Layout Construction – March 2012

Falls Yard Expansion
After the last USRM club meeting, I became inspired to finish the track work and get into full operating sessions. The Red Coulee bridge is far enough along to begin laying road bed for Falls Yard. After several weekends, the road bed for Falls Yard is complete. Next, building switches and starting to lay track. The yard consists of three yard tracks and  two engine house tracks. The rest are a grain silo spur and mainline with a passing track. Both the mainline and passing track will extend to removable staging tracks at the end of the layout.

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Additional Scenery Details
The paint I was using to cover-up the pink foam and plaster is a gloss orange-brown color. The paint is a reject from my sister-in-laws kitchen remodel. While not a bad color, I wanted something closer to nature. After searching the paint reject bins of several big box home improvement stores, I finally located an acceptable color in the rejects at a Wal-Mart. The upper left photo shows a sample of the new paint.

(Upper right photo) During a visit to my favorite hobby shop, The Train Shoppe, I acquired an NJ International set of crossing signals. To see how they look at the crossing in Denton, I installed one of the signals and powered it up just for fun.

(Bottom photo) Another just for fun project was placing Woodland Scenics Black Angus cattle in the stock pen at Denton. Additional cattle will be needed to justify the stock pen for the railroad. It is interesting that the manufacturer decided to include “cow pies” as part of the set.

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