Rebuilding an N Scale 4'x8' Layout, Part 8

Another month has passed, and it's update time! I've done a little more painting here along with some more sculptamold.

Adding plaster to a large section of the yard area.

I added a small hill between the main and the factory by the yard to create a small view block. Went ahead and covered it with plaster/scupltamold and painted it with the AK Terrains Sandy Desert paint.

Almost done with adding foam to the hills on the yard side of the layout. The other tunnel on the wall side needs a another layer or three and I can call it done. I'm going to use several foam boards as a divider between the hills and either paint or glue down a backdrop to serve as a background.

The mountain keeps going up. I've figured out that Elmer's glue does a better job at holding foam together than the Liquid Nails stuff I was buying. Cheaper too!

Plaster down on the hill to give the sculptamold something to hold onto. Rock castings in place to see what/where I like them.

After getting the rock castings where I wanted, I put several cups of sculptamold on the hill and ran it down to the top of the castings to help hold them in place. They don't sit flat against the foam so glue isn't as effective in holding it.

I used t-pins to hold the castings up.

One more angle of t-pins. The hole in the roadbed at the bottom is for the track feeder wires.

A side view. The sculptamold is supposed to be the "ground" area above the rocks.

Another view. The castings are made of hydrocal, and I plan on using hydrocal to fill in the gaps between the castings. On the last layout I used sculptamold to do this, it takes paint a bit differently than hydrocal, and after I had painted everything I could see where I put the sculptamold down versus the hydrocal.

One more shot. I broke up the castings to get a better "curve" around the foam.

Today I patched up the gaps with hydrocal and used sculptamold to blend the rocks into the hillside on the ends. After the hydrocal set a bit I tried carving it to make it fit in with the castings.

My hydrocal carving skills are not the greatest...this is probably one of the few times I've ever done it. As long as it blends in after painting, then it works.

Most of the shots in this post are of the same area but from different angles. I can see where the patches are but this end of the rock face turned out pretty well.

With trains...er a locomotive running!

How 'bout some video? BNSF Kato SD70MAC with a set of eight Kato BNSF coalporters on the inner loop, with a Kato GE on the outer loop with four Canadian Pacific autoracks (also by Kato). The autoracks have been handy for checking tunnel clearances...I need to expand my autorack collection.

Speaking of growing the collection, I've been on a locomotive buying spree as of late. This is one of Kato's BNSF AC4400s they produced years ago. Runs like a champ. I'm missing one more factory numbered unit from them, the BNSF 5615.

A set of eight custom numbered Kato locomotives I bought online several weeks ago. Two SD70ACes (9398 and 9399), four GEs (either AC4400s or Dash 9s) and two SD70MACs (9989 and 9999). Thought it was neat to get the highest possible numbered unit on the railroad with the 9999.

Another set of eight Kato locomotives. Two more SD70MACs (9998 and 9858), the rest are GE units. BNSF 741 and 722 are factory numbered, the rest are custom numbers. The 741 and 722 are in a paint scheme called "Fauxbonnet" by railfans, they look like the old Santa Fe warbonnet scheme but carry BNSF lettering, hence the name.

A group photo! Well, at least before the second batch of eight locomotives (plus another ES44 not pictured). These were the Kato units I had at the time, 42 total in a variety of paint schemes.

The more unique schemes are on the track closest to the layout edge. Lead unit is BNSF SD70MAC 9647, in the original BNSF scheme (before they went to orange). It wasn't a popular scheme and was known by railfans as the "Vomitbonnet". Behind it are two more SD70MACs in Burlington Northern's "Executive" scheme, but with BNSF lettering. The last four are a combination of Fauxbonnets and Santa Fe warbonnets with BNSF patches under the roadnumbers. I have a large variety of locomotives so I can change up what I run, kinda like the real thing.