CN Yellowhead Division

[Cajonpassfan]

Coming together very nicely, Scott, you know I'm a fan
Otto

[Scottl]

Thanks @Cajonpassfan and everyone for feedback.  Good to get some other sets of eyes with color selection.

[mark.hinds]

For large bodies of deep water (ocean), the blue color is largely due to reflection from the sky, IIRC, especially at lower angles.  To a lesser degree, this can apply to rivers, from lower angles.  So as a final check, you might want to compare the relationship of sky and river on your layout, with photos showing that relationship.  Just a thought...

EDIT:  Yeah, I know my layout has no scenery yet, but I've put a lot of thought into water color in connection with miniatures gaming, over the years, FWIW. 

MH

[Scottl]

The river changes a lot during the year.  During my May 2023 field research trip, there was a little sediment so the river had a bit of green cast and more blue/darker near the banks.  I'm still trying to get comfortable with the color, but prototype photos don't lie.



I did some experiments with a higher light block to deal with pesky shadows.  Unfortunately, with four ceiling lights, there are going to be four sets of shadows so the key is to minimize them.  Putting up a 4' upper light block addresses the most annoying shadows but there are fainter shadows from the other lights that are now evident.  I'll need to extend the light block to the end of the peninsula, almost 8'.  I think I will paint it the white wall color rather than sky blue.

Extending the light block the full length of the peninsula will shift the shadows from the blue sky where they are evident to the mountain slope on the right where they are basically invisible.  But isolating this bay of the room leaves me with too little light so I need to replace the fixture with something more powerful.


In the other bay, the shadows are mostly gone but again, extending the light block will put the remaining shadows in a place where they are less evident.

[basementcalling]

Scott, this is my favorite layout build thread right now. The Yellowhead Sub is a scenic wonder, and you've definitely got the skill to recreate its magnificence in miniature. Looks like you found a holy grail of model railroading: an interesting to operate prototype segment in a beautiful location.

I'm in awe of what you are doing. Shouldn't be given your Stony Creek bridge layout, but my gosh, man, this is looking epic.

[mark.hinds]

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I did some experiments with a higher light block to deal with pesky shadows.  Unfortunately, with four ceiling lights, there are going to be four sets of shadows so the key is to minimize them.  Putting up a 4' upper light block addresses the most annoying shadows but there are fainter shadows from the other lights that are now evident.  I'll need to extend the light block to the end of the peninsula, almost 8'.  I think I will paint it the white wall color rather than sky blue.

Extending the light block the full length of the peninsula will shift the shadows from the blue sky where they are evident to the mountain slope on the right where they are basically invisible.  But isolating this bay of the room leaves me with too little light so I need to replace the fixture with something more powerful.

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One idea is to put lighting behind a valence, using LED strips.  You then add slanted louvers every few inches, to make sure shadows are consistent, left to right.  I mocked this up many years ago, with fluorescent fixtures.  It worked pretty well, except shadows for stuff right near the front edge were more vertical (lit from above) than shadows for stuff farther back (lit from the front), but I don't plan to have much right on the front edge, so that was a minor issue.  My layout plan is much simpler than yours, so this not might work for you. 

Agree with the previous poster on the quality of your concept and execution; this is obviously going to end up in at least one magazine. 

MH

[Scottl]

Thanks for the feedback.  I had wanted to avoid valences because I hit my head on them when I bend in to look at the trains- the problem of being tall.  I didn't really think much about this when I built the room and just put four ceiling lights in.  As it worked out, they are mostly over the aisle areas so they illuminate from behind in most locations, but one spot is just a bit dim for my liking.  I could up the power of the light in that area but it would likely over-power one spot.  Alternatively, I could put in a more linear or elongate fixture, like a rectangle panel or LED strip lights. But the upper light block seems to deal with the worst of the shadows cast from the remaining lights in the room.  It also gives the benefit of giving the operator some isolation so the space feels bigger (even though it is actually chopping it up in to smaller spaces...).

Whatever I do, I don't want to compromise the ceiling drywall as I want to be able to cleanly remove the layout when we leave this house (7-10 years from now is the plan). 

The lesson learned: make the backdrop higher, to the ceiling if possible.  I upped the backdrop from 18" to 24" for this layout and now regret not going the extra 19" to the ceiling everywhere.  Hardboard for the backdrop is probably the cheapest part of the construction so the default should be to max it out.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Ok, so hear me out... LED or LCD panels.

[Scottl]

That is crazy neat.  He is a very creative modeler, to say the least.  The problem is that that kind of gizmo stuff works where you are exaggerating the scene in every visual sense.

[Scottl]

More progress with the fascia all mounted.  I need to trim the profile top but that is going to be messy and dusty so I'll have to put the trains away.  That will give me an excuse to do a bunch of final "construction" items that I have had on hold.

I've also finalized the upper light block and will paint it before installation.  To deal with my light issue in the one bay area, I will replace the offending light with a pair of 2' LED strips to give a wider source and higher light output.

[Scottl]

I roughed in two 2'-18W 4K LED light sticks in the bay with insufficient lighting and solved the problem perfectly. These were the brand that @Ed Kapuscinski had posted about some time ago- great suggestion!  There are now about 4X the lumens in this space and it is like night and day for evenness and brightness.  And with the upper light block, there are no pesky shadows anywhere.

Now the problem is that I need to upgrade the lights for the rest of the layout, lol.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

That is crazy neat.  He is a very creative modeler, to say the least.  The problem is that that kind of gizmo stuff works where you are exaggerating the scene in every visual sense.

Right? Generally I'd hate his type of thing, but it's just so well done.

In your case, obviously, you don't need ghosts appearing in the water, but if MIGHT be a cool way to get the right reflection/color effects.

Of course, I say this because I wouldn't be the one doing it, lol.

[Scottl]

I definitely gave it some thought.  The idea is intriguing, but I couldn't figure out how to get an LCD panel large enough for my needs.  I have a small river you can see in the picture above on the left that might be well suited for a screen underneath.  Lots of cool options.  I'm going to let the idea ferment.

[Scottl]

I've put the trains safely away so I can finish trimming the fascia and do some other work that is messy.

One thing I wanted to do while the yard was empty was to scope out how I will depict Jasper townsite and some of the iconic buildings.  I have about 1' between the track and the backdrop and I was hoping to include elements of the main street through town.

The station area is where I need to figure things out.  The station itself is an iconic structure and all of the other CN buildings match the style.  It is in a national park and the town is run by the gov't for tourists so the building is in very good shape as I am sure they require CN to maintain everything to a high standard.

The solid green box below indicates the elements I think I need to include to make it convincing:  station and associated platform and street frontage, the road with divider, and some of the buildings on the other side.  I don't have room for the opposite buildings entirely so I was expecting to have 1-2" of building flat to define the eclectic building styles (kind of a cross between Barvarian alpine and modern).  The space I have scales to the dotted green rectangle, so I need to compress things somewhat.  I think I can gain some space by narrowing the road and sidewalks a bit, while maintaining the lanes and parking.  I can also narrow the station platform a bit too, but I want to avoid making it too tight.  The station itself would ideally be a kept to scale so the rooflines don't get steepened, which leaves me probably with a bare minimum for the building flats.  I could gain a lot of space (and save a huge amount of modeling by having the buildings on the backdrop, or with some layering of the flats to impart depth ala Lance Mindheim.  Not sure how to go with it but the building backdrop will extend about 6' or so.



The other side of the yard is where the large CN crew hostel is.  It is a neat building of the same style as the station.  I basically have all the room I need here because I planned the trackwork around this, but the prototype is a bit long for the layout and I might scale it down a bit by removing part of the building indicated by the dotted green rectangle.



Otherwise, I have plenty of room for the many parking lots and park space that front the rail yard.  The problem will be populating them with cars, no small task.  There are a few other CN buildings that are smaller and in the similar style but I won't have a problem fitting them in.  There is also the display steam locomotive 6015 that I should probably do.  Maybe I can find a 3D printed static model somehow as I don't want an operating locomotive.

All in all, I think it will look pretty good.  My guess is that scratchbuilding the CN station and hostel will be best accomplished with 3D printing.

[Scottl]

Lots of housekeeping and scenery work with the trains packed away.  I'll probably keep them packed until I return from some trips in April and May, which leaves me March to advance the layout scenery.

I installed another pair of 2' 18 W LED strip lights over the yard and love the improvement with more lumens.  I'll add two more soon to bring the entire room up to the same level of lighting. 

I also mounted the turnout control push buttons on the fascia, banishing the masking tape and cleaning everything up nicely.  Some were tricky fits but everything works well and is very simple to use.  I also shaved the base foam to the correct contours for this area of the layout.  I need to add a few last rock castings but this will be ready for base scenery very soon.  I'll wait until this is done to print and mount the backdrop, so I expect that might be in June now.  We'll see.



I think I have a plan for Jasper.  One of my tasks this month will be to draw a map out to see how it fits in the layout space.  And after running the layout for a while, I have decided I will add a crossover  between tracks 4 and 5 so that I have some flexibility in operations.