I haven't posted in a while due to lots of reasons but I have recently found the time to return to model railroading.
My last blog "Cornhill Town" is incomplete, but this is due to the huge amount of detailed work required to scratch build all of the town structures. I haven't got enough Mojo to re-start that project, but the prospect of finally getting round to operating the C&A was an exciting opportunity.

This will be the last scenery project on the C&A, but definitely not the last blog, because there is much to do once I have "finished" the railroad.

My good friend Bernd Schröter has very kindly loaned me some of his wonderful creations to run on the Cornhill & Atherton RR.
Over the next few days I will post some photos of these superlative scratch built models:

https://us-modelsof1900.de/

Rather more quickly than I expected, I managed to make a decision about whether to build Glanton or Cornhill next.
Cornhill is the interchange between the Antioch Southern and Cornhill and Atherton railroads and as such will be a more significant area. Buildings will be more substantial and more of them, so I decided to build Glanton first, which is a bit more rural and open. It also links the completed scenes of Insular Gorge and (from some time ago) Matrimony hill; aka "The Wedding Cake".

Rob Clark

Now that the lower deck track work is complete I can move on to the (arguably) more interesting subject of scenery.

I have three major project areas - Glanton, Cornhill and Insular Gorge and it's the latter I am starting with because the ideas are most developed for this section. Also, track testing continues in the two towns, whereas Insular Gorge is simple straight track through a scenic section:

Rob

Now that the staging yard is complete I can build the rest of the lower deck:

The exit from the bottom of the helix runs into the small town of Glanton and then running over Insular Gorge (whopping big trestle here) enters Cornhill, where we interchange with the Antioch and Southern RR - actually the double ended staging yard that feeds either end of Cornhill.

Rob Clark

As the first part of the lower deck I have decided to build "bottom up" and install the staging first. This is double ended and the yard sits under the town of Glanton (itself under the town of Atherton). Staging feeds Cornhill (under Mortimer) at either end therefore forming a loop all round the room and also the link between the C&A and all points East and West on the Antioch and Southern railroad.

Those of you who have read any of my recent posts will have seen a new link at the bottom of the page.
I have created a web/blog site specifically for the Cornhill & Atherton RR.

Well it's February and I haven't done anything significant on the layout for a couple of months now, so it's time to get busy again.

The next project is Atherton. This is by far the biggest section so far and will also complete the top deck.

First - a distant view of the somewhat scary,  but equally exciting gap that needs filling. This shot taken from Atherton engine terminal with the overhead layout lights deliberately switched off to emphasize the target area:

Inspired by Gary Christensen's recent TMTV caboose weathering articles, I dug an old caboose out of my kit archive with a view to trying out some of Gary's techniques.

Released in 1958 at a retail price of $5.10, this looks like a pleasant challenge which should result in a well detailed model.
I'll post a few construction pix as things progress and then the weathering attempts, following Gary's guidelines.