A new stream added at the lumber camp

Looking at the lumber camp buildings that I had set in place, they looked unrealistic,  or rather the terrain below them looked like a table. What was needed was elevation. After mocking up the camp there was a space between 2 bunk houses. The background in this space shows a bit of a valley, so there must be a stream there, right!
The trouble with streams is they require bridges for the track above them. A couple of logs will be what you might see in a logging camp, but not on the mainlines below. Plate girder bridge for the double mainline, and a couple of wood bridges will fit the bill for these small stream crossings.

New rock along lumber camp

New rocks added to the extension of the logging spur. The camp buildings will line the back of this extension.

 The space created by moving the camp will make room for a horse barn, back by the spar tree.

The mainline just below the lumber camp also had to be moved to make space for the new logging camp. It now snakes, realistically along the edge of the cliff.

Not to leave the mainline down to Medford untouched, I added some rock outcrops and hollows along the right of way.

The spar tree needs to be reworked, the track needs to be ballasted, the trestle bends need to be gravelled into the scenery, all the camp buildings need to be placed and scenery added. Lots of work in a 5 foot scene.

Logging camp

Decided to move the mainline over and run the logging camp track about 3 feet to the right. This will allow the train to clear the bridge and the log cars will be easy to reach. The logging camp buildings will now run along side for the new track. Scenery on both the logging line and the mainline below it will end up looking better.

Corral at Cave Junction

Started putting the town of Cave Junction back together. The first area was the Corral. All the fences were reinstalled after reworking them a bit. Now cattle can be driven across the tracks from the ranch or through town. Trees fill in gaps in the fences and add vertical  structure to the scenery.

Corral back in operation 

Long horns arriving at the Corral. 

Backdrop painting

After the revisions there were a few areas where rock castings were removed. Now that new castings have been added at a lower level the wall had to be repainted.

I had roughly covered in the area were the rock castings were removed. 

Highlighted were a stream would go with a little white paint.

A panoramic view of the area to be repainted. 

First area completed.

Second area finished. Now the streams through the scenery can be worked on.

Gravel truck arrived at Waldo

Gravel (ground clay) applied to the roads to Waldo.

The rock castings also got the first coat of paint. Nice thing is I don't have to touch up too much of the background, just paint in the road were it goes into it, and maybe some taller, foreground trees.

The stilts were added to the Boarding House. It still needs a set of stairs up to the beck. The General Store now sits on log cribbing under it's left side.

Waldo

I made the mistake of looking a some dioramas on the internet. Steve Pettit's town of Chamatiago and Laurie Greene's, Grizzly Flats, wow! I love the way the buildings run up a hill in a swooping curve.  So impressed was I that I went about replaning half of my layout to try and fit them in. After a week or so it dawned on me that I could get some of that effect by putting a little extra time and work into the layout the way it is right now.
Waldo became my focus as it was just some buildings sitting on a flat surface. As it happened the backdrop already had the contours I wanted.

The old road in front of the barn runs up a hill, then down and back up a larger hill, which slopes off to the right.

After some more contouring, plaster and rock castings were added. With some Touch up paint and other scenic material applied, this should look like a hilly country road.
There is a flat area next, where the station is. After that is the town consisting of 4 buildings. Again the old backdrop showed me what to do.
The first building, a boarding house will be on stilts where the hill drops off to the left. Then up again to the highest level of the hill where a Grocery sits and then down a bit to a shoe store. The hill drops off sharply as the road shirts an out crop of rock and runs down to a warehouse.

The area was plastered and had a rock face applied along the front of the entire hill. I'm hoping to be able to paint the backdrop to look like the road goes down behind the station, up over the new hill and drops back down into the backdrop between the rock outcrop and the wharehouse.