Freight train

NE 1623 rolls into the yard with a short local freight.

This locomotive is an Athearn bluebox GP38-2  which I superdetailed with a Cannon&Co cab and nose, and several other details added from several detail companies. It also was painted into my freelance colour scheme and railroad name. At the time I build it (approx 1998) it earned 82 points , just not enough for an NMRA merit award.  It is due to get a DCC & sound upgrade, and wire up the roof beacon etc. A few small cosmetic repairs are also needed. After all that is done, I will probably enter it again to re-earn it's merrit award, but I'll have to check with the NMRA if that's allowed first. :-)

The clouds

Just a piccie of the clouds as they are as present, unedited, and no touch up (yet).

Station Road Baseboards.

I thought just to write something personal here. As I mentioned in an added comment earlier in the week, I ordered some plasticard (sheet styrene for US readers) from Station Road Baseboards in Norfolk UK.
The sheets I ordered were 0.5mm x 325mm x 440 mm in size. These sell for 0.72 pence each (approx $1.05 each) . The sheets arrived today and are of very good quality, and were shipped promptly. I can therefore recommend this company, for quality, speed of dispatch and the very good price of the plastic. (You'd pay a lot more for this for one of the well known brands).  Of course this is smooth plastic, cards with a pattern etc are not available from here (yet?) so you'll have to go to your usual sources for that, but this is great for making templates, trial models, or as a base for a model that will be covered with another layer. Also check out the products they offer for the construction of modules etc.

In the clouds

Well, paint mist actually, that's where I've been residing in for a bit. I can't stress enough at this point that when painting, particularly in a confined space like my loft, you wear sufficient PPE. Latex or similar gloves, a face mask with appropriate filter cartidges (a dust mask won't do!), and try and vent the space a bit. (I used a desk fan to vent more fresh air into the area.).  Paint fumes are not good for your health.
I've just been spray painting on clouds and mist etc on my backdrop, and I have to say I'm fairly pleased with the first try. I may touch it up here and there, but I don't think I'm going to attack it with a roller and fresh blue paint to start again.  The key is work in moderation, mist the paint on, and keep the spray can (or whatever you choose to use) moving. Too long in one spot will result in a white dot and that means start over in many cases.. Misting on the clouds so that a bit of the blue back ground still shows through makes them look the most realistic. Be creative, I cut out only a few templates, but used them upside down, back to front, overlaying each other etc to create variety in my cloud shapes.  Go over the top side of the clouds a few more passes than the bottom so that it looks like the sun is shining on top of them. I used mostly white, but I carefully used a few grey mists here and there (there's a bit of rain in the air). Grey was a much stronger colour though, so I toned that down a bit by carefully passing over with white again. Then finally, I misted the whole back drop from a larger distance, and misted the lower parts more than the top parts to make it all 'blend' together and create a better sense of distance. Now I have to wait until the mist settles down, before I take a picture and show the results to you. Time for a cup of tea first.

Back to the backdrops

After putting old newspaper over the tracks etc to protect it, I painted the backdrop boards. The few replies I received made me deviate from the plan slightly. After the PVA was applied and dried, I first painted the boards with a light blue (left over from an old baby room colour scheme) oil based paint to properly seal the boards. After that I painted the boards with a matt emulsion paint. I used Cobalt Blue from UK's Homebase paint range.  While this may appear very blue and a bit dark on the picture, I chose this colour on purpose. Over this surface, clouds and mist will be painted/sprayed with a variety of white and light grey shades, which will make the back drops appear a lot lighter than they currently are.
First I need to get some materials to cut out cloud templates though, so if you'll excuse me :-)

Fitting backdrop boards

Today I purchased some hardboards of approx 3mm thick, 4Ft long and 2 Ft high. These are used to make the backdrops, which I'm going to paint. In my case I could easily nail them to the roof beams and I used some duct tape to seal the gaps between them.
Once fitted I'm going to 'paint' a layer of PVA glue over them to get a good water tight base to paint on. The method I'm going to use is painting a base coat of blue paint, and then using cloud templates to spray on clouds. To see how that's done have a look here.
The picture shows the first couple of boards fitted to the roof. North Eastern GP38-2 no 1623 is just passing with a short local freight train.

Wiring for DCC

As I'm in the process of wiring my layout, I referred to this very useful site, by Allan Gartner, which explains all sorts of wiring methods and solutions for a variety of scales, brands etc including various turnout (switches/points) manufacturers.
As I have a mix of some Peco and older Shinohara (left over from an older layout) on my  new layout, I wanted to make sure that they were all wired correctly for use with DCC, and this site explains all.
Go to wiring for DCC/ switches to read all about the turnout wiring. I've also included the site main link (to the home page) in the links list.