Best Of Kanto Sub Division of the Puddington Valley

[Philip H]

Now tell us the secret to that hella good road sign you have front and center.

[pdx1955]

The overall effect really looks good!

If you have the ability to edit the sign text then you should probably change the "Exit Only" to "Next Right or "Rt Turn Only" as you are on a surface street rather than a free-flow facility (sorry ...its the real-life highway engineer part of me coming out  . The picture has an intersection so it looks a vehicle could turn right to head toward the highway which adds to the realism of the scene.

Peter

[Chris333]

Yes looks great! Where did you find the photo?

About the sign. Looks like you're modeling around the 1960's, did they have those green reflective signs back then?

[pdx1955]

Yes looks great! Where did you find the photo?

About the sign. Looks like you're modeling around the 1960's, did they have those green reflective signs back then?

I can't speak for Canadian roadways, but the 1961 version of the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices specified white lettering on green backgrounds for Interstate/freeway guide signs, so I would say yes for the desired timeframe.

Peter

[OldEastRR]

If that's a scanned photo you might want to try reducing it by 10% or so, so the width of the street in the picture matches the width of the layout road. The photo road looks about a lane wider as is. Reducing the size  won't hurt the visuals, the buildings and cars will just look a little farther away.

[Puddington]

If that's a scanned photo you might want to try reducing it by 10% or so, so the width of the street in the picture matches the width of the layout road. The photo road looks about a lane wider as is. Reducing the size  won't hurt the visuals, the buildings and cars will just look a little farther away.

I wondered about that too, think I'll try that. The sign is a creation (note it says Samuel Ridge, my other Sub Division) so I could alter it and the position. The green sign us correct for 1973 according to BC Min of Transport.

All in all I think we can make this work.

[Puddington]

Yes looks great! Where did you find the photo?

About the sign. Looks like you're modeling around the 1960's, did they have those green reflective signs back then?

I googled "looking down the street, 1960's"......

I can't imagine how much more bridge I'd have played and beer I'd have drunk if there had been Google when I was in University.......

[Puddington]

Two days with the young lad and a little bit of work has gotten done. First off; "rocks"... lot of them on the large east hill.....



San had great fun filling molds and playing "N scale deity" whilst deciding where to hack up the hillside and insert a large rock.... looks pretty good for his first attempt at this; I only made a couple of suggestions....

The city is done sans the roads... you can see that I've ben testing track conditions by switching;





Ironically, all the sidings are great but I still have an issue with the input side of a curved turnout; it is coming off a super elevated turn and some cars, passenger cars specifically, have a outside wheel issue... they are actually coming up off the rails at one point.... could be a low spot.... must figure that out in short order....





Smaller details are being added to parts of town. The buildings are all self contained modules; that is to say that everything comes up in large pieces so as to make it easier to work with and move to another layout some day if required. The "smooth it" roads will complete the look except for track ballasting.

Finally; an ode to that famous WW 2 flick "A Bridge Too Far"...... this is called "A Bridge to Nowhere" (Starring Huey P. Long.... obscure reference of the night)



The double track will cross onto the next module. The highway bridge hides the tunnel portal that will be at the back of the module and built into the skyboard. I haven't yet filled int he scenery but this bridge will look pretty cool with a manifest feight bursting out of the super elevated curve.... I hope....

That's all for now.............

[nkalanaga]

Puddington:  Have you seen this site?
http://www.kurumi.com/roads/signmaker/signmaker.html

I've downloaded the program, and it works fine on Windows XP. as does the online version.  It makes creating the base sign easy, then I edit the route markers in Paint, usually getting the original images for them from Wikipedia.  This is a screen grab of one of the program's images, with no editing except cropping the excess background.  The program puts them against a blue background, but that can easily be trimmed off when done.

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Of course, if you have a good graphics program, and the experience to use it, it's probably easier to do your own from scratch.

[Puddington]

The Bridge to nowhere is now a "it must go somewhere" bridge as we've now done some plastering, ground cover and forested one side of the scene....



This makes a huge difference; unless you stand at the actual west end of the layout (where you couldn't stand as it will meet another modules there someday) you can't tell that the highway doesn't continue on.... and the bridge blocks the tunnel view fairly well....





Not too bad, room for improvement but the "look" is coming along....

[Puddington]

The forestry project on the west entrance way was completed today......





A number of locomotives ran test runs successfully.....



The super elevation coupled with the sudden appearance out of the walled "shoot" makes for a dramatic entrance point..... and a great railfanning place to catch loco's and rolling stock...



More ground cover and details are still to be added....

More when there is.....

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I like it Mike!
I also really dig the rapid progress you guys are making. It takes me forever to get ANYTHING done.

[Puddington]

It's been a fun week on the Kanto Sub. Sam's busy making trees.... lots of trees for this weekend's planting party on the eastern hill. I've been building some final structures (we'll show them this weekend) ballasting and detailing the west end and cleaning up stuff in anticipation of pouring roads and adhering structures next week. Some ballasting has begun.....



I always test with passenger cars - torture test right away I say......





After running a few dozen test trains with and assortment of wheel sets I'm happy with the ballasting job and ready to move on....

Couple of different locomotives made the tests...







Finally; I couldn't help but have a little photo fun with this image - it just called out for the B&W treatment and looks, to me anyway, like something out of an old train magazine back in the 60's....



Later this weekend we'll have images of some new buildings and the station side Memorial Park and it's "aviation addition".....

[Puddington]

An incredibly good week on the Kanto Sub, due mainly to a lack of my ability to sleep through the night...

The Kanto station is finally complete; it is a CPR Type A station, modified for a sightly over sized operators window cupola.... All in all it certainly captures the look....



The downtown is almost complete; just some road signs and details to add; the Cote Esso corner is looking good; I just need to re do the under bridge photo... The commercial buildings are also complete.







I've now built all the structures needed for the Kanto sub (this half of the layout) - the largest industry in Kanto is Feuer Forest Products, a custom moulding and railing company named for a late friend. Feuer was on my previous layout but was tired so it needed some TLC. The original building and shed got re-freshed while a new shed, second plant, new loading dock and some other details were added.







With all the elements ready and the site ground cover done I can now plant the structures, dirty up the site and add details.... that will also allow me to ballast the lead.... which is what I have been working on.... I hate ballasting....



... but I like the look after it's done..... still have to black wash the ballast.... and plant the weeds....

Nice thing is, every day I've done some shunting and let me tell you; it's a tonic to the soul to be back in the train business at home....

[Puddington]

Today was amazing; Sam and I finished the ballasting of all the spurs; only the mains are left to do. Then we attacked Nichols hill; the large eastern hill that Sam had been making trees for.... Hours of glue, ground cover, rocks, dead fall, trees, trees, did I mention trees left us with a terrific looking hill... we had to run a tuscan and grey SD40 past it for testing purposes only.....











Close up photos are one of the best ways to judge your efforts; both Sam and I are happy..... a few more details and we'll be properly thrilled....

The entire layout except for the A frame and lake are done (ok; the bridge to the next module isn't done..... throw me a fricken bone will ya?..... Here's a few random images I took today.













The module is starting to look like something....



Tomorrow I'll ballast the mains and then we will screw in and paint the facia. The skyboard is Sam's next task.... that'll be fun!