Topic: Scenery
One of my goals for my Colorado trip was to make new rock molds. The weather wasn't entirely co-operative. As a consequence, I was not able to fully complete the molds before it was time to leave Colorado. By working carefully I was able to remove the molds from the rocks, but the molds were too thin for use. After my return to Missouri I picked up a bag of perlite. I spread the perlite in a cardboard tray. I pressed the incomplete molds one at a time into the bed of perlite. With the perlite acting as a support, I tried to shape the molds as nearly as I could into the contours they had on the rocks in Colorado. I then proceded to fill each mold with Hydrocal.
When it hardened, I turned the molds over and added a heavy final coat of latex. As is my normal practice, I incorporated cheesecloth into this final coat. After the latex cured I peeled the mold off the Hydrocal cast. Presto, I had my molds! All of the fine detail was there and the contours were very rugged.
With the new molds in hand, I set about adding rock castings to the hardshell mountain which had been sitting naked for a whole year. This is the mountain inspired by the Highline section of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. The track will creep along a ledge nearly 200 scale feet high. After two weeks of work and maybe 70 pounds of Hyrdrocal the casting is nearly complete.
This route would have been built in the later part of the 19th century with dynamite and hand labor. So the N-scale size workers would have removed no more rock than required and clearances would be at a minimum. Not unlike these little workers, I've had to chip away at the castings to allow enough space for the trains to pass. As soon as the last cast is complete, I will put a passenger car on the track and see if I've got the job done right.
I have intended to call this the "Highline", but with the rugged rock faces these new molds have created I think I may need to rename it "Hanging Rocks" because of all the rock overhangs which loom above the tracks. The next challenge will be to come up with appropriate coloration for these cliffs.
We've also been working with rocks of another sort, real rocks this time but little ones. Thanks to Jerry Prott and his friend I have been able to come up with a local source of ballast for the garden railroad. It is called "trap grit" and is available in bulk at a very economical price from Breckenridge Materials. It is mostly black rather than the cherry color of the chicken grit I'd been looking for. This trap grit may not be as pretty, but after all of the hassle trying to come up with any ballast this stuff looks beautiful to me. Doug and I were able to re-ballast about half of the track in just half a day. It was the easy half since it didn't include any of the trestles or major washouts, but we should be able to finish up next week. Most of the railjoiners will have to be replaced, however, due to corrosion.
