Cathead

Might as well call it the boiler deck, following standard practice for steamboats, despite the nonsensicalness of calling the deck above the boiler, the boiler deck. Not sure if that nomenclature carried over into pseudo-marine harbor vessels like you're modeling here, but since your prototype is a riverboat, you can justify it.
 
Otherwise looks great to me!

Continuing the scenery, I began working on the more robust parts of the landscape by installing webs of cardboard strips shaped to roughly outline the terrain I wanted. This is a tried and true method that gives a lot of flexibility and uses easily scavenged material. It'll be hard to recognize in photos but, as a geologist, I put a lot of thought and planning into shaping this terrain to match the real landscape here. As stated before, Rocheport is bookended to the west by a high ridge that the railroad tunneled right through, and to the east by a long series of high bluffs parallel to the Missouri River, with the rail line sandwiched between rock and river.



With the webbing done to my liking (including some adjustments), I began using plaster cloth to make a solid base layer. The old-school way to do this was to mix up your own plaster and dip paper towels in it, but this was always super-messy and hard to get amounts right. The more modern approach involves various products that embed a light paper roll with dry plaster, and all you have to do is dip it in water. Virtually no mess and a lot easier to do.
 




You may have noticed the odd rectangular indentation in the bluff on the far right side of the scene. That's a specific local feature; the limestone in this region is pockmarked with karst features like caves, springs, etc. I'll be including some minor examples on the bluffs, but there was/is a larger cave-entrance overhang at the base of the bluffs right along the tracks. When this line was being built, the railroad walled in this opening to use as an explosives storage area. It remains today as a notable landmark along the modern rail trail, and I just had to include it. Here's what it looks like today:

So that'll be a fun mini-scratchbuild!
 
Next stage in the scenery is to start using plaster to really form the bedrock bluffs, river banks, and essentially seal in the landscape the way I want. This will take a while.
 
Other notes:
- I didn't really photograph the process, but you'll notice that the backdrops were installed. They're currently primed but I won't finish them until more foreground scenery is done.
- You'll also notice that I installed the fascia boards that seal in the front of the layout. Like the backdrop, I won't paint these until more scenery is done.
- The bluff on the left side, through which the tunnel runs, is pretty close to the actual scale height of the ridge there. It looks a bit "model railroad" if you don't realize it's exactly how the real thing is.
- The bluffs on the right side, along the Missouri River, are less than half the scale height of the real thing (on the layout they're a scale 90-100' high, in real life they're 200-300'). They still look a bit abrupt because of the horizontal shortening I had to do, and one of the scenic challenges here was finding the balance between making this scenery dramatic enough to capture the feel of the real thing, but not so dramatic that it looks "fake". I wish I had four more feel of horizontal space to make a really nice run of bluffs, the real railroad parallels these towering features for miles, but this is the best I can do.
 
Thanks for all the likes, comments, input, stories, etc.! I'm really looking forward to two things: getting some color on this scenery, and getting tracks laid so I can see some motion here! And I hope you'll enjoy getting there too. Soon I hope to write up some more background stuff to provide more context for the project. But I appreciate you all!
 

 
 

Jack, it's not clear from the photos and I didn't take any while assembling the benchwork, but it is a modified L-girder approach. The support frames are L-girders, on which the modules sit. I can always screw the modules down onto their support frames (though the L-girders) if desired, but it hasn't been necessary as they sit comfortably of their own accord and not screwing them in makes it easier to move them around as I continue work. But someday when I declare things "done" I'll probably drive a few holding screws in and then it becomes a really solid construction. 
 
Also, I've used homasote in the past but chose not to this time. Thanks for your perspectives!

Yep, I never claimed to invent the concept! And in fairness, modularity imposes design constraints that a permanent arrangement doesn't. We'll probably delve into that whenever I take the time to write up the background design story.

Ian, great story, that's exactly why I'm taking this modular approach. I don't want to "ruin" this room and I don't want to have to throw everything out one day. This way a variety of outcomes are possible, from some or all of the scenes ending up in various local historical museums (of which we have several along this corridor), to possibly finding a new home with someone else. And if it does have to go to the landfill, it'll be a lot easier than ripping stuff off the walls and dismantling a messy web of permanent benchwork.
 
 

OK, let's try to catch up on the other work that's been done so far. I started trying to write up some deeper background about layout design, development, historical/geographic settings, etc. and it just got away from me, so for now we're going to focus on the more mundane physical details.
 
The Rocheport scene is built on two modules, each 5.5' long for a total length of 11'. The depth of scene (to the backdrop) is about 2' on both, though the left-hand one curves outward to accommodate a possible future curve back around the other way, and also to add more scenic interest. One rule of thumb in model railroad planning is not to lay everything too straight; subtle changes in direction add visual interest. Here's an early view of the benchwork showing how each module is its own unit, set on top of separate support structures. They're bolted together in the middle and I can take either one off its supports independently if I want to work on it in a different setting or at a different angle (such as tilted onto its side for track wiring beneath the surface or taken outside for messy painting).

