Turnouts are from Micro Engineering, and all feature
Hankscraft slow-action switch motors. The turnouts are wired
for DCC, and all of them feature live frogs. They are directly
wired to signals and to LEDs in the fascia through DPDT elec-
tronic switches. This arrangement shows the current position
of all turnouts. I used Woodland Scenics fine gray ballast held
in place with diluted white glue
I chose to use Micro Engineering turnouts because of their
metal frogs, which make it easier to run steam locomotives. I
have begun the long process of wiring Fast Tracks Frog Juicers
into all my turnouts.
Scenery
I employed many traditional scenery methods. Landforms and
mountains use cardboard strips to form basic terrain contours.
Rather than dipping paper towels in soupy plaster (very messy)
I coated them with full strength white glue using a 1” paint
brush; this eliminates most of the mess associated with drip-
ping plaster.
The rock work is cast in rubber molds which I made myself
using lumps of coal and other suitable rocks. This helped give
these features a natural appearance. These are stained with
suitable colors suitable for their location.
I made extensive use of the “ground goop” formula, which
was published in an article by Lou Sassy in
Model Railroader.
It
is hard to beat for holding scenery materials together once it
dries hard, and is easily colored to represent earth tones.
For the mountainous scenery, I used Paul Scoles’ technique
shown on his DVDs on scenery building. For the ground cover, I
used real natural materials like leaves, which were then ground
