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Main Street Particulars

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  • Member since
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Posted by kbkchooch on Tuesday, March 5, 2013 9:30 PM

jacon12

 Ohhhh.. Union suits!  That's a good one.  But, now I have to go look up 'haggis'..  Geeked

 

Haggis should be found in Websters right next to disgusting. Ick!

Karl

NCE über alles! Thumbs Up

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Posted by Santa Fe all the way! on Wednesday, March 6, 2013 1:54 PM
Chief, That's the movie I was thinking of.
Come on CMW, make a '41-'46 Chevy school bus!
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Posted by MisterBeasley on Wednesday, March 6, 2013 2:33 PM

kbkchooch

Haggis should be found in Websters right next to disgusting. Ick!

The street on the right is 3 inches wide, while the one in the foreground is only 2 1/2 inches wide.  I just ran out of space on that one.  The sidewalk grid is 1/2 inch.

The House of Haggis sits on the corner of Penny Lane and Lonely Street, just across from the Heartbreak Hotel.  At one time, the locals knew it as the finest restaurant in town, until a second restaurant opened up.

American Model Builders made the fire hydrant.  It's a nice metal casting with good detail.

It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse. 

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Posted by Capt. Grimek on Wednesday, March 6, 2013 3:01 PM

Jacon, there is an architect(s) ruler that has one raised edge which makes it easier to not have your street lines bleed or vary (with practice).  Especially with paint pens rather than ink but same otherwise.

Your street width in the pic looks fine to me for a narrow road if you needed to allow room for the park.

South West  Chief, extremely ice work and inspiring for me. Mr. Beasley too. I loved your Union story!

Guys I have a STREETLINES QUESTION: (I've posted this Q. on the prototype forum too)...

At what point did street lines in large towns/small cities become almost universal? I'm modeling the mid 1940s but I was very surprised to see photos of New York City (Lexington Ave. in John Pryke's "Building City Scenery" and other streets with no lines at all.

I'm currently mulling over whether or not to bother with lines on my dead end/cul de sac street scene. It's adjacent to/incorporates a parking lot for the small depot so it may look fine without lines...

Thanks!  Jim

Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.

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Posted by hornblower on Friday, March 8, 2013 8:43 PM

I finally figured out how to post photos so before I forget, here's a shot showing a portion of my "Fun Foam" over styrene sheet roads.  I've done more work on this scene since this shot was taken so it looks a bit different now.  The cardstock building on the far right has been replaced by the final styrene structure, the track has been ballasted, caulking has been applied and shaped to form the curb faces and gutters and the sidewalks, curbs and gutters have been painted.  I guess I'll have to take a few more photos now that I know how to share them.

Hornblower

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Posted by Southwest Chief on Friday, March 8, 2013 10:07 PM

That looks really nice Hornblower.  I like the Simpsons reference Wink

Matt from Anaheim, CA and Bayfield, CO
Click Here for my model train photo website

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Posted by CSX_road_slug on Saturday, March 9, 2013 9:58 AM

Horn, nice work - wish I would known about that fun foam stuff before I started on my town scene. I like how you have that spur track going across the street.
I have a few pics of the town scene on my previous layout. Since it was an 'island' type rather than around-the-walls, I was able to get photos of both the front and rear walls of the shop buildings. This represented a steel mill town, so my scene wasn't very "gentrified" - no monuments or manicured city parks. Instead, it was more like a hardscrabble "strip" with bars and cheap restauants, plus a barber shop, drug store and union hall. The streets are the Walthers cornerstone 'concrete' sections (including sidewalks), spraypainted with a flat beige-colored paint from Wally World. I wanted to replicate the residue of exhaust carbon and tire rubber left by vehicles to make the road surfaces look more believable.



Here is a view of River Ave. (main street) showing all the taverns and food joints where the mill workers liked to hang out after the end of each 8-hour shift. The street ends at a gate into the steel mill (blue shacks). The areas without weathering represent recently-poured concrete. The surface in the left corner that looks like a parking lot is actually a temporary cover over the aisle, placed there for the duration of the photo shoot.



The side street intersecting River Avenue is plain sheet styrene painted gray to look like sun-bleached asphalt. I had to bend it slightly to match the crowned contour of the concrete pavement.



