I'm blushing. All it takes is a non-existent budget, and a mad desire to make good looking scenery using free stuff! (or at least really cheap stuff!)
Glad I can help. I probably spend more time writing blogs about this stuff than I do actually building anything. Hope I'm not getting rusty!
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
wm3798 Michael, Here's a little tutorial I did on adding the river scene to my layout. It should help you with colors, textures, and materials.Hope this helps.Lee
Michael,
Here's a little tutorial I did on adding the river scene to my layout. It should help you with colors, textures, and materials.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Lee, you've been a tremendous help with this project. I'm reading your tutorial right now.
As well as everybody in this thread, I really appreciate the help from the experts.
What I did with this piece was I painted the bottom a tan color, and the gravel on the shoreline is light tan. I'm thinking I should keep it consitant with the river.
Maybe Grampytrains can come do it for me, that guy is good.
I'll have to refer you back to the guys in the earlier replies who have actually done water and know what they're talking about. Right now, you actually have more experience with water than I do!
Jump in, guys. Give Michael some good info on water and bank coloring.
Chuck
Grand River & Monongah Railroad and subsidiary Monongah Railway
Thanks Chuck for measuring your HO trucks for me, I'm glad to have room under the bridge.
I got some work done on it last night, really really late. Now I just need to start work carving the river. What color should I paint the bottom of the river and river banks? I was thinking a tan/brown color?
Progress pics...
Great solution to the problem. FYI, I just measured the height of one of my HO Classic Metalworks tandem axel road trailers - just under 1-3/4". Plenty of room to get trucks under your bridge. Good work all.
WM3798 - That was a great solution for his scene! I know how much I appreciate ideas over just criticism. The back and forth with ideas always gets the situation to a great ending...
I have a similar bridge over a road on my layout plan and was kicking the idea of a stream next to it around to justify a large bridge like that... plus, water is always a good thing and I have nowhere else to fit water in...
Good work guys!! Post up pics when you rework it...
wm3798 Man... now you're going to be up all night!
Man... now you're going to be up all night!
I know, good thing I don't have to work tomorrow!!
I had just purchased some roads material. That will fit perfect under the bridge!
No problem. I try not to smack people around without helping with a little constructive advice to go with it!
I work in N scale, but I think 2" should be plenty for an HO truck. Worst case, it's at the back of the layout, and a little selective compression wouldn't hurt. You could make the road appear to get narrower as it passes under the bridge, and just don't put any vehicles back there.
You can use your cork roadbed as the base for your road, too. Put a full uncut strip down the middle, then separate the two halves and put them to the outside. < [ ][ ] > Does that make sense? This will give you your tapered shoulders. Make the road surface with some spackle, and you're good to go!
What do I think? I think that is an AMAZING IDEA!!! I really like that, and I can have the grade crossing gates over there too. Now it does look beleiveable, and it doesn't look like too much work, I think I can handle that.
I just measured the clearance on the bridge, and it's 2". I would rather not have to make the bridge higher, it will affect the grade. The trucks should fit underneath right? I don't have any vehicles right now to test with.
Also, that is a perfect area for the stream to start because I was planning a farm house scene right there.
I can't thank you enough for helping me out, I can't wait to get started on my "new project".
Thanks,
Something like this...
This configuration takes care of the bridge illusion by giving you a tributary that flows into the pond, it gives some visual separation between the low main line and the high line that crosses the bridge. It does require adding the girder plate bridge on the low line, as well as a couple of culverts for the stream.
By having the road crossing the tracks where I'm showing it, you don't really block any significant part of your sidings, and it provides a logical access to your ethanol plant, without leading to a confusing road network in the foreground.
The best part is, the truss bridge is totally justified, as it allows trucks to pass beneath, and provides the best span to cross both highway and stream. What do you think?
OK that's sounds good. Yes please get me visuals, I can't picture what your suggesting. I do however plan to have a road and some grade crossing gates for the trucks to passover that track that goes north/south, and then into the farm scene (to the left of the access hole).
Thanks Lee!!
I've got it... There will need to be truck access to your ethanol plant, right? One good reason to use a thru truss is to provide clearance for traffic to pass underneath the bridge. You could put a two lane highway under the left side of the bridge, then a small embankment down to your water feature. It could make for a much more interesting, and much more plausible scene! You might have to raise the bridge a bit more, though to make enough room for trucks to pass underneath. The drop from the road to the water could be about 1/4" or so. Just enough to foster the illusion.
I'll tinker with your photos a bit to see if I can make a visual for you.
OK here's a top view shot. The paper squares represent the ethanol plant buildings. The two tracks there are for loads/empties.
Let me know if you still want a full trackplan....
What would really be helpful would be a top down view of the whole area, or a track plan of the scene from front to back. Maybe there's some slight of hand we can come up with to help make this thing work.
Thanks Lee, I appreciate your criticism here. I want to make the scene believable, but you're right, I had the bridge first and put the water under it after the fact. I wanted a bridge scene and didn't think enough ahead. I'm still new at all of this, it's really my first layout since childhood. That's why I come on these great forums to learn.
So, let's make it beleivable, since the other two tracks are for the ethanol plant, how about a creek in between the two mainline tracks and then dumping into the pond.
Like this...