If you're wondering about the wood color, most of it is Eastern Red Cedar that I cut and milled on my rural Missouri homestead farm. That'll be a theme in this project, using as much local/natural material as I can, especially for scenery. The backdrop supports are cheap pine 1x3s that I had sitting around from a long-ago project; I'm using them to use them up because they're perfect for this. The darker wood like the legs is also cedar, just older and weathered; those are reused pieces from an old chicken coop I built years ago and no longer need.
 
The benchwork is solid framed boxes, with the actual surface being plywood supported on risers. This allows for two things: (1) scenery below track level like rivers and (2) easier access for wiring later. Here are a couple early views of transferring my computer-drawn track plan onto cheap plywood sheets (which I reused from a shipping crate rather than buying new). The joint between the two modules is just to the left of the depot.


As the photos suggest, I did 95% of the woodworking down in my garage woodshop (and some outdoors when winter weather allowed). This is one of many benefits of the modular system; I can build these where all my tools are and then transport them upstairs to a more finished room, rather than turning a finished room into a construction zone for months.
 
Once I had the exact track routes laid out, I made patterns and cut new pieces from  high-end plywood to support the actual trackbed and core town areas. This ensures that the important surfaces are smooth and flat, but saves money from making everything out of good plywood. The cheap plywood remains as the base for things like rivers and other scenic areas that don't need to be perfect. Below are a few more views showing how these surfaces interact and how the risers aid in setting up scenery.
 



Another reason to do it this way is that I can alter the level of the crappy plywood to create subtle changes in land surface even for areas I want mostly flat. If you look closely at the preceding and following photos you'll see that the crappy plywood doesn't quite line up with the flat high-end roadbed. There's a long, subtle climb in the surrounding "land" surface from below track level at the right end (near the depot) to above track level at the left end (near the bridge). This fits the actual landscape through Rocheport, where the track is a bit elevated over the surrounding floodplain at the town's east end, but goes through a shallow (but noticeable) cut as it approaches the bridge/tunnel combination at the west end. The "level" point where they're both even falls where a road crosses all the tracks, just visible at the left-hand side of one of the photos. These kind of details help keep a model railroad from looking like it's laid on a plywood tabletop. Even the flattest of landscapes, like the river floodplain this setting is, have local variations.
 



The last photo also shows my scratchbuilt bridge abutments (good plywood airbrushed and weathered) and initial framing for the tunnel. The scene is set up so the tunnel provides a natural transition through the backdrop. Lots of railroads don't have tunnels so conveniently placed, but this one does!
 
This has gotten long so I'll stop there. In a future post I'll show how I started developing the more complex landscape surfaces such as the riverbanks and the hills/bluffs rising above the tracks. Thanks for your patience as I catch up to real-time on this!
 

Continuing the scenery, I began working on the more robust parts of the landscape by installing webs of cardboard strips shaped to roughly outline the terrain I wanted. This is a tried and true method that gives a lot of flexibility and uses easily scavenged material. It'll be hard to recognize in photos but, as a geologist, I put a lot of thought and planning into shaping this terrain to match the real landscape here. As stated before, Rocheport is bookended to the west by a high ridge that the railroad tunneled right through, and to the east by a long series of high bluffs parallel to the Missouri River, with the rail line sandwiched between rock and river.



With the webbing done to my liking (including some adjustments), I began using plaster cloth to make a solid base layer. The old-school way to do this was to mix up your own plaster and dip paper towels in it, but this was always super-messy and hard to get amounts right. The more modern approach involves various products that embed a light paper roll with dry plaster, and all you have to do is dip it in water. Virtually no mess and a lot easier to do.
 




You may have noticed the odd rectangular indentation in the bluff on the far right side of the scene. That's a specific local feature; the limestone in this region is pockmarked with karst features like caves, springs, etc. I'll be including some minor examples on the bluffs, but there was/is a larger cave-entrance overhang at the base of the bluffs right along the tracks. When this line was being built, the railroad walled in this opening to use as an explosives storage area. It remains today as a notable landmark along the modern rail trail, and I just had to include it. Here's what it looks like today:

So that'll be a fun mini-scratchbuild!
 
Next stage in the scenery is to start using plaster to really form the bedrock bluffs, river banks, and essentially seal in the landscape the way I want. This will take a while.
 
Other notes:
- I didn't really photograph the process, but you'll notice that the backdrops were installed. They're currently primed but I won't finish them until more foreground scenery is done.
- You'll also notice that I installed the fascia boards that seal in the front of the layout. Like the backdrop, I won't paint these until more scenery is done.
- The bluff on the left side, through which the tunnel runs, is pretty close to the actual scale height of the ridge there. It looks a bit "model railroad" if you don't realize it's exactly how the real thing is.
- The bluffs on the right side, along the Missouri River, are less than half the scale height of the real thing (on the layout they're a scale 90-100' high, in real life they're 200-300'). They still look a bit abrupt because of the horizontal shortening I had to do, and one of the scenic challenges here was finding the balance between making this scenery dramatic enough to capture the feel of the real thing, but not so dramatic that it looks "fake". I wish I had four more feel of horizontal space to make a really nice run of bluffs, the real railroad parallels these towering features for miles, but this is the best I can do.
 
