EXPANDING YOUR MODEL RAILROAD PART 1
You’ve built a small layout (in our case one from Woodland Scenics)... and now you want MORE!!!
Part one covers:
Benchwork Construction--Installation of sub and main roadbed--Laying track and switches--Tying into the original layout--Rough-in scenery, including tunnels--Fascia board around the layout--Installation of Photo Mural Backdrops--Trestle building over a saw mill pond--Rock castings for scenery. 68 Mins
EXPANDING YOUR MODEL RAILROAD PART 2
We’ll color and zip texture scenery, Grass and weeds will be added to our mountain. Bushes and trees will be added. We’ll add ballast and blend it into our track. A bridge will be installed over our river, a retaining wall will be built underneath. Plaster gauze scenery will form our river. Bridge bents will be built.
Other side of backdrop will be covered with a photo mural, original backdrop will be blended into the layout. A town will be laid out near the logging operations. A saw mill pond will be painted and blended into scenery. An artist friend will blend our mountain into the photo mural backdrop. A wood retaining wall will be added to our mill pond. A sluice gate will be added to the river. 61 Mins.
EXPANDING YOUR MODEL RAILROAD PART 3
Jim Hoffman sells his Woodland Scenics layout, and we have a void to fill with a mining and logging operation. We’ll add overhead track lighting. We’ll weather some structures and scratch build a small engine house. Benchwork is added for the new New addition.
We’ll add scenery and details to the stock pens. We”ll add some Aspen trees. Spline sub-roadbed, homasote roadbed, and finally cork roadbed will be added, and track and turnouts come next. We’ll begin the scenery that will enhance our new mountainous area...adding rock castings and coloring, zip texturing and various foams from both Woodland Scenics and Scenic Express.
We’ll build tall pine trees. A Lift out section will be constructed. We’ll install a mining complex and pour our river from the sluice gate and more “water” downstream! 60 Mins.
BUILDING THE D&RG VOLUME 1
We'll cover the finishing of the basement railroad room. We'll show you how we painted and blended the backdrop. We'll begin the benchwork construction and layout of track for our Durango Yard. We'll install a Walthers Turntable and scratch build the Durango Roundhouse. The Los Animas River runs nearby, so we'll show you how we added detail. The town of Durango will be roughed out, including a space for the Durango station-
We'll add the reverse loop around the back of the roundhouse and some "swishes" to allow the dual gauge track to go from three rail to four rail. We'll add the ash pit and add scenery to blend the backdrop into the yard. We'll build a small timber trestle to cross the river. We'll construct a control panel and hook up a PTC Turntable controller for automatic alignment of our turntable to all those tracks. 56 Mins.
BUILDING THE D&RG VOLUME 2
We’ll cover the building of the Graden Flower Mill. We’ll tackle the coal pit and the ramp to the pit in our Durango Yard. We’ll finish the scenery along the river at Durango, including some great looking Cottonwood trees. The Durango Yard is quite large, and we’ll cover all of it with more cinder ballast, and finish the scenery along the backdrop.
We’ll build a concrete street for the town of Durango..and we’ll ballast the track in front of the station that leads out of Durango. 62 Mins.
BUILDING THE D&RG VOLUME 3
We'll first lay out the yard for Chama on the floor. We'll construct the bench-work for Chama. We'll build a turntable kit and modify the bridge for narrow gauge track. We’ll construct the roadbed between Gato and Chama, Plaster gauze will be added to the scene, and zip texturing.
We'll scratch build the Chama Roundhouse and machine shop. The roundhouse and turntable module will be dropped into the newly completed bench-work. Shrubs, bushes and ground cover will be added to the scene leading to Chama. We'll build the Chama station. and set the station in place and scenic around it.
Chama had an oil facility served by tank cars, and we'll scratch build that next. The yard will be blended with the painted backdrop and large Cotton Wood trees. We'll take a ride between Durango and Chama over our newly extended sections. 53 Mins.