Ah, but that's a relatively light weight highway bridge, built with tax payer money, and probably with plenty of kickbacks to the local politicians. Railroad bridges have to help the railroad turn a profit, or at least minimize the expense side of the ledger. I'm sure if you dug deep enough you could find a prototype photo that does what you want it to do. But realistic model railroad scenes tend to portray the more typical situations that are out there.
There are plenty of bridges on the Santa Fe and Union Pacific that cross dry river beds, so there's no water at all most of the time! But you can bet your sweet bippy when the spring rains come, the trains run right on time. For those prototypes, a bridge over nothing would be pretty typical.
I think the main problem with what I see in your shot is that it looks like you approached it backward. The natural landscape would always be there first (even though that's usually the last part of the layout we build!) and the railroad should look like it's doing it's best as it crosses that landscape.
Yours looks like you wanted a bridge, and you forced a square pond into the scene so you could justify having the bridge. It just doesn't ring true.
The other scene with the several bridges crossing the same gulch works because the setting is a labrynthine logging line. He suggests a good solution to your problem.
For instance, instead of having a pond under your bridge, you could taper it into a culvert under the tracks in the foreground. The tributary to the pond would empty into it, and the scene would make more sense. It would also help to make the pond into a stream or river, and have it extend to the back edge of the layout, where it can be blended into the backdrop to give the impression that it goes on into the distance.
Not the best picture, but it gives you the idea. This shelf is about 12" deep, and the water is simply gloss acrylic medium brushed over the painted plywood surface. The rough plywood grain provides the ripple effect.
I hope I'm not coming across too preachy. You did a really good job modeling the water feature, I'm just trying to help you understand how to make the scene look more realistic.
wm3798Yes, the water feature is well executed, but the location makes no sense at all. You've created a completely implausible scene. Railroads avoid building expensive bridges, especially through trusses that limit clearances, whenever possible. If the pond absolutely positively has to be there, then a simple girder bridge would be more appropriate, since there's no apparent reason to maintain a minimum clearance over the water line.Yeah, yeah yeah... rule #1 yadda yadda. It still looks wrong. If I was the chief engineer on this job, I'd order a few carloads of fill dirt and dispense with the bridge altogether. Sure it wouldn't look as cool, but it would look a lot more realistic!Lee
Yes, the water feature is well executed, but the location makes no sense at all. You've created a completely implausible scene. Railroads avoid building expensive bridges, especially through trusses that limit clearances, whenever possible. If the pond absolutely positively has to be there, then a simple girder bridge would be more appropriate, since there's no apparent reason to maintain a minimum clearance over the water line.
Yeah, yeah yeah... rule #1 yadda yadda. It still looks wrong.
If I was the chief engineer on this job, I'd order a few carloads of fill dirt and dispense with the bridge altogether. Sure it wouldn't look as cool, but it would look a lot more realistic!
Here's a through truss bridge over a pond, well maybe the creek ends at the pond. But they still built a truss bridge over what seems to be a small body of water. So it's not that un-realistic.
Marlon, that is AWESOME!! You did a great job on that. Can you come over and do that for me? LOL
Thanks for the ideas, I really appreciate the help.
I made mine from some scraps of 1/8" wood paneling. You can find small square sheets of birch at Michaels. I have some pilings that were cut from trestle supports that I'll use to replace the rectangular ones with.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
Can you suggest some bridges for me? I'm not sure which ones to use.
Maybe something like this: bridge or this short trustle
I like it! I don't know what you have under the three tracks in the foreground. I had an area with a small trestle, but it didn't look quite right with the 2 other tracks in the foreground. So, I traced an extension toward the front of the layout. Using my Dremel, I cut the tracks about 4" on either side of it. Once the track was removed, I carved out the foam making a small ravine. I made abutments for each side of the ravine for each track, then made some more trestles. The tracks are for a logging area, so the trestles weren't too elaborate. My ravines are dry washes, mind you, but I could have just as easily created a *** for the leading edge and made a water pour. My hat's off to you, Michael, as you've taken all this "advice" in stride. Keep the pics coming. It's been said that white beadboard isn't very desirable for scenery. As you can see from the pics, I used it just fine. It just makes a bigger mess. That's why God invented shop-vacs, wasn't it?
OR - even a low swampy area coming off the near edge of the pond, with low timber trestles carrying the track over. Either scenario could make for an interesting scene - the stream with flowing water and detailed bottom or mucky swamp with lots of weeds, etc.
GRAMRRMichael, Painting the back side to match the water was a neat trick. Definitely created th illusion that the pond was larger. What kind of material is under the foreground tracks? If they're mounted on foam or something fairly workable, maybe consider carving a feeder stream under the trackage, emptying into the pond? You could place culverts or short timbers carrying the tracks across. Just a thought. Anyway, I think you've got some good ideas going.
Painting the back side to match the water was a neat trick. Definitely created th illusion that the pond was larger. What kind of material is under the foreground tracks? If they're mounted on foam or something fairly workable, maybe consider carving a feeder stream under the trackage, emptying into the pond? You could place culverts or short timbers carrying the tracks across. Just a thought. Anyway, I think you've got some good ideas going.
Thanks Chuck. I have 2" layer of pink foam. I might just do what you suggest here and make a little stream under the tracks. I think that might be doable without ripping the track out.