Thanks for all the likes, comments, input, stories, etc.! I'm really looking forward to two things: getting some color on this scenery, and getting tracks laid so I can see some motion here! And I hope you'll enjoy getting there too. Soon I hope to write up some more background stuff to provide more context for the project. But I appreciate you all!
 

 
 

Continuing the scenery, I began working on the more robust parts of the landscape by installing webs of cardboard strips shaped to roughly outline the terrain I wanted. This is a tried and true method that gives a lot of flexibility and uses easily scavenged material. It'll be hard to recognize in photos but, as a geologist, I put a lot of thought and planning into shaping this terrain to match the real landscape here. As stated before, Rocheport is bookended to the west by a high ridge that the railroad tunneled right through, and to the east by a long series of high bluffs parallel to the Missouri River, with the rail line sandwiched between rock and river.



With the webbing done to my liking (including some adjustments), I began using plaster cloth to make a solid base layer. The old-school way to do this was to mix up your own plaster and dip paper towels in it, but this was always super-messy and hard to get amounts right. The more modern approach involves various products that embed a light paper roll with dry plaster, and all you have to do is dip it in water. Virtually no mess and a lot easier to do.
 




You may have noticed the odd rectangular indentation in the bluff on the far right side of the scene. That's a specific local feature; the limestone in this region is pockmarked with karst features like caves, springs, etc. I'll be including some minor examples on the bluffs, but there was/is a larger cave-entrance overhang at the base of the bluffs right along the tracks. When this line was being built, the railroad walled in this opening to use as an explosives storage area. It remains today as a notable landmark along the modern rail trail, and I just had to include it. Here's what it looks like today:

So that'll be a fun mini-scratchbuild!
 
Next stage in the scenery is to start using plaster to really form the bedrock bluffs, river banks, and essentially seal in the landscape the way I want. This will take a while.
 
Other notes:
- I didn't really photograph the process, but you'll notice that the backdrops were installed. They're currently primed but I won't finish them until more foreground scenery is done.
- You'll also notice that I installed the fascia boards that seal in the front of the layout. Like the backdrop, I won't paint these until more scenery is done.
- The bluff on the left side, through which the tunnel runs, is pretty close to the actual scale height of the ridge there. It looks a bit "model railroad" if you don't realize it's exactly how the real thing is.
- The bluffs on the right side, along the Missouri River, are less than half the scale height of the real thing (on the layout they're a scale 90-100' high, in real life they're 200-300'). They still look a bit abrupt because of the horizontal shortening I had to do, and one of the scenic challenges here was finding the balance between making this scenery dramatic enough to capture the feel of the real thing, but not so dramatic that it looks "fake". I wish I had four more feel of horizontal space to make a really nice run of bluffs, the real railroad parallels these towering features for miles, but this is the best I can do.
 
Thanks for all the likes, comments, input, stories, etc.! I'm really looking forward to two things: getting some color on this scenery, and getting tracks laid so I can see some motion here! And I hope you'll enjoy getting there too. Soon I hope to write up some more background stuff to provide more context for the project. But I appreciate you all!
 

 
 

And here I thought the drop saw was a mythical shop tool used by the legendary drop bear...

Continuing the scenery, I began working on the more robust parts of the landscape by installing webs of cardboard strips shaped to roughly outline the terrain I wanted. This is a tried and true method that gives a lot of flexibility and uses easily scavenged material. It'll be hard to recognize in photos but, as a geologist, I put a lot of thought and planning into shaping this terrain to match the real landscape here. As stated before, Rocheport is bookended to the west by a high ridge that the railroad tunneled right through, and to the east by a long series of high bluffs parallel to the Missouri River, with the rail line sandwiched between rock and river.



With the webbing done to my liking (including some adjustments), I began using plaster cloth to make a solid base layer. The old-school way to do this was to mix up your own plaster and dip paper towels in it, but this was always super-messy and hard to get amounts right. The more modern approach involves various products that embed a light paper roll with dry plaster, and all you have to do is dip it in water. Virtually no mess and a lot easier to do.
 




You may have noticed the odd rectangular indentation in the bluff on the far right side of the scene. That's a specific local feature; the limestone in this region is pockmarked with karst features like caves, springs, etc. I'll be including some minor examples on the bluffs, but there was/is a larger cave-entrance overhang at the base of the bluffs right along the tracks. When this line was being built, the railroad walled in this opening to use as an explosives storage area. It remains today as a notable landmark along the modern rail trail, and I just had to include it. Here's what it looks like today:

So that'll be a fun mini-scratchbuild!
 
Next stage in the scenery is to start using plaster to really form the bedrock bluffs, river banks, and essentially seal in the landscape the way I want. This will take a while.
 
