The Kingdom of Philtopia

Decided to try some scenic stuff and securing down the track this time around

Earthy Stain

So I had been wondering what to do for the base colour there are lots of options from just painting it brown with latex paint, doing nothing and just starting with the scenic stuff or using things such as real dirt.

Since I haven’t scenicked before I decided to take the Woodland scenics route.

I started off with a bottle of their “Earth colors undercoat” and a paint brush directly onto the wood. I was liberal with the liquid because A: no experience and B: I only had a 1×4 area to cover and had plenty of undercoat for the job.

I only used about 1/3 of the bottle to cover the whole area and I let it dry over night. The end result was very pleasing and I was ready to lay down the track.

Track laying

I used some wood glue I already had available in my toolbox to secure the track down to the board. This had a high tack and held quickly and once dried was not visible. It holds the tracks well to where I want them and it isn’t overly impossible to get it off if I ever decided to “do over”.

There was an issue with a turnout that didn’t sit flat and for that I used a pair of track nails as it caused a power issue.

Grass

Once again I used Woodland Scenic products in this case I used “Blended Turf: Green Blend” and their Scenic Cement. Spraying the area to start I then shook the turf onto the layout with a small spoon and spread it over areas I wanted grass coverage. It is sparse because this is an industrial park after all. Once again I was pleased with the look.

Future

I will be ballasting the tracks, I know this is sort of backwards but I want to have the ballast and grass mixed to indicate a sort of not maintained track and I will also be using some pigments to rust up the tracks and colour the ties. I also will eventually be getting a photo backdrop and at least some minimal industry representation of the other 2 spurs as much as minimal space allows.