Detailing the station scene

The last time I posted on this blog in mid September I was getting everything ready for a local show called Los Altos Train Days.   Both modules preformed well and everyone enjoyed our joint Peninsula Ntrak / AsiaNrail layout.  The operation of the AsiaNrail layout kept both Paul, myself, and our usual small crew of helpers very busy and I never did get a chance to take photos.  Again this year the show had nearly 3,000 visitors over 2 days.

Since then I've been turning more attention to construction of my home layout and my wife and I been doing a bit of traveling.

While I was finishing a few things on the Hot Springs Junction module back in September, I did get photos and will add a few new posts from those.  First up, the little scene around the station entrance.

In last June's post Finishing the stations scene - Part 1, I had attached the station with a couple of screws and needed to cover the real obvious one with some detail.

I considered the kiosk that came with the kit but decided that it would crowd the scene a bit.

TomyTec kit number 017 is one of their series of pre-painted little diorama kits.  This little food cart turned out to be just the thing to cover that screw.

I put two of the customers on stools at the cart counter and will use the table and benches at the Hot Springs Hotel.

The kiosk is a great little structure and I'm sure it will get used somewhere on one of my modules in the future.

This is how the station scene looked just prior to the Los Altos Train Days show.   The food cart fits nicely into the scene without crowding it.  Also added is one of the old 3 wheeled trucks that belongs to the food cart owner.

Here is a lower angle close up of the station entrance taken from the end of the module.  This module is supposed to be Showa era.   I think I have a bit of an era clash with the newer crown taxi so I'll be looking for an older style taxi.

Getting ready for the next show

The show coming up in one week will be the first time that I will have both of my AsiaNrail modules in a layout.  I decided to set up all three of the modules into a small layout to give everything a good testing.  The overall view of this setup is shown in the photo below.  Everything proved to be working correctly so I have been adding trees, people, and other details to the Hot Springs Junction module.

In this photo, none of the removable buildings are in place on the Musashi-Koyama modules.  And no, that Santa Fe GP7 parked at the Hot Springs station does not belong there but it's a great test engine.

In the actual setup next weekend, there will be several of Paul Ingraham's AsiaNrail modules including a junction module between my two modules.  The Musashi-Koyama modules will form the end of one of the two branches.

Building a TomyTec Sake shop

Resort areas will most often have eating and drinking establishments so I wanted to include something like that on the module.  Places that serve or sell sake will sometimes have a large ball of dried cedar needles hanging above the door. Here is a photo I found on the Internet of such a place.

TomyTec kit number 89 has a building like this.  I am using only one building from this kit, the one that has the ball of cedar needles hanging over the door.

No. 89 is part of a mulit-kit diorama offered by TomyTec to represent a entire Sake brewery and store complex as shown here.

This building kit has all pre-painted parts with some extra details parts and goes together quite easily. I decided to use the base that came with this kit even though it was quite thick. So I made a pit from styrene that the base for this building will fit snugly into.  For now I don't have any plans to attach the building to the module and will remove it for transport.  I put the hole in the base in case I want to light the inside later.

Here is the structure after the surrounding area is blended in with scenic materials.  It's across the road from the station and set sideways.  This is because it I plan to use this module with or without a sky board and I wanted the front of the shop to be visible either way.

Here is a lower angled view of this structure. There are lots of details that can be added to this scene later but for now I'll move on as I am trying to complete all the basic scenery on this module for the show coming up in less than two weeks.

AsiaNrail returning to Los Altos

The next exhibit of the AsiaNrail layout will be at the Los Altos Train Days event to be held at the Los Altos History Museum on September 20th and 21st, 2014.  As it is planned right now, both the Musashi-Koyama and Hot Springs Junction modules will be included as part of a combined Peninsula Ntrak / AsiaNrail layout.

Either Peninsula Ntrak or AsiaNrail has had a layout at this event for the last 4 years and this year it will be a combined layout with the AsiaNrail layout lowered to the height of Ntrak mountain division.  Each year we try to have something a little different and this year the Ntrak part of the layout will have mostly modules that have not been to this show before.

This was a photo I recently found on the Internet that someone took of the Musashi-Koyama station at last years show.  This module set will return this year along with the nearly completed Hot Springs Junction Ntrak module.

Dates: September 20 & 21st
Time: 10:00am to 4:00pm
Location: 51 South San Antonio Road, Los Altos, California
Admission:  $5.00

Link to the Los Altos History Museum Flyer

Finishing the 1st type of retaining wall

In the post last March titled Japanese style retaining walls, I showed prototype photos of two different types of retaining walls I have seen along side the rail lines.  In that post, I also showed the beginnings of the walls I was building from styrene plastic.

For reference, I again show the prototype photo here.  Most of these that I've seen are not quite this bent up.


