McDonald's farm

The scenery is now taking shape around the new Cave Junction. I had to start from the back, so McDonald's farm was set up with fences a wind mill and cows. A few more details and it will be done. Now I have to wait for Slade's Assay Office to arrive.

The cows look happy this evening.

More scenery added

Painted the river that now runs through Cave Junction and did a base coat in the new town area. Cut stone abutments were added for a new trestle over Trappers Gulch and areas for the bents were created there. Next the Anderson Creek area was worked on. As it stood the trestle would have looked like a box, with all the bents the same height. This didn't look right to me so the landscape was revised.  First the old road bed was removed and terraces were added to both side of the gorge. Now the bents will step down in a more natural fashion. The terraces were created by placing smaller and smaller pieces of ceiling tiles on top of each other, like the tiers on a cake. These were then plastered over and stone ridges were cut in as the plaster dried, giving a shale like look. Anderson creek was repaired and now has a small waterfall that tumbles down into the McDonald farm area.

had to add more land to support track

refitting the stamping plant

new trestle and approaches

revised Anderson Creek area and trestle

painted river through Cave Junction

New buildings for Cave Junction

There will be 7 or so new buildings added to Cave Junction area. The landscape has been set up to put them in place and the new stream channel finished.

birds eye view

track level view

Natural stone wall

I wanted to create the natural stone river crossing in the puzzle, Silver Belle Run so I used a piece from a tin foil tray, as it is quite heavy, to hand draw in the stones. I used the back of a small paint brush to burnish in the stones. I cast two walls before I remembered that they needed to be curved, so I cast 2 more. Fitting them in place was the hardest part.

tin foil mold

a little too big

fitted into place

got to use one of the straight ones

in place and first coat of paint

Main line reopened

It was almost like the real thing, cutting and hacking, levelling and regrading, down the back side of Eight Dollar Mountain to O'Brien. Need to build 3 new trestles and 2 road bridges and a lot of scenery to be redone. Now that this protect is well underway I am pleased with the results so far, at first I had may doubts, but I love building on the fly.

start of the down hill to O'Brien

still need to remove old road bed

new rock took up some of the farm land

this section is waiting on a cut stone wall

Cave Junction update

For the most part the track is back down. The new streams and roads are roughed in and I'm happy with their placement. Flat areas, most at different levels have been created. I think it now looks more like the landscape of a town in the mountains. I still have to repair and scenic the hole in the wall.

new town layout

rock wall extended for turn into the new tunnel

holes I the wall need to repaired and tunnel entrance designed

Silver Belle Run

It all started innocently enough, looking at a puzzle by Ted Blaylock called Silver Belle Run. There it was, a crazy thought that it would be nice to have a railroad built around Blaylocks series of train puzzles.  Not that I could pull that off, but I have never liked the fact that I can't follow my train around the middle peninsula, as it goes through a tunnel back to the other side.  After a couple of false starts, I came up with the plan to use a loop back behind Cave Junction, connecting to the logging branch. This loop will have a place for the stone bridge featured in the puzzle, now how to build it.

The track loops around through the wall and back out on the right side of the picture.