I just finished the first run of ballasted track work on the layout. Micro Engineering code 40 was used as the basis. Every fifteenth tie or so was removed and a pc tie soldered in place for stability. Once this was done, I took a number 11 blade and shaved all of the spike heads off to improve appearance and flange clearance. Ties were air brushed with light gray acrylics and then stained with burnt umber artist oils followed by an india ink wash. The rail was air brushed with burnt umber.
The first structure for the N scale Brooklyn Terminal is now complete. Specifically, a representation of the old Bush Terminal facility at 1st Avenue and 48th Street in Brooklyn. As with previous layouts, the model consists of photographs of the prototype, manipulated with photo editing software and then affixed to a braced styrene core. Stand off details such as roof details, conduits, scuppers, and drain pipess were added to increase depth. The platform consists of Northeastern Scale lumber siding glued to a piece of quarter inch MDF and stained with Model Master US Army Helo Drab and Burnt Umber.
The first scene to be developed on the Brooklyn Terminal layout will be the corner of the layout near the freight house and interchange tracks. The freight house model is based primarily on the Bush Terminal Facility that existed on First Avenue. I was a little surprised that a scan of an image in the Flagg book was entirely usable for the photo wallpaper technique. I used .040″ styrene for the sides which is much thinner than I usually go…easy to cut but the consistency of leather so it needed to be fortified somehow. I had some 1/8″ thick aluminum bar laying around the shop so I cut that up with a hacksaw (hacksaw blade in a saber saw. Wear eye protection when cutting) and glued it to the back of the styrene walls with CA. Problem solved. The aluminum backing added the necessary rigidity and then some.
Recently David, one of my blog followers, wrote to ask how deep my foreground structures were (six inches to get to the point). David’s question made me realize that the spacing in the above photo is something I gave an enormous amount of thought to but never really wrote about. In terms of composition, the spacing was one of the more important artistic decisions to be made. There wasn’t a magic formula used to arrive at the above numbers but rather a lot of testing with mock ups and trial and error, in other words the “eyeball” test.
Clearly the depth of the structures is very compressed but because of the viewing angle it’s not that noticeable. Again, I did a fair amount of testing to see how much compression I could get away with before things started looking odd. As you look at the above photo the most important dimension isn’t the foreground, it’s the depth of the structures in the back (between the backdrop and rail). I settled on six inches in this case. There is a natural tendency in our space starved world to make background structures very shallow….from just an inch or two down to a pure flat. Unless you can hide the edge point where the structure meets the backdrop such a narrow treatment looks very “model railroady” Also notice that rather than running the street into the backdrop, which never really works visually, I made use of a “T” intersection (the road running back “Tees” into a road in the background running left to right). The background road running left to right road is highly compressed but because of the viewing angle that compression isn’t obvious.
The approach a modeler takes to track detail depends on a number of factors and personal preferences. Two of them are the volume of track that needs to be detailed and how far away you’ll be standing when you look at the rail. Obviously, if you have several hundred feet of track, hand laying with individual tie plates becomes pretty impractical! Secondly, if you’re only going to view the work with the naked eye, and possible from several feet away, any time spent on fine scaling things isn’t going to produce noticeable results. If, however, the amount of track you’re working with is a manageable volume, then spending more time detailing it becomes more feasible. If you plan to take up close and personal photographs, oversize rail and spikes, previously un-noticed from normal viewing distances, really stand out. In N scale, the extra heft of code 55 becomes pretty noticeable when you zoom the camera in. Flex track spikes also tend to be very large.
I’ve written a number of times on the advantages of getting a layout up and running quickly and, to that end, quickly tacking down some temporary flex track allows you to enjoy your layout while you’re detailing smaller sections. Since there isn’t that much exposed rail on the Brooklyn Terminal project to begin with, and I’m already operational with the Peco code 80 track I put down, I have the luxury of doubling back and detailing the rail one small section at a time.
Micro Engineering’s code 40 flex track does give a very nice look for the N scaler modeling secondary track. You run into two issues though. First, many locomotives, particularly older ones, have larger flanges that ride up on the spikes. Second, in a tighter angle photo, the spikes still are pretty large. In short, the problem is the spikes, not the rest of the track. To get around this I’ve set up a system of removing the spikes on the flex track. First, I solder in some PC ties to keep the track in gauge once the spikes are removed. Next, I run a number 11 blade down the web shearing off the spike heads. A few passes with a file knocks down any high spots I might of missed. When you’re done, although the spike heads are still there they don’t jump out in photos, most locomotives will easily glide down the rail, and you still have the nice looking tie plates molded onto the ties.