Here is a view from the opposite end of the side street. An abandoned City Classics Exxon station is visible in the far left foreground.



This scene of the rear walls of the businesses, with the blast furnace towering in the background, was inspired by a photo I saw of the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Co. blast furnace in Steubenville, OH.



This overall view shows how I used extruded styrene insulation board to hide the aisle and create a "sky" in front of the shelf-covered walls.

-Ken in Maryland  (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)

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Posted by hornblower on Saturday, March 9, 2013 12:13 PM

Fabulous work and great detailing.  I'm amazed at how much the telephone poles, traffic signals and street signs add to the look of your layout.  I especially love the weeds growing between the concrete slabs of the abandoned gas station.  I'd love to see more of your work!

Hornblower

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Posted by Texas Zepher on Saturday, March 9, 2013 5:29 PM

jacon12
how wide, in inches, did you make it's main street?  

Did you try to be prototypical or fudge a little to make things fit the space?

Nowhere close to prototypical.  The whole town would be consumed by the street.

Room for parking on both sides or only one?  Or, none at all?

only one.

Did you install/paint center lines, traffic lanes, parking spots etc and how?

No, that only makes it look smaller.  The cars mark the lanes.

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Posted by Capt. Grimek on Sunday, March 10, 2013 4:35 PM

Fantastic work everyone!!! This is easily one of the best street/road pics thread I've ever seen anywhere. I hope we get a lot more examples of folk's streets!  It's a much discussed but relatively  non de-piced subject and the weathering examples here are lst rate inspirations. 

I picked up my street /sidewalk details (garbage cans,mailbox, street lamps, benches, etc.) yesterday on my way to an Ops session. Can't wait to dig in on my lst  styrene street scene.  It was also  my lst scratch build, styrene snapping project ever so it seemed like the easiest place to practice.

Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.

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Posted by jacon12 on Monday, March 11, 2013 7:10 AM

 Ken, I really like the darker 'weathering' areas in the traffic lanes on your streets, nice and subtle, just right.  Is that chalk or airbrush?

Jarrell

 

 

CSX_road_slug

Horn, nice work - wish I would known about that fun foam stuff before I started on my town scene. I like how you have that spur track going across the street.
I have a few pics of the town scene on my previous layout. Since it was an 'island' type rather than around-the-walls, I was able to get photos of both the front and rear walls of the shop buildings. This represented a steel mill town, so my scene wasn't very "gentrified" - no monuments or manicured city parks. Instead, it was more like a hardscrabble "strip" with bars and cheap restauants, plus a barber shop, drug store and union hall. The streets are the Walthers cornerstone 'concrete' sections (including sidewalks), spraypainted with a flat beige-colored paint from Wally World. I wanted to replicate the residue of exhaust carbon and tire rubber left by vehicles to make the road surfaces look more believable.



Here is a view of River Ave. (main street) showing all the taverns and food joints where the mill workers liked to hang out after the end of each 8-hour shift. The street ends at a gate into the steel mill (blue shacks). The areas without weathering represent recently-poured concrete. The surface in the left corner that looks like a parking lot is actually a temporary cover over the aisle, placed there for the duration of the photo shoot.



The side street intersecting River Avenue is plain sheet styrene painted gray to look like sun-bleached asphalt. I had to bend it slightly to match the crowned contour of the concrete pavement.



Here is a view from the opposite end of the side street. An abandoned City Classics Exxon station is visible in the far left foreground.



This scene of the rear walls of the businesses, with the blast furnace towering in the background, was inspired by a photo I saw of the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Co. blast furnace in Steubenville, OH.



This overall view shows how I used extruded styrene insulation board to hide the aisle and create a "sky" in front of the shelf-covered walls.

 HO Scale DCC Modeler of 1950, give or take 30 years.
  • Member since
    June 2006
  • From: Baltimore, MD
  • 1,726 posts
Posted by CSX_road_slug on Monday, March 11, 2013 9:06 AM

Jarrell,

Thanks for the kind words!  I used Bradgon weathering powders, a combination of soot and dark brown.

-Ken in Maryland  (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)

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