Other notes:
- I didn't really photograph the process, but you'll notice that the backdrops were installed. They're currently primed but I won't finish them until more foreground scenery is done.
- You'll also notice that I installed the fascia boards that seal in the front of the layout. Like the backdrop, I won't paint these until more scenery is done.
- The bluff on the left side, through which the tunnel runs, is pretty close to the actual scale height of the ridge there. It looks a bit "model railroad" if you don't realize it's exactly how the real thing is.
- The bluffs on the right side, along the Missouri River, are less than half the scale height of the real thing (on the layout they're a scale 90-100' high, in real life they're 200-300'). They still look a bit abrupt because of the horizontal shortening I had to do, and one of the scenic challenges here was finding the balance between making this scenery dramatic enough to capture the feel of the real thing, but not so dramatic that it looks "fake". I wish I had four more feel of horizontal space to make a really nice run of bluffs, the real railroad parallels these towering features for miles, but this is the best I can do.
 
Thanks for all the likes, comments, input, stories, etc.! I'm really looking forward to two things: getting some color on this scenery, and getting tracks laid so I can see some motion here! And I hope you'll enjoy getting there too. Soon I hope to write up some more background stuff to provide more context for the project. But I appreciate you all!
 

 
 

Continuing the scenery, I began working on the more robust parts of the landscape by installing webs of cardboard strips shaped to roughly outline the terrain I wanted. This is a tried and true method that gives a lot of flexibility and uses easily scavenged material. It'll be hard to recognize in photos but, as a geologist, I put a lot of thought and planning into shaping this terrain to match the real landscape here. As stated before, Rocheport is bookended to the west by a high ridge that the railroad tunneled right through, and to the east by a long series of high bluffs parallel to the Missouri River, with the rail line sandwiched between rock and river.



With the webbing done to my liking (including some adjustments), I began using plaster cloth to make a solid base layer. The old-school way to do this was to mix up your own plaster and dip paper towels in it, but this was always super-messy and hard to get amounts right. The more modern approach involves various products that embed a light paper roll with dry plaster, and all you have to do is dip it in water. Virtually no mess and a lot easier to do.
 




You may have noticed the odd rectangular indentation in the bluff on the far right side of the scene. That's a specific local feature; the limestone in this region is pockmarked with karst features like caves, springs, etc. I'll be including some minor examples on the bluffs, but there was/is a larger cave-entrance overhang at the base of the bluffs right along the tracks. When this line was being built, the railroad walled in this opening to use as an explosives storage area. It remains today as a notable landmark along the modern rail trail, and I just had to include it. Here's what it looks like today:

So that'll be a fun mini-scratchbuild!
 
Next stage in the scenery is to start using plaster to really form the bedrock bluffs, river banks, and essentially seal in the landscape the way I want. This will take a while.
 
Other notes:
- I didn't really photograph the process, but you'll notice that the backdrops were installed. They're currently primed but I won't finish them until more foreground scenery is done.
- You'll also notice that I installed the fascia boards that seal in the front of the layout. Like the backdrop, I won't paint these until more scenery is done.
- The bluff on the left side, through which the tunnel runs, is pretty close to the actual scale height of the ridge there. It looks a bit "model railroad" if you don't realize it's exactly how the real thing is.
- The bluffs on the right side, along the Missouri River, are less than half the scale height of the real thing (on the layout they're a scale 90-100' high, in real life they're 200-300'). They still look a bit abrupt because of the horizontal shortening I had to do, and one of the scenic challenges here was finding the balance between making this scenery dramatic enough to capture the feel of the real thing, but not so dramatic that it looks "fake". I wish I had four more feel of horizontal space to make a really nice run of bluffs, the real railroad parallels these towering features for miles, but this is the best I can do.
 
Thanks for all the likes, comments, input, stories, etc.! I'm really looking forward to two things: getting some color on this scenery, and getting tracks laid so I can see some motion here! And I hope you'll enjoy getting there too. Soon I hope to write up some more background stuff to provide more context for the project. But I appreciate you all!
 

 
 

Looking really good Eric! And I do remember the paper towels in runny plaster, very very messy.  The plaster cloth is a great n improvement.   

Coming along nicely, Eric. Excellent work. Looks like you've handled the vertical curves around your bridge with your pre-planned abutments.

That looks like a lot of fun work, Eric. I look forward to seeing how you make the geographical features. 

Continuing the scenery, I began working on the more robust parts of the landscape by installing webs of cardboard strips shaped to roughly outline the terrain I wanted. This is a tried and true method that gives a lot of flexibility and uses easily scavenged material. It'll be hard to recognize in photos but, as a geologist, I put a lot of thought and planning into shaping this terrain to match the real landscape here. As stated before, Rocheport is bookended to the west by a high ridge that the railroad tunneled right through, and to the east by a long series of high bluffs parallel to the Missouri River, with the rail line sandwiched between rock and river.



With the webbing done to my liking (including some adjustments), I began using plaster cloth to make a solid base layer. The old-school way to do this was to mix up your own plaster and dip paper towels in it, but this was always super-messy and hard to get amounts right. The more modern approach involves various products that embed a light paper roll with dry plaster, and all you have to do is dip it in water. Virtually no mess and a lot easier to do.
 




