Those who recognize the lyrics from the beginning of the song "Summertime" by George Gershwin will probably know where this post is headed. We're deep in the middle of summer right now and not much has been done on the railroad since the last op session at the end of May. We've been in and out of town (more out that in) since the beginning of June. Numerous other small projects around the house have taken precedent over the railroad for those short periods we've been in town.
However, that's not to say that nothing has been done, The westbound main signal and the dwarf controlling the exit of the yard on the west end of Nelsonville are complete. The eastbound signal is in the shop and almost finished.
The SBS DIO card for these signals and two new bock detectors have been installed and wired. The next step will be to hook up the signals and cut in the two blocks in this area.
And there's a new edition to the rolling stock- CWE 1.
For now, suffice it to say that this is another beautiful piece of work by Matt Snell. There will be more on this in a future post.
Enjoy the summer!
Tom, As a fellow Appalachian coal modeler I try to follow your fine blog. How do you do what look like gravel roads, particularly the road in the first full photo on the most recent "summertime" release? I looked in your past blogs but could not find any notes. Many thanks and keep up the great work. Roger sekera
ReplyDeleteRoger,
ReplyDeleteThe gravel road in the photo you referenced was made with a mixture of 3 parts Highball N-scale ballast and one part finely sifted play sand. The sand provides some additional color. I then went back and add ruts and tire tracks with various light colors of craft paints. Since that road was done, I've started using a mixture of tile grout and N-scale ballast. The grout allows me to get ruts and tire paths that have more relief than using the craft paints.
And thanks for the kind comments.
Tom