthening of his siding by 6 or 7 inches but will probably preclude derailment problems at a future date. I'm sure you have encountered this as I have: cars from different manufacturers can have almost identical appearance while at the same time can be subject to critical dynamic differences.
R.T. is correct... the hoppers are in fact 55-ton two bays and the timeframe is the late steam/diesel transition period (1958). The track will be shimmed a bit during ballasting, however it has not proved to be a problem so far. Only two to three cars cuts will be placed on the trestle at a time, at low speed, using a spacer to keep the pony well off the trestle. A lower grade would be desirable, but space considerations led me to choose the 4%.
The base brown color is exactly that, a base. It is my intent to add shading to the hill with washes in a similar fashion to cwclark's suggestion just prior to adding the first layer of ground cover, which will be a mixture of ground foam and finley sifted real dirt.
Thank you for all the comments and suggestions! (They are after all, why I started this thread- which is incidentally, the first one of my own).
R. T. POTEET I noticed that PL&M RR's posted photos indicate a steam era/transition era layout hence I make a supposition that he is most likely operating 50 ton (short) hoppers; with that in mind his extreme crown and dip might not be too drastic. Your point there, CNJ831, is well taken, however, and reducing his grade to, say, 3% might require a lengthening of his siding by 6 or 7 inches but will probably preclude derailment problems at a future date. I'm sure you have encountered this as I have: cars from different manufacturers can have almost identical appearance while at the same time can be subject to critical dynamic differences.
Quite honestly and regardless of speed limitations and whether employing 2-bay, 3-bay, or 4-bay hoppers here, I think that you would agree that one should never, EVER, make a track splice at the point of a sharp/abrupt grade change...and yet in the photos we see two within just inches of each other!
Such an arrangement is simply an invitation to operational failure, whether now or somewhere down the road. It would be a far more sensible approach to have a full section of flex track bridge this whole area and tailor the grade beneath to the arc the track itself formed, while making any splices needed somewhere further down along the approach ramp, say near its midpoint and/or well along on the level portion of the trestle.
Far better to appropriately fix such potentially troublesome trackwork now, before scenicking the area, then to wait and end up having to rip it all out and replace everything later on.
CNJ831 PL&M, I would seriously consider making some adjustments to your trestle approach trackage before going any further with your scenicking. In your photos the 6"-10" of track just before the trestle has both a sharp dip (grade transition) and an abrupt crowning to it. I'm really surprised that you can get your coal hoppers over the latter without incurring excessive derailing. If this spot hasn't given you trouble yet, be assured it will at some point in the future! Were it my layout, I'd definitely do some serious shimming up of the trackage either side of the dip. Likewise, doing so would also obviously help to some degree in reducing the sharp crowning in the tracks just beyond. CNJ831
I'm afraid I have to agree with CNJ. What type of equipment will be used under the trestle? Have you given a thought to shortening the trestle bents? This will lower the trestle, thereby lessening that transition angle at the top.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR