Updated layout plan

The connection between the the N.P. and the Grants Pass Western was redesigned. Instead of joining direct into Grants Pass, which created a reversing loop, the N. P. Now loops around a new transfer yard to join into the Grants Pass Western, just before in enters Grants Pass. Now the exchange of rolling stock between the 2 railroads will be in the new transfer yard.

The GPW runs from staging to Pelican Bay, from Pelican Bay through O'Brien, Cave Junction, past Waldo, and on to Grants Pass.
The NP runs from Grants Pass to staging.

Dirt road experiment.

First off, I think most roads I have seen modeled, are too rocky. My go to is powered local clay. The trouble is to get it smooth and keep it that way while gluing it. In my previous project, ballasting the transfer yard in Grants Pass,  I needed a road to the maintenance shed. Sprinkling the powdered clay and wetting and gluing it caused it to puddle. Spreading the soupy clay with my finger left unnatural ridge lines, but what else could be done? I have had good success brushing soupy drywall compound for river bottoms, so why not soupy clay? As it happens there are lots of gravel roads to be done. So after wetting and adding my glue mixture to some clay I painted the road with it. I should have painted the plaster Brown first, as some of the white plaster showed through.

Well that seems to have worked so back to road to the maintenance shed. Although it had dried some, the brush did smooth it out, but left many little striations behind. We will see what they look like when they dry.

 Well that didn't work, should have known it would dry and crack.

The 'ruts' left by the brush look not bad.

Union Pacific Transfer Yard.

Today's project was to start ballasting the transfer yard in Grants Pass. I started with pouring out my ballast onto the tracks and spreading it out with a small paint brush. When I do an area that has a lot of turnouts I only do up to them, they will be done individually later. I then add my 50 50 white glue mixture, don't forget to add a couple of drops of dish soap to the glue mixture. Once all the ballast has been glued I apply a thin coat of blended turf along the edges of the ballast. The excess glue and water help pre-wet the turf holding it in place to spray it with water and applying glue. I always respray everywhere I have glued so no glue puddles on the ties or foliage. The yard looked good, but lacked a signature scene. A curved area between the yard and the mainline called out, "I'm flat and ugly." A little maintenance shed, a rack of old, rusty rails, a pickup and a couple of people and "voila". Hmm, a little triangle outside the curve is just sitting there, a great spot to add some elevation to the scene. A small rock casting set on top of the otherwise flat landscape filled the spot. There is very little flat land in nature so I jump at the chance to add hills or gullies where I can. More items are still to be added, it will be left to dry for now.

Note. I like to pose people like they are doing something like talking, as in this scene. Yellow grass patches. and small clumps of bushes also add interest.

The rock has been mudded into place, and is waiting to be painted when it dries. When adding molded rocks like this, I try to continue and extend the shapes out from the casting. This helps ground it into the scenery.

Engine house at Grants Pass

After having bought this structure at a train show many years ago I finally got around to weathering it.

 Without any weathering, but lots of dust.

 The bricks have been painted with a thin wash of very light grey. The closed in arched door was painted a different shade of red to highlight the difference and it's man door was painted to match all the other doors.

 Smoke marks were added over the engine doors. The lights on the maintenance shed were painted green and the roof was rusted down.

Finished Building back on the layout, after a application of Hunter Line black weathering mix. After that dried the roof was dusted with a rust coloured powder.

N.P.R. yard.

The Northern Pacific R.decided that their crews were taking too long to to switch their freight in the confines of the yard at Grants Pass, so they built a new interchange just out side the city. This yard will be used to drop off freight for the G.P.W. and to pick up freight going back to the N.P.R.

What the new track arrangement does is to make the layout one large folded dog bone. Which is great for continuous running. I will still operate it as a point to point layout. The N.P.R. will operate from Grants Pass to it's transfer yard which feeds Medford and Portland. The G.P.W will operate from Grants Pass to the Port.
The benchwork and track is completed, next wiring, oh the joy.

New map of the GPW

Main Control Panel

The main control panel wasn't labelled nor painted, so I decided to make a styrene face for it, which would be applied over top of the wood one. Using the wood panel as a template all the holes and cutouts were cut into the new styrene panel. It was then labelled where needed.

The 4 rotary switches select which 1 of 3 cabs power each of the 4 divisions. There is a plug in for 2 of the cabs. A DPDT switch selects where the turntable gets its power from, either the N. P. Or the port division. 

Editors note. The third cab will be a power pack, mostly used for testing and troubleshooting.  The numbers and letters are from a peel and stick lettering sheet from Walmart.  There are 2 smaller panels. Panel 1 is at Grants Pass and also has 2 plug ins and a DPDT switch to select power from either N.P. or the main division.  Panel 2 controls O'Brien in a like manner.