Thanksgiving progress

First - I completed the overpass.  Pretty much.  For now.  The road is paved, painted and striped; the bridge girders are secured to the sides.  I like how the whole thing came out, and I expect it'll look even better with some trees, ground cover, and details someday.  I still have to figure out guardrails for the middle of the road, and eventually some traffic signals at the intersection.

Second - I "finished" painting the track.  Krylon Camouflage Flat Brown spray paint, once over each side and once down the middle, then use a rag to wipe off the top.  Then a track cleaning block to clean off any remaining paint.  I ran a train around a few times to make sure everything runs, and I'd say it's no worse than before.  And it looks good.  Even better someday when I get to ballasting....

Third - which leads us into, two steps forward one step back.  I've been annoyed by one of the turns for some time and only tonight screwed together the guts to rip it up.  Well, pry it up.  Carefully using an exacto knife, I was able to pry up the track along that area and I'm experimenting with a better arrangement.  A more gradual entrance to the turn.  Those expensive Exactrail gondolas like to hop the rails, especially entering that turn.  I thought it's best to address this now rather than after I do the ballast.

Lessons learned:

1. That Krylon paint dries faster than I had read elsewhere that it would.  Waiting 10 minutes meant it was pretty dry and I needed to use a knife to scrape off the paint.  After that, I waited maybe 30 seconds and got right to wiping it off.  Worked great from there.
2. If you can, plan to do this in the summer, when it's feasible to have all the windows open.  I picked a 45 degree day, which was as good as we're going to get in late November here.  It just meant the house was kinda cold for the day.
3. Err on the side of caution and mask/move anything remotely near where you're spraying.  It's less trouble than ruining/having to repaint something else later.

Inspiration

Besides the sites listed on the right menu, I've found some inspiration from some railroad videos.  Here are a few I came across this week.

Cleveland Steel Mill Railroading - "The Crow"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gG9hx8eFS4

I'm particularly intrigued by the short flat cars they're using to transport steel slabs.  The trick will be to find some plain steel flat cars to use that will get around some tight curves.

CP 502 in East Chicago, Indiana at Arcelor Mittal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpGkPn2WSYc

Some more short flats with steel slab loads.  Also of interest is some of the scenery - it's not completely devoid of plant life.  I'll also need to include some high tension power lines in there.

Roads to somewhere

I finished off a lot of the work on the underpass and associated roadways.  These were created with Woodland Scenics Smooth-It plaster, painted with Woodland Scenics asphalt colored top coat, and striped with Woodland Scenics striping pens.  As I found the top coat was easily scratched, when all this was done I sprayed it with a Rustoleum clear flat matte.  This gave it a little more of a shine than I would've liked but I'll balance that with the fact that it should hold up to my little nephew driving Matchbox cars on it.  I still have to attach the side girders to the overpass - these have been glued together and painted.  I'm planning to paint the track along there before I attach these, I kinda think I should do that first.

Overall I'm pleased with how this turned out.  You'd be surprised how wide a road actually is.  When you added up four lanes and a median (to allow for the turning lane at the intersection and for the road to get around the center support beams), it's a good 10 inches wide.  The road between the buildings is a little narrow, as is the parking lot for the brewery offices. I had to use a little artistic license with these to allow for room for everything.  If I could do anything different, I would work further on how to make the road more of a curved approach underneath rather than the strict ramp that it is.  It's the best I could figure out for the problem.  This scene still needs guardrails around the support columns; some more touch-up paint between the rails through the pavement; and ground cover for the embankments.  Eventually the road is going to continue into a small residential neighborhood, but that's way down the line.

Next up: painting the track.  I have the paint I need, as well as the track cleaning products too. 

Lessons learned:

1. You find you have time to work on the layout when winter is starting to show up outside, but if what you're doing involves some kind of aerosol spray, you'll need to deal with the complication of opening some windows.
2. Give some thought to intersections - all the little markings like stopping lines, crosswalks, turn lanes, etc.  Google Street View will give you the answers you need.
3. Woodland Scenics striping pens - they're a little tricky to use.  You have to vent them once by pressing down on the top part, then press it down 2-3 times until the tip fills with paint.  Except sometimes it doesn't want to flow, so you press down again, and now a ton of it blobs out. Do this over a surface other than your road.  Once it is flowing properly however, it makes a really nice (albeit narrow) straight line.  It's a big improvement over what you can do with a brush.  Your best bet is to plan out all the markings you're going to need to do so you can get the things working right and get it all done at once.