Our host Gerry Leone heads for the hills in this episode of Spaces to Places! More specifically, he works a bit on the topography of the underpass area and how the highway routes through it all. Wisely, Gerry elects to make a template of his initial design, and then uses it to guide his efforts shaping up the foam scenery for this segment of his HO scale Bona Vista model railroad.
Want to see more of Gerry’s work on a classic, familiar format? Look for his Turning Spaces into Places Vol. 1: Rural Scenery DVD, available from the KalmbachHobbyStore.com!
Gerry,
Back when I was into R/C airplanes, Modelers talked about cutting foam wings from Styrofoam with the Hot Wire and that the process generated gases that weren’t good for us. Do you turn up the ventilation in your train Room when you’re cutting foam; or, does the foam not create bad gasses, now?
Gerry, What brand of “Foam Safe Glue” are you using? Is it a liquid or a paste like caulking?
The brand I use is Loctite PL300 FOAMBOARD. It comes in 12” caulking-type tube, and also comes in smaller squeeze-type packages. But it says right on the packagee, “Safe for foam insulation.” There’s also another type of adhesive from Loctite that’s a general adhesive, but the package says it’s safe for foam insulation, too. One of those two will work great.
Why would the road go under the two tracks then cross them at grade? Perhaps the road could go behind the brewry.
My question too.
It’s just simple topography, guys. There was probably a small valley at the base of that hill and it was easier for the Department of Transportation to create an underpass there, rather than fill in the valley with soil. But you have to use your imagination — maybe the grade crossing is a mile away from the underpass. After all, we only have a few scale miles of track that we’re “pretending” is a railroad’s division, so we use what the literary folks call “willing suspension of disbelief” to serve industries that are barely bigger than a boxcar, to economically pull 8-car freight trains, and climb grades that no prototype could handle. The bottom line is this: to me, it looked good and feasible and was a great way to fill in otherwise useless space inside of a 180-degree curve!
Thanks Gerry – another great episode. I know you mentioned you wanted to have more of a gradual slope to the new area down to the road – but from the camera angle of the video I think there is a nice transition from the completed sloping scenery on the right to the area of the brewery on the left.
Do you envision more of a rural grade crossing where the road crosses the mainline and the yard lead with maybe just lights and no crossing gates?