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Since there's still almost a month till we move to Sweden to live in our new house, AND I get to the house for the future Coast Line R.R, I've started serious sketching of track plans. Here's the building, that will house the layout
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It is 33'x16.5', concrete floor and insulated walls/roof. I will probaly cut some 4-5 feet in the left end for a garden tool shed, so I now plan with an internal size of 28'x16'.
My preliminary design is inspired by Frary's Thatcher's Inlet and Art Fahie's Wharf Street. So I wanted the feeling of being in a boat in a bay in Maine in the 1930ies, looking towards the shore. There's water in front of all the scenery. A simple staging and reverse loop separated from the layout. No grades, and comfortable radii in the scenicked part, and 24'' in the reverse loop. I've tried to avoid cramming to much track in, but still have three stations, separated by small rivers. Track height will be quite high, so there's room under the staging for work tables and storage.
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This is a preliminary sketch, and much will be solved when I start building. I like to have track pretty high (around 52-55'') so there's plenty of room for working at the table (which probably will be on wheels. Or perhaps I'll drop the garden shed in the end of the house... and gain five feet. Or... I hesitate with having any tracks hidden under the layout. I hate that. I hate crawling on my bad knees... And I'd like having no grades at all. That's why I didn't make any scenery on a whole, long wall. But if I could get the return loop and staging on only the right side of the door, I'd be much happier!
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All comments, sketches and photos by Troels Kirk.
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I've been busy this afternoon. Here are a couple of first 3D visualizations I've drawn of the right side, Teal's, and the long side, Convers.
Some of the scratchbuilt buildings I've already made have found a (perhaps temporary) place.
And I'm having SO much fun doing this! Modeling with a pencil is so much faster than all the time it will take to recreate what takes minutes to draw...
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I kind of have the mockup in my head, and will use pencil and paper to test the angles. I find that much easier than building small models. Sketching and visualizing is an essential part of my job as an artist painter.
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I will have small industries, from a couple of seafood producers, the ice plant (supplying the reefers of the seafood folks), I was thinking of a block, oar, trawler wire and rope factory, bronze foundry and other sea-related industries. On the big wharf there´s room for inbound or outbound coal, sand, tea, fertilizer, cranberries, pulpwood or whatever. Fish or cod liver oil for stinking tank cars. A crane or two would be nice , yes!
There'll be a passenger ferry stop, with lots of summer tourism business for railbuses and passenger trains. Berry picking specials.
I've never heard of Two foot to Togus. Sounds useful though!
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Ericson importing that fine finnish pine tar for preserving lobster traps, nets, sails, sheds boats etc
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Here's the first drawing of the Cranberry wharf, seen from the "east" end and down the "north" side.
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The more I draw, the more I realize just how big a layout this will be. There's room for a lot! Just the Cranberry Wharf area is 2.4m x 0.7m (appr.8'x2'4'').
Here's the first sketch of the Cranberry Wharf's south side (I omitted the passenger ferry on purpose)
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The little town of Cranberry, at the root of the Cranberry Wharf, seen from north-east, with the Cranberry Creek bridge on the right.
Loco shed and water tower in the back, wharf with passenger ferry on the left
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I had to see how a couple of the structures I've already built would look in their future location: The Ericson's wharf and the Convers seafood, as seen from the east. Convers station and depot in the background.
The light on the port side of the small harbor entrance will be flashing green, with reflections in the water. Should look nice at night.
A reefer for the lobster packers on Ericson's Wharf has been pushed out the wobbly "trestle" using a couple of idler flats.
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I'll save a lot of time by getting the plans ready in my head and on the drawing board. Of course a lot of changes will be necessary in the end, just to adapt to real life. But at least I'll get the feel of how it will present itself.
I could never sell quick drawings... normally my sketches are just the daily work, the basis for the "real" stuff I make a living from. So they just end up in piles...
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The time it takes to finish a sketch, depends on the area depicted and the detail amount. The early one I made with the long side of Convers took perhaps an hour, because I had to invent a lot of scenery for the first time. Now I have a better idea of how the different areas lokk, so draw much faster. The latest drawing was mainly of already existing structures, so it took perhaps ten minutes to render. Quite the contrast to the time it took to build the models...
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Next is the northern part of Teal's Cove, with the bridge over Teal Creek, a sailcloth and sackcloth weavers, and the depot. A small water tower for thirsty Forneys.
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The eastern entrance to Convers (on the right side of the long wall), under the Seaview House hotel. Seaview has a steep staircase, and a small armchair incline too, for prominent guests. Philpot's Mechanical Music Instruments (which I've already built) on the right. A small bit of the quay behind Ericson's Wharf in the foreground left.
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Well, I've spent the last few christmas days getting some progress going on the Seaview House Hotel...
I apologize for the badly lit photos... I'm still modeling in a corner of my studio, with harsh lighting.
Started off with sponge painting a few light brown sheets of Canson MiTeintes pastel papers with antique white Folk Art acrylic.
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Then covered the walls with double sided carpet tape
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Although sporadic and slow, a bit more progress on the hotel front!
On one side I wanted a stone foundation for the hill side to "climb" up over, so I cut some thin slices of a stick of yellow foam.
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I glued the slices onto the styrene, "etched" with superglue, and painted with acrylics
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A bay window was scratched together, supported by a sawed off victorian window top
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I painted a back wall for the restaurant... just a fast freehand will do in the dimly lit interior, with a couple of paintings and door
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Chairs were made from pastel paper, with legs cut free, scored with a pounce wheel to ease the folding. A drop of glue inside the double folded back
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Tables are a square of styrene on a drawing pin painted brown. Tablecloths from thin paper formed with white glue. I know the chair legs are crooked, but it really doesn't show from the outside, and life is short...
The plants in the bay window are just styrene tubes with a bit of coarse foam. The front wall is painted black inside to prevent diode light shining through.
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I've now added green blinds, and making light baffles for the rooms on the first and second floors, before I'll go on and finish the exterior and roofs.
]Then onto awnings, and the hill itself!
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Then proceded with the foundations for the tower roof
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Today I added the tower roof... again styrene sheet and channel. A Grandt Line brick chimney was added to the roof. I also fashioned a simple kitchen wing/boiler house on the back from board and batten styrene sheet, a window and a door plus a large drinking straw
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I asphalt papered the roofs (even got some inside info from the professionals laying just such a roof on our house at the moment!) with masking tape. I added wood planks to all roof edges. Painted the kitchen wing and the roofs in acrylics. I sawed four tapered rings from styrene tubing for the tower roof decorations, plus sawed out and soldered together some brass decor (originally intended for ship models)for the wrought iron "fence" on top of the tower.
Finally I hand lettered the text on the front with a small brush.
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Ready for more! Another prominent feature of the Coast Line RR will be the Teal's Light to the north. I've made this drawing, which I believe pretty much is how it'll turn out. It's a free mix of the lovely lighthouses on the Maine coast. There's a lifeboat house with loft, oil house with bell and foghorn on scaffold, and living quarters. A radio mast for communications.
Masonry tower, shingle roofs and clapboard sidings. Few and smallish windows with storm shutters. Weathered white all over.
So I'm once again in the exiting process of gathering scratchbuilding materials...
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