RA Tower and other Scenery Enhancements

Greetings All,

Over the past few weeks I've been working on enhancing some of the layout scenery paying particular attention to some of the ballasted areas. My ballast is sifted from a bag of Paver Base that I bought for less than $4.00 at a home improvement store. When I put it down I just tamped it in place with a foam brush and left it as is. Recently I've taken to glueing it in place with diluted Elmer's Glue after soaking the material with Isopropyl alcohol.

First to get a scenery upgrade was is the area at RA Tower.  Here is RA Tower as introduced back on April 19, 2019. 

I've added a tool shed and storage container along with some red barrels and crates. This area was a bit tricky as it sits in shadow so going with the brighter colors worked well for me.

Track sections, ties and rusty barrels sit trackside in this area which gets much better light. The glued down paver base ballast makes it darker adding a little more of a prototype feel.

I've added a forklift and glued down the scenic details in the forefront. 

A work train makes an appearance and drops off some more sections of track.

I think this little area of RR ROW supplies compliments the scene and adds some nice diversity to the NYCTL train line up. 

A pair of NYC GP7s lead a freight train past RA Tower and thru the newly upgraded curve.

You can see the dark to light scenery challenges under the High Line in this photo. While examining that I noticed that RA Tower was leaning a bit to the left.

The newly straightened RA Tower is open for business.

I next turned my attention to the upper level and glued in the ballast from the Bedford curve onto the Vanderbilt Bridge and then the mainline all the way to Hohman Ave tower just outside North Side Yard. 

The High Line.

West Side curve.

Here is a before shot from January 2019;

This is the west side curve with it's darker ballast and some additional junk added to the scene.

The Terminal Yard extension ballast was also glued down resulting in a darker more busy railroad look.
Before: In an April 2019 PCCM;

After:

The curves at the bottom of the photo are as far as the scenery goes. I hope to add a pair of industries and scenery beyond here this summer. That's the plan anyway.

That wraps up today's entry. Be sure to check back as the NYCTL will be opening the books to hire a 1/87th scale Conductor Trainee. 

The new hiree will report for work after being cleared by the NYCTL medical doctor, Dr. Vinny Boombatz, and passing his 1/87th scale physical.

Thanks for reading!!!

See ya soon!!!