Recall from that previous post, the wall sections were made from .080 square styrene rod attached to .020 styrene sheet.

When this was fully assembled, it was air brushed with Model Master acrylic aged concrete color.

Then the spaces between the rods were hand painted with a grimy black color.

After the black paint had dried over night, a bit of scenic cement was applied to each section then fine turf color ground foam was sprinkled on top of that.

The retaining wall was attached to the module with Liquid Nails for projects and held in place with home made spring clamps as shown in this photo.

When the wall structure is blended in with the surrounding scenery it begins to look like this.  A bit of the ground foam has fallen out of a few of the spaces.  The reason I painted those areas was to help hide this.


Next I used a bamboo skewer to apply small amounts of diluted white glue to those bare areas where the turf ground foam had fallen off.  Then sprinkled on some fine green ground foam and that tended to settle near the bottom of the sections.  I also added coarse green ground foam in some of the sections to simulate foliage that might grow out between the columns.

The photo above shows the completed retaining wall section.  While I am quite happy with the way this came out, it was a lot of work !  This is only about 9 inches at one end of the module out of almost 60 inches of retaining walls needed.  At this point the rest of the retaining walls are going to be the second type which go together much quicker.  In the near future I will post about finishing those.

Laying track - Again

With the river scene completed and the bridges back in place, I could re-lay the track on the Ntrak lines.  These had been laid temporarily with Atlas code 80 wood tie flex track held down with track nails for the show we did in April.  That track was removed after the show so I could remove the bridges and finish the river scene.  The permanent track is going to be Peco code 80 with concrete ties.

After attaching the feeder wires I weathered all the rails with a Floquil rail brown paint pen.  This works great for concrete ties or touch ups on any track after it's installed.

For the past couple of projects I've been using Liquid Nails for projects to attach the track to the cork roadbed.  The advantage of using this as opposed to the white glue I had used before is that it won't come loose when the track is wet while applying ballast.  This is mostly only a problem on curved track.

When using the Liquid Nails product for attaching track, it is important to not use to much.  If any oozes up between the ties, it might show up after ballasting.  Just a small bead down the center of the cork roadbed then smooth that out flat as shown in this close up photo.

One of my early posts on this blog back in February of 2011 was called Ballasting the tracks where I explained the techniques I used on the Musashi-Koyama modules so I won't go through it all again here.




I am still doing ballast  the same way but on this module I am using Arizona Rock & Mineral No. 130-2 Northern Pacific Medium Gray Granite which to my eye looks better with the concrete ties.  I also plan to experiment with some weathering of the track that may enhance the appearance.

Adding water to the river scene

Simulating water has always been a challenge for me.  Modelers use a number of methods and I've tried several of them with mixed results.  I had tied the 2-part resin method on an earlier module but was unhappy with that result.  It had absorbed some of the surrounding color and I could not get the small bubbles out before it hardened.

Then on a home layout I tried Woodland Scenic realistic water after painting the bottom surfaces with blended green, blue, and brown acrylic paints.  This had better results on flat surfaces but I was not really happy with the effect of water running down hill.

This time I tried using acrylic gloss medium and also Woodland Scenic water effects to give the running water some texture.

Using a scrap of Plexiglas, I experimented with both these products to seen how they would interact with each other and with acrylic paints.  Also I wanted to practice working with this technique before actually applying it to the module.




Prior to adding the simulated water, I added some more rocks to the river bed.  From some coarse sand I selected grains that were more rounded like rocks in a river bed normally are.  I probably could have added many more than I did but put enough in to get the effect I wanted.

The moment came to actually apply some of the gloss medium to river bed.  I had shaped the river bed to have a low spots in the center and let the gloss medium find it own way through the contours.  The gloss medium as shown in this photo goes on white before drying clear.


I put down 1 layer of the gloss medium and let that dry.  Then I went over the deeper areas with a very dilute mixture of green and blue acrylic paints.   After the acrylic paint had dried, I added another coat of gloss medium.

Where I wanted to simulate running water I brushed on the water effects product.  Using the brush and a bamboo skewer, I creating some wavy texture.  This was done where the streams were running down hill and also around the rocks.  This product also goes on white and looks terrible at first as shown in this photo but will dry clear.

Having seen this trick somewhere I had to try it. After the water effects product had dried, I applied small amounts of white paint to the ridges left by the water effects with the pointed end of a bamboo skewer to simulate white water. These are pointed out in this photo by blue arrows.

After adding one more coat of gloss medium, here is a looking down view of the completed river water with the bridges still removed.  I will still be adding some rocks and other details before re-installing the bridges.


Of the methods I've tried for modeling water I like this one the best, particularly for running water.  It's not the fastest but seems to offer the most control.