You may have noticed the odd rectangular indentation in the bluff on the far right side of the scene. That's a specific local feature; the limestone in this region is pockmarked with karst features like caves, springs, etc. I'll be including some minor examples on the bluffs, but there was/is a larger cave-entrance overhang at the base of the bluffs right along the tracks. When this line was being built, the railroad walled in this opening to use as an explosives storage area. It remains today as a notable landmark along the modern rail trail, and I just had to include it. Here's what it looks like today:

So that'll be a fun mini-scratchbuild!
 
Next stage in the scenery is to start using plaster to really form the bedrock bluffs, river banks, and essentially seal in the landscape the way I want. This will take a while.
 
Other notes:
- I didn't really photograph the process, but you'll notice that the backdrops were installed. They're currently primed but I won't finish them until more foreground scenery is done.
- You'll also notice that I installed the fascia boards that seal in the front of the layout. Like the backdrop, I won't paint these until more scenery is done.
- The bluff on the left side, through which the tunnel runs, is pretty close to the actual scale height of the ridge there. It looks a bit "model railroad" if you don't realize it's exactly how the real thing is.
- The bluffs on the right side, along the Missouri River, are less than half the scale height of the real thing (on the layout they're a scale 90-100' high, in real life they're 200-300'). They still look a bit abrupt because of the horizontal shortening I had to do, and one of the scenic challenges here was finding the balance between making this scenery dramatic enough to capture the feel of the real thing, but not so dramatic that it looks "fake". I wish I had four more feel of horizontal space to make a really nice run of bluffs, the real railroad parallels these towering features for miles, but this is the best I can do.
 
Thanks for all the likes, comments, input, stories, etc.! I'm really looking forward to two things: getting some color on this scenery, and getting tracks laid so I can see some motion here! And I hope you'll enjoy getting there too. Soon I hope to write up some more background stuff to provide more context for the project. But I appreciate you all!
 

 
 

Continuing the scenery, I began working on the more robust parts of the landscape by installing webs of cardboard strips shaped to roughly outline the terrain I wanted. This is a tried and true method that gives a lot of flexibility and uses easily scavenged material. It'll be hard to recognize in photos but, as a geologist, I put a lot of thought and planning into shaping this terrain to match the real landscape here. As stated before, Rocheport is bookended to the west by a high ridge that the railroad tunneled right through, and to the east by a long series of high bluffs parallel to the Missouri River, with the rail line sandwiched between rock and river.



With the webbing done to my liking (including some adjustments), I began using plaster cloth to make a solid base layer. The old-school way to do this was to mix up your own plaster and dip paper towels in it, but this was always super-messy and hard to get amounts right. The more modern approach involves various products that embed a light paper roll with dry plaster, and all you have to do is dip it in water. Virtually no mess and a lot easier to do.
 




You may have noticed the odd rectangular indentation in the bluff on the far right side of the scene. That's a specific local feature; the limestone in this region is pockmarked with karst features like caves, springs, etc. I'll be including some minor examples on the bluffs, but there was/is a larger cave-entrance overhang at the base of the bluffs right along the tracks. When this line was being built, the railroad walled in this opening to use as an explosives storage area. It remains today as a notable landmark along the modern rail trail, and I just had to include it. Here's what it looks like today:

So that'll be a fun mini-scratchbuild!
 
Next stage in the scenery is to start using plaster to really form the bedrock bluffs, river banks, and essentially seal in the landscape the way I want. This will take a while.
 
Other notes:
- I didn't really photograph the process, but you'll notice that the backdrops were installed. They're currently primed but I won't finish them until more foreground scenery is done.
- You'll also notice that I installed the fascia boards that seal in the front of the layout. Like the backdrop, I won't paint these until more scenery is done.
- The bluff on the left side, through which the tunnel runs, is pretty close to the actual scale height of the ridge there. It looks a bit "model railroad" if you don't realize it's exactly how the real thing is.
- The bluffs on the right side, along the Missouri River, are less than half the scale height of the real thing (on the layout they're a scale 90-100' high, in real life they're 200-300'). They still look a bit abrupt because of the horizontal shortening I had to do, and one of the scenic challenges here was finding the balance between making this scenery dramatic enough to capture the feel of the real thing, but not so dramatic that it looks "fake". I wish I had four more feel of horizontal space to make a really nice run of bluffs, the real railroad parallels these towering features for miles, but this is the best I can do.
 
Thanks for all the likes, comments, input, stories, etc.! I'm really looking forward to two things: getting some color on this scenery, and getting tracks laid so I can see some motion here! And I hope you'll enjoy getting there too. Soon I hope to write up some more background stuff to provide more context for the project. But I appreciate you all!
 

 
 

Continuing the scenery, I began working on the more robust parts of the landscape by installing webs of cardboard strips shaped to roughly outline the terrain I wanted. This is a tried and true method that gives a lot of flexibility and uses easily scavenged material. It'll be hard to recognize in photos but, as a geologist, I put a lot of thought and planning into shaping this terrain to match the real landscape here. As stated before, Rocheport is bookended to the west by a high ridge that the railroad tunneled right through, and to the east by a long series of high bluffs parallel to the Missouri River, with the rail line sandwiched between rock and river.



