Sandquist Railway

So, I have come to realize that taking videos and photos of model railroads is a learning process. Our layout is tucked into room with a slanted ceiling, kind of like an attic. Therefore it takes a billy goat to get around. Which means find spots to hold a camera is difficult at best. I’m on the hunt for a good tripod for the iPhone 4s so see if that helps.

Of course I could get a camera dedicated to video, but what fun would that be! What’s great about the iPhone 4s is, iMovie on the iPhone. I can shoot some clips, edit on the phone, save to the Camera Roll from iMovie and then upload in HD(ok it’s only 720P, but who’s counting anyways) to YouTube. Which I can then post here. Which means I can do it from anywhere! Sure would be great to be able to figure out how to export directly from the iMovie app to my YouTube account. If one figures that out I’d love to hear what the fix is.

The Sandquist Railway is a two level O Gauge layout that includes a helix with 081 and 090 radiuses, that takes the trains between the two levels.

We are modeling the end of the Steam engine and the beginning of the Diesel era. Think 1955 or so.
We are roughly modeling the Western Pacific railway from the middle of California to the middle of Colorado, passing through the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The Mountain that covers the helix is over 8’ tall!

We are using Atlas O track and with 56 switches.
Switches are controlled by Z-stuff for Trains DZ-2500 switch machines
Powered by Lionel Legacy control.
Accessories include:

• Gantry Crane
• Cattle car and loader
• Saw mill
• Atlas O Roundhouse kid(http://www.atlaso.com/oroundhouse.htm)
• Crossing guards and Signals from MTH, Lionel and Atlas O controlled by sensors by Z-Stuff for Trains

This is a fun clip of the 484 steamer cruising through the forest on the Sandquist Railway!.. It’s exciting to see the scenery start to come together!

So we are slowly making progress on the scenery. The addition of one of the backdrops as really helped to pull things together. Now the finer details of ground cover can be completed to blend into the backdrop.

The backdrop is 292” long by 40” tall.. I did some creative photoshop splicing to achieve this file. I was then able to upload that file so that my friends at my local Fastsigns could print it out on some fairly heavy stock paper, sorry I don’t have the actual name or brand of the paper. It’s the stuff they use for trade show banners. Its fairly sturdy in that it doesn’t rip or tear easily. Below are some more photos of the backdrop.

And for more photos you can check out our gallery on http://www.sandquistphotography.com/Trains/Sandquist-Railway/

Slowly were starting to detail the transition from the flatlands to the mountains…. A majority of the rock work is complete, now on to the paint, trees and final detailing.
Also, the bridge cassons have been completed and it’s been glued into place. Here are some photos of our current progress.

Hope to have more photos soon!

After the rocks were placed and carved in the White plaster was painted with multiple layers of paint in various colors. A base color was added first to cover the all the white, then I used diluted acrylic paint in water. Applied with a water sprayer. This allowed the paint to be added in drips and dribbles. This is how I added the darker shades. At the very end I used diluted India ink in the same water sprayer to add the runs as you would see in real rock formations. Then of course the trees were added in a way to try and replicate a real forest, definitely easier said than done. The trees were placed by drilling holes in the plaster and then filing the hole with hot glue from a hot glue gun and the tree placed and held in placed while the glue briefly set.

This is the lower railyard with the floodlights:

And here’s another view:

These are pretty cool and very realistic…

Here’s the beginning of the mountain made out of wood frame covered in wire mesh and one layer of plaster cloth:

It’s always a good idea to practice on an area to get the feel of what your going to do for the rest of the mountain:

Close up of the rock detail:

This is an image of the progress building the Mountain out:

On top of the Plaster cloth we added a layer about 1/2 inch thick of 50/50 White Plaster and Sculptamold. The rocks are created using rock molds that are readily available online and in hobby stores. We use dental stone in white to pour up the molds. The rocks are then mudded on the structure with the plaster and sculptamold mixture and allowed to dry.

For areas where there are striations, these are worked into the wet sculptamold plaster mixture while it’s drying…

Here’s a photo of the upper rail yard, this will become a passenger terminal:

This is the other side of the upper level with the Turntable that will eventually lead to a house to store engines that aren’t in use:

Here are a couple of engines on the tracks: