It's been way too long

 Lots to catch up on.

     I have been delinquent for far to many month and guilty of not keeping this blog more current. So in an endevour to get back on track I will post as many images I feel necessary to show the progress on the D&RGW Monarch Branch.

     Starting with the scenery I have been able to complete in the town of Poncha Junction. Some of the background buildings you might catch a glimpse of are just sitting in no particular place. Most of the scenery base is complete as far back as the back track with all ballasting completed. Lots of work still to be done with the addition of a stock yard along with a few industries.

The sidewalk here was made board by board in situ.

      The next lot of images where taken whilst adding scenery at the end of the peninsular. Lots of static grass which varied in lengths and colour to get an autumnal look. Several Sage bush trunks with super tree bits added, the last lot of home made pines, lots of scrubs and bits and pieces of broken tree branches and finally a good dusting of snow which I have wanted to do for years.

     What a difference a few hours makes when you get in the mood.

     For the snow I used two products, first some AK Interactive paste followed by a dusting of a product used mostly by military modellers called Krycell which is extremely fine. The AK is made up of two of their snow products and were just placed where I wanted drifts to settle. The Krycell was the dusted from the top using a very fine meshed sift.

    I think this end has turned out pretty good considering how long it took to get started.

    Next areas to start on is the town of Cedar Creek just around the corner and Poncha Junction that needs to be finished. That will happen when the weather gets back to being a little warmer.

Thank you for dropping by.

Rod.

Gunnison Finally Complete (well almost)

 Was able to get most of the scenery done.

     Almost there, most of the scenery is now finished in the yard of Gunnison bar for completing the finishing touches to the water tower. This just needs the water spout added and then the whole assembly can finally be cemented in place.

    Barry very kindly donated the sanding facility and stock yard from his last layout and these two pieces fitted right in.

    Assembled and kit bashed several Walthers kits to represent the Conoco Fuel Distributor facility and made several trees for the back of the yard.

The images that follow show where the yard is at as of today.

This is an in process shot as lots more detail was added.

   Well that has me pretty well caught up with the progress on the Monarch Branch. I have started to add ground cover to Poncha Junction so until the next time, thanks for stopping by.

Rod.

A new HOn3 layout in town

 Barry's new RGS HOn3 layout 

     Good friend and one of two close friends who are well into HOn3 has well and truly started his new layout based on the RGS.

     Due to Covid 19 lock-down here in Melbourne none of us have been able to catch up with his progress since the start of July this year. The last time we got to see his layout all of his track was down and trains were able to run. 

     Barry has graciously allowed me to post images of some of his work so here we go.

    All of the fascia is installed as to all of the control panels at each town.

    Scenery has been started with roughing in the terrain with plans for two scratch built trestles at the end of one of the peninsulas.

 

This is the site of Vance Junction

     Some background painting at the back of Vance Junction has been completed along with placement of buildings along with some trees and ground cover.

    There are a lot more images however these will be used in a video to be shot of the layout once we can all get out of lock-down.

    Thanks for stopping by.

Rod.

Working in Gunnison

 Whilst in lock-down and Winter.

     It gets cold in my Garage where the Monarch Branch is housed however with the addition of carpet tiles some months ago that has helped. The gift of a high wattage fan heater has helped also so during winter and lock-down I thought I should try and get some more work started on the RR.

    First order of business was to fill in the gaps left where I had laid cork for the track in the yard. Big mistake, I should have just laid a full sheet which would have made that job redundant. Never the less using paper to get templates of what was needed the job didn't take that long at all.

    I decided to use several different grades and colours of ballast I had gathered for the yard trying not to make it look to even. White glue was spread and on went the ballast, track first then the bare ground.

   Using my air brush I then set about spraying various shades of AK Acrylic paints, Ash Grey, Sooty Black and Smoke Black over the ballast blending as I went.

   Once dry I then got out my trusty static grass applicator and proceeded to add various shades of dry grass around one side of the yard and a small amount near some tracks. Greener grass was added near the location of the water tank ( yet to be finished).

   More to be done like the addition of buildings for the Conoco Oil dealer, Stock yard and any others that I think will fit.

   Just a couple of pics to see the progress thus far.

 

K27 458 sitting over the scratch built ash pit.

     Well that's about it for this post. 

Thank you to every one old or new who has stopped by for a look it is very much appreciated.

Rod.