With the webbing done to my liking (including some adjustments), I began using plaster cloth to make a solid base layer. The old-school way to do this was to mix up your own plaster and dip paper towels in it, but this was always super-messy and hard to get amounts right. The more modern approach involves various products that embed a light paper roll with dry plaster, and all you have to do is dip it in water. Virtually no mess and a lot easier to do.
 




You may have noticed the odd rectangular indentation in the bluff on the far right side of the scene. That's a specific local feature; the limestone in this region is pockmarked with karst features like caves, springs, etc. I'll be including some minor examples on the bluffs, but there was/is a larger cave-entrance overhang at the base of the bluffs right along the tracks. When this line was being built, the railroad walled in this opening to use as an explosives storage area. It remains today as a notable landmark along the modern rail trail, and I just had to include it. Here's what it looks like today:

So that'll be a fun mini-scratchbuild!
 
Next stage in the scenery is to start using plaster to really form the bedrock bluffs, river banks, and essentially seal in the landscape the way I want. This will take a while.
 
Other notes:
- I didn't really photograph the process, but you'll notice that the backdrops were installed. They're currently primed but I won't finish them until more foreground scenery is done.
- You'll also notice that I installed the fascia boards that seal in the front of the layout. Like the backdrop, I won't paint these until more scenery is done.
- The bluff on the left side, through which the tunnel runs, is pretty close to the actual scale height of the ridge there. It looks a bit "model railroad" if you don't realize it's exactly how the real thing is.
- The bluffs on the right side, along the Missouri River, are less than half the scale height of the real thing (on the layout they're a scale 90-100' high, in real life they're 200-300'). They still look a bit abrupt because of the horizontal shortening I had to do, and one of the scenic challenges here was finding the balance between making this scenery dramatic enough to capture the feel of the real thing, but not so dramatic that it looks "fake". I wish I had four more feel of horizontal space to make a really nice run of bluffs, the real railroad parallels these towering features for miles, but this is the best I can do.
 
Thanks for all the likes, comments, input, stories, etc.! I'm really looking forward to two things: getting some color on this scenery, and getting tracks laid so I can see some motion here! And I hope you'll enjoy getting there too. Soon I hope to write up some more background stuff to provide more context for the project. But I appreciate you all!
 

 
 

Jack, it's not clear from the photos and I didn't take any while assembling the benchwork, but it is a modified L-girder approach. The support frames are L-girders, on which the modules sit. I can always screw the modules down onto their support frames (though the L-girders) if desired, but it hasn't been necessary as they sit comfortably of their own accord and not screwing them in makes it easier to move them around as I continue work. But someday when I declare things "done" I'll probably drive a few holding screws in and then it becomes a really solid construction. 
 
Also, I've used homasote in the past but chose not to this time. Thanks for your perspectives!

Yep, I never claimed to invent the concept! And in fairness, modularity imposes design constraints that a permanent arrangement doesn't. We'll probably delve into that whenever I take the time to write up the background design story.

Ian, great story, that's exactly why I'm taking this modular approach. I don't want to "ruin" this room and I don't want to have to throw everything out one day. This way a variety of outcomes are possible, from some or all of the scenes ending up in various local historical museums (of which we have several along this corridor), to possibly finding a new home with someone else. And if it does have to go to the landfill, it'll be a lot easier than ripping stuff off the walls and dismantling a messy web of permanent benchwork.
 
 

OK, let's try to catch up on the other work that's been done so far. I started trying to write up some deeper background about layout design, development, historical/geographic settings, etc. and it just got away from me, so for now we're going to focus on the more mundane physical details.
 
The Rocheport scene is built on two modules, each 5.5' long for a total length of 11'. The depth of scene (to the backdrop) is about 2' on both, though the left-hand one curves outward to accommodate a possible future curve back around the other way, and also to add more scenic interest. One rule of thumb in model railroad planning is not to lay everything too straight; subtle changes in direction add visual interest. Here's an early view of the benchwork showing how each module is its own unit, set on top of separate support structures. They're bolted together in the middle and I can take either one off its supports independently if I want to work on it in a different setting or at a different angle (such as tilted onto its side for track wiring beneath the surface or taken outside for messy painting).

If you're wondering about the wood color, most of it is Eastern Red Cedar that I cut and milled on my rural Missouri homestead farm. That'll be a theme in this project, using as much local/natural material as I can, especially for scenery. The backdrop supports are cheap pine 1x3s that I had sitting around from a long-ago project; I'm using them to use them up because they're perfect for this. The darker wood like the legs is also cedar, just older and weathered; those are reused pieces from an old chicken coop I built years ago and no longer need.
 
The benchwork is solid framed boxes, with the actual surface being plywood supported on risers. This allows for two things: (1) scenery below track level like rivers and (2) easier access for wiring later. Here are a couple early views of transferring my computer-drawn track plan onto cheap plywood sheets (which I reused from a shipping crate rather than buying new). The joint between the two modules is just to the left of the depot.


As the photos suggest, I did 95% of the woodworking down in my garage woodshop (and some outdoors when winter weather allowed). This is one of many benefits of the modular system; I can build these where all my tools are and then transport them upstairs to a more finished room, rather than turning a finished room into a construction zone for months.
 
