Napa Jct, American Canyon in HO

Below , a picture of my layout in the area of Napa Junction, situated in real life near American Canyon California.
The scenery is not yet finished here as you can tell a lot still needs to be done, but I'm posting it as a progress shot more than anything. Compare this photo with one I'll post in about a year's time to compare the results.

California Northern DVD

I thought I'd share this with you. For several years now I have been looking to get more information of my subject railroad, the California Northern. In the past Pentrex has released a VHS video about this railroad, and I've never managed to obtain it. I asked Pentrex if they would re-release it, and the answer i got at the time that it was being considered, but had not made it on the 'list' yet.
So it was a pleasant surprise that I found the DVD version is now finally available, it is a recent new release, and of course I ordered it. I am looking forward to view it, and see the SD9 I've modeled of a few vague pictures, in action :-)

The link to the DVD is here.
http://www.pentrex.com/calnordvd.html

Also if this is not your 'railroad', I would suggest to browse around on their site, you could probably find a video there that will be of interest, and give you good information and inspiration when modeling your model-railroad.

Scenery work

Today I started another step in the construction of my scenery.
I may have mentioned previously, that I like the scenery construction methods of Joe Fugate, who's video instructions I have watched and picked up some useful tips.
I've decided to make the same scenery sculpting 'paste' as he does, which is a mix of 4 parts fine Vermiculite, 3 parts filling plaster, and 1 part Portland cement.
This mixture is spread on top of my cardboard strips+ masking tape base (also from the same videos).

The first application of the (still wet mixture) can be seen in the picture below. I am really looking forward doing the rest of this hill with this method.

Finally CFNR SD9 203 makes a short test run

As with many of my projects, I finally got as far as getting my CFNR SD9 project to a running condition.

Here's a short video made on that occasion.  There's still a bit of work to do before this loco is 'finished'.

Realistic backdrops by Pele Soeborg

Pele Soeborg is well known for his modern US layout set in the Californian desert. He's written about it in Model railroader magazine, produced DVD's, and has written several books about modelrailroad scenery techniques etc, all published by Kalmbach, and available in many good bookstores, Amazon etc.
His redesigned layout now featured photo realistic backdrops, and you can now have those too. He's collaborating with UK based company ModelJunction, through which his backdrops are now for sale. Go check them out!

Wolter Springs is rising

Progress has been slow, but I managed to finally make a pair of legs for my module. Here's the next module board, on the legs, the other earlier board can just be seen on the floor behind it. (that board already received a top coat of latex paint and plaster, but needs a darker earth tone on top of the current base ).
Once that has legs I can clamp the boards together and check the track alignment from one board to the next. The next job will be to install track feeder wires on the new board, and then we can start with the fun part, starting to do the base scenery.

Blog Housekeeping

I've done a little housekeeping, and removed some 'dead links' from my list of useful links on the right, and added another.  Express Models. They are a supplier of miniature lights and leds, fit for all sorts of applications, fibre optics, Kadee couplers and TCS DCC decoders among others. All items that modelers of American model railways could use.

If you know of any others that have (modeling) supplies that are useful for our American RR hobby, let me know and I'll review and add them, and if you come across mistakes or dead links, please let me know too and I'll correct it.