BUILDING THE D&RG VOLUME 4
We’ll finally complete the Rio Grande Narrow Gauge taking you up to and completing the line to Cumbres. We’ll lay out the woodwork from Chama to Cumbres, and construct all the benchwork necessary. Then we’ll build some bridges to take us over the Chama River. We’ll lay track up to Cumbres, which will include a passing siding and a tunnel.
The large snowshed that appeared at Cumbres in the working days of the Grande will be scratched in place. We’ll paint some backdrops for our new scene out of Chama. There is a small lake at Cumbres, and we’ll build that next. Scenery will be constructed up to Cumbres. We’ll complete our program by running some trains for a live meet at Cumbres. 62 Mins.
BUILDING THE HON3 RGS PART 1
This version of the Rio Grande Southern is under construction in the two adjacent rooms to the HON3 Rio Grande. We’ll install Masonite hard board to all the inside and outside corners of both rooms, trowel the joints with joint compound, and paint an undercoat.
We’ll show you how to add over 100 feet of great backdrops from Backdrop Warehouse. Benchwork was next using the “L-Girder” method. Then, the Goose Barn, the engine house tracks and the oil facilities at Dolores were plotted in. We’ll show the construction of the engine house at West Durango, we’ll build two tank farms, a small pump house, and a small office building near Dolores.
We’ll lay the track for the Rico engine house and build a ramp to the coaling station at Rico, as well as the two coaling structures that were found at the end of the ramp. We’ll start on bench work for the Lizard Head and Ophir area...where our bridges 45A and 45B will be located. At Ophir we’ll add a roll-out section to allow access to the back corner and wall.
We’ll build the Ridgway bench work and lay track to include the turntable and roundhouse. We’ll build those bridges at Ophir. We’ll complete the turntable and roundhouse module for Ridgway. Back at Rico, we’ll color the scenery, zip texture the surfaces, and add grasses and weeds. We’ll install a unique retaining wall made from a bunch of plaster castings. We’ll also construct the town behind and above the mill, using N Scale structures! 61 Mins.
BUILDING THE HON3 RGS PART 2
We’ll cover the construction of the coaling ramp and the coal storage facilities at Rico. Construction of the Rico station and the smaller buildings in the same area. We’ll show you how we built the backdrop for Rico. We’ll scratch build a structure of an “old” gasoline station of the 30's.
Our artist will blend in some hand painted scenery to our photo mural backdrop. We’ll take on the task of adding the fascia board along a major section of the bench work. We’ll show you how we built hundreds of pine trees. A neat looking house was found in the area, and we’ll scratch build that structure as well. We’ll add some additional scratch built structures as well as adding appropriate scenery.
The station and the water tank at Rico, will add to the scene. At Ridgway, the railroad built a seven stall roundhouse, and we’ll show you how that was built, along with a turntable. We’ll add the benchwork, fascia board, and the structures and scenery at Lizard Head. A bridge crosses over a small creek in this area, and we’ll construct that as well as some scenery in this area. Since we’ll have some structures across the tracks at Rico, we’ll need to build a small road across the river. And we’ll continue adding more scenery to this area. 60 Mins.
BUILDING THE HON3 RGS PART 3
We’ll construct a curved timber trestle near the town of Ophir, and we’ll show construction of the scenery and scenic details of the Rollout section at Ophir. We show the construction of the Country store at McPhee. We run some trains at a regional NMRA Open House on Jim's layout. The Mrs. Skillens store at Ophir will be featured, as well as the aerial tram and its related buildings.
We will show some timber wall construction details at Ophir. We show the long trestle at Ophir, and the beautiful Finished scenery. At the New Mexico Lumber Company, we’ll show construction of the sawdust burner and other facilities such as the large sawmill that served the area.
We’ll build log loading and dumping facilities and retaining pond, and we also show construction of a Gallows turntable in this area. We will also show all of the updated changes that Jim has made to this Entire area. Then we do the rounds on Jim's Entire Layout and show almost all of the Scenery and Structure Details at this point in time. We finally take a trip around Jim's complete Layout by following a train! 73 Mins.
PHOTOS BY JOHN M. KOCH
Total Run Time: 616 Minutes
Dolby Digital-2.0 Stereo
5 DVD Special Collectors Set