Once I had the exact track routes laid out, I made patterns and cut new pieces from  high-end plywood to support the actual trackbed and core town areas. This ensures that the important surfaces are smooth and flat, but saves money from making everything out of good plywood. The cheap plywood remains as the base for things like rivers and other scenic areas that don't need to be perfect. Below are a few more views showing how these surfaces interact and how the risers aid in setting up scenery.
 



Another reason to do it this way is that I can alter the level of the crappy plywood to create subtle changes in land surface even for areas I want mostly flat. If you look closely at the preceding and following photos you'll see that the crappy plywood doesn't quite line up with the flat high-end roadbed. There's a long, subtle climb in the surrounding "land" surface from below track level at the right end (near the depot) to above track level at the left end (near the bridge). This fits the actual landscape through Rocheport, where the track is a bit elevated over the surrounding floodplain at the town's east end, but goes through a shallow (but noticeable) cut as it approaches the bridge/tunnel combination at the west end. The "level" point where they're both even falls where a road crosses all the tracks, just visible at the left-hand side of one of the photos. These kind of details help keep a model railroad from looking like it's laid on a plywood tabletop. Even the flattest of landscapes, like the river floodplain this setting is, have local variations.
 



The last photo also shows my scratchbuilt bridge abutments (good plywood airbrushed and weathered) and initial framing for the tunnel. The scene is set up so the tunnel provides a natural transition through the backdrop. Lots of railroads don't have tunnels so conveniently placed, but this one does!
 
This has gotten long so I'll stop there. In a future post I'll show how I started developing the more complex landscape surfaces such as the riverbanks and the hills/bluffs rising above the tracks. Thanks for your patience as I catch up to real-time on this!
 

Continuing the scenery, I began working on the more robust parts of the landscape by installing webs of cardboard strips shaped to roughly outline the terrain I wanted. This is a tried and true method that gives a lot of flexibility and uses easily scavenged material. It'll be hard to recognize in photos but, as a geologist, I put a lot of thought and planning into shaping this terrain to match the real landscape here. As stated before, Rocheport is bookended to the west by a high ridge that the railroad tunneled right through, and to the east by a long series of high bluffs parallel to the Missouri River, with the rail line sandwiched between rock and river.



With the webbing done to my liking (including some adjustments), I began using plaster cloth to make a solid base layer. The old-school way to do this was to mix up your own plaster and dip paper towels in it, but this was always super-messy and hard to get amounts right. The more modern approach involves various products that embed a light paper roll with dry plaster, and all you have to do is dip it in water. Virtually no mess and a lot easier to do.
 




You may have noticed the odd rectangular indentation in the bluff on the far right side of the scene. That's a specific local feature; the limestone in this region is pockmarked with karst features like caves, springs, etc. I'll be including some minor examples on the bluffs, but there was/is a larger cave-entrance overhang at the base of the bluffs right along the tracks. When this line was being built, the railroad walled in this opening to use as an explosives storage area. It remains today as a notable landmark along the modern rail trail, and I just had to include it. Here's what it looks like today:

So that'll be a fun mini-scratchbuild!
 
Next stage in the scenery is to start using plaster to really form the bedrock bluffs, river banks, and essentially seal in the landscape the way I want. This will take a while.
 
Other notes:
- I didn't really photograph the process, but you'll notice that the backdrops were installed. They're currently primed but I won't finish them until more foreground scenery is done.
- You'll also notice that I installed the fascia boards that seal in the front of the layout. Like the backdrop, I won't paint these until more scenery is done.
- The bluff on the left side, through which the tunnel runs, is pretty close to the actual scale height of the ridge there. It looks a bit "model railroad" if you don't realize it's exactly how the real thing is.
- The bluffs on the right side, along the Missouri River, are less than half the scale height of the real thing (on the layout they're a scale 90-100' high, in real life they're 200-300'). They still look a bit abrupt because of the horizontal shortening I had to do, and one of the scenic challenges here was finding the balance between making this scenery dramatic enough to capture the feel of the real thing, but not so dramatic that it looks "fake". I wish I had four more feel of horizontal space to make a really nice run of bluffs, the real railroad parallels these towering features for miles, but this is the best I can do.
 
Thanks for all the likes, comments, input, stories, etc.! I'm really looking forward to two things: getting some color on this scenery, and getting tracks laid so I can see some motion here! And I hope you'll enjoy getting there too. Soon I hope to write up some more background stuff to provide more context for the project. But I appreciate you all!
 

 
 

Continuing the scenery, I began working on the more robust parts of the landscape by installing webs of cardboard strips shaped to roughly outline the terrain I wanted. This is a tried and true method that gives a lot of flexibility and uses easily scavenged material. It'll be hard to recognize in photos but, as a geologist, I put a lot of thought and planning into shaping this terrain to match the real landscape here. As stated before, Rocheport is bookended to the west by a high ridge that the railroad tunneled right through, and to the east by a long series of high bluffs parallel to the Missouri River, with the rail line sandwiched between rock and river.



