Ready to Lay Track

FINALLY! Yesterday, we had a quick but productive work session.

Benchwork was fully painted with our brown basecoat paint to seal the fiberboard.

Benchwork in the tunnel linking Montmorency to Villeneuve

We are particularly satisfied with the new curved fascia in Villeneuve and D'Estimauville. It really makes the scenes flow together naturally.

Villeneuve's benchwork completed. Cement plant will be located at left.

D'Estimauville's benchwork completed. Interchange "yard" will be at right.

It was also an occasion to slim down benchwork at Donahue. When it was a grain elevator, we needed lots of place to have a decent yard lead. It is not required anymore and the extra space was removed. It was a good opportunity to get rid of an annoying protuding part of benchwork. Also, better access to the appliances located under the benchwork.

Before

After

Donohue's parking lot was mudded and painted. Looks far better than the original one. Can't wait to put some soil over it.

 Riverbed also received a generous coat of paint to seal the plywood. It's not the final color! Malbaie River isn't that muddy at all! I'm also seriously thinking about replacing the central bridge pile because it isn't prototypical at all. The base should be V-shaped to reduce water erosion. Anyway, I must admit the idea of using talcum over Humbrol gloss paint on styrene isn't a very durable finish. It works well for porous material, but not on plastic which is exposed to a lot of abuse like a bridge that is often removed during scenery process. Just like any "flat" finish, it is prone to mark and scratch.

Finally, some railfanning in Clermont. Just imagine that pair of Atlas GP40 are M420 and that should be OK! I hope they will soon announce this model available in plastic. I'm pretty sure a few manufacturers are getting tired of hearing modellers asking about this particular model.

Next step will be to adjust the backdrop. We want round corners to have a better visual look. Photoshopping corners on pictures is a lot of wasted time!