With the webbing done to my liking (including some adjustments), I began using plaster cloth to make a solid base layer. The old-school way to do this was to mix up your own plaster and dip paper towels in it, but this was always super-messy and hard to get amounts right. The more modern approach involves various products that embed a light paper roll with dry plaster, and all you have to do is dip it in water. Virtually no mess and a lot easier to do.
 




You may have noticed the odd rectangular indentation in the bluff on the far right side of the scene. That's a specific local feature; the limestone in this region is pockmarked with karst features like caves, springs, etc. I'll be including some minor examples on the bluffs, but there was/is a larger cave-entrance overhang at the base of the bluffs right along the tracks. When this line was being built, the railroad walled in this opening to use as an explosives storage area. It remains today as a notable landmark along the modern rail trail, and I just had to include it. Here's what it looks like today:

So that'll be a fun mini-scratchbuild!
 
Next stage in the scenery is to start using plaster to really form the bedrock bluffs, river banks, and essentially seal in the landscape the way I want. This will take a while.
 
Other notes:
- I didn't really photograph the process, but you'll notice that the backdrops were installed. They're currently primed but I won't finish them until more foreground scenery is done.
- You'll also notice that I installed the fascia boards that seal in the front of the layout. Like the backdrop, I won't paint these until more scenery is done.
- The bluff on the left side, through which the tunnel runs, is pretty close to the actual scale height of the ridge there. It looks a bit "model railroad" if you don't realize it's exactly how the real thing is.
- The bluffs on the right side, along the Missouri River, are less than half the scale height of the real thing (on the layout they're a scale 90-100' high, in real life they're 200-300'). They still look a bit abrupt because of the horizontal shortening I had to do, and one of the scenic challenges here was finding the balance between making this scenery dramatic enough to capture the feel of the real thing, but not so dramatic that it looks "fake". I wish I had four more feel of horizontal space to make a really nice run of bluffs, the real railroad parallels these towering features for miles, but this is the best I can do.
 
Thanks for all the likes, comments, input, stories, etc.! I'm really looking forward to two things: getting some color on this scenery, and getting tracks laid so I can see some motion here! And I hope you'll enjoy getting there too. Soon I hope to write up some more background stuff to provide more context for the project. But I appreciate you all!
 

 
 

Continuing the scenery, I began working on the more robust parts of the landscape by installing webs of cardboard strips shaped to roughly outline the terrain I wanted. This is a tried and true method that gives a lot of flexibility and uses easily scavenged material. It'll be hard to recognize in photos but, as a geologist, I put a lot of thought and planning into shaping this terrain to match the real landscape here. As stated before, Rocheport is bookended to the west by a high ridge that the railroad tunneled right through, and to the east by a long series of high bluffs parallel to the Missouri River, with the rail line sandwiched between rock and river.



With the webbing done to my liking (including some adjustments), I began using plaster cloth to make a solid base layer. The old-school way to do this was to mix up your own plaster and dip paper towels in it, but this was always super-messy and hard to get amounts right. The more modern approach involves various products that embed a light paper roll with dry plaster, and all you have to do is dip it in water. Virtually no mess and a lot easier to do.
 




You may have noticed the odd rectangular indentation in the bluff on the far right side of the scene. That's a specific local feature; the limestone in this region is pockmarked with karst features like caves, springs, etc. I'll be including some minor examples on the bluffs, but there was/is a larger cave-entrance overhang at the base of the bluffs right along the tracks. When this line was being built, the railroad walled in this opening to use as an explosives storage area. It remains today as a notable landmark along the modern rail trail, and I just had to include it. Here's what it looks like today:

So that'll be a fun mini-scratchbuild!
 
Next stage in the scenery is to start using plaster to really form the bedrock bluffs, river banks, and essentially seal in the landscape the way I want. This will take a while.
 
Other notes:
- I didn't really photograph the process, but you'll notice that the backdrops were installed. They're currently primed but I won't finish them until more foreground scenery is done.
- You'll also notice that I installed the fascia boards that seal in the front of the layout. Like the backdrop, I won't paint these until more scenery is done.
- The bluff on the left side, through which the tunnel runs, is pretty close to the actual scale height of the ridge there. It looks a bit "model railroad" if you don't realize it's exactly how the real thing is.
- The bluffs on the right side, along the Missouri River, are less than half the scale height of the real thing (on the layout they're a scale 90-100' high, in real life they're 200-300'). They still look a bit abrupt because of the horizontal shortening I had to do, and one of the scenic challenges here was finding the balance between making this scenery dramatic enough to capture the feel of the real thing, but not so dramatic that it looks "fake". I wish I had four more feel of horizontal space to make a really nice run of bluffs, the real railroad parallels these towering features for miles, but this is the best I can do.
 
Thanks for all the likes, comments, input, stories, etc.! I'm really looking forward to two things: getting some color on this scenery, and getting tracks laid so I can see some motion here! And I hope you'll enjoy getting there too. Soon I hope to write up some more background stuff to provide more context for the project. But I appreciate you all!
 

 
 

And here I thought the drop saw was a mythical shop tool used by the legendary drop bear...