More Scenic Express Trees

I completed some more Scenic Express trees and installed them on the layout.  So far I have 18 of them on the layout, all of them between Fulton and Clinton.  As I work with the tree kits, I am really liking how they look on the layout.  For these recent trees, I used course foam instead of the fine foam.  Using the coarse foam definitely makes the trees less wispy and healthier.  I've ordered the super trees value pack, along with more ballast (yuk!), and will be adding more trees over the next few weeks.

Scenic Express Trees

I purchased a Super Trees starter kit from Scenic Express the other day and finally got around to putting a few together for the layout.  Below are before and after shots of an area just east of the Mississippi River bridge.  Here are a couple of my first impressions of the resulting trees.

• The trees are pretty fragile. Definitely a "last thing to add" detail.  It will be interesting to see how they hold up over time.
• They are taller than the woodland scenic trees. The added height looks more prototypical to me.  The kit instructions recommended 7 inches for N scale.  These are about 5 inches.
• They seem to be more detailed.  They don't look near as foamy as the Woodland Scenic trees.  They may be a bit too wispy.  
• They have a very irregular shape, which I think helps them look more realistic.
• They are very easy to build and take only a few minutes for each tree, although drying time seems to be an overnight deal.

I'll probably add a few more thoughts as I add more trees.  The kit yields about 30 trees, so I'll be adding more and taking additional pictures as I go along.

What do you think?  Woodland Scenic s hardwood tree kits or Super Trees from Scenic Express?

Ballasting Proviso, Part II

<p>Used the Easter weekend to ballast the western end of the Proviso yard. Still need to do the engine facilities. Will hopefully get that done soon and then the entire Proviso area will be done ballast wise.  Then I will be able to get back to constructing buildings.

Ballasting Proviso Yard

Been quite a while since I last posted.  Jan/Feb are very busy months at work, but I will hopefully be able to post more in the coming weeks.  I finally got going on ballasting the Proviso Yard. Got about half of the yard done, the eastern end.  I used a mixture of Arizona Rock and Mineral CSX and Highball Brown for the Arrival/Departure tracks and just the Highball brown for the yard tracks.  Used over 2 pounds of ballast, 16 fl. oz. of alcohol and a large bottle of Elmer's glue so far.  I'm very happy with the use of different colors of ballast for the mainline, A/D tracks, and yard tracks.  The different colors together with the differing heights of the tracks helps to distinguish the classes of track.

Proviso Yard Tracks Painted

Before painting the tracks in the proviso yard, I first added any missing ties between the turnouts. While its been over a year since most of the yard turnouts have been installed, I have not taken the time to complete the installation by installing ties at the rail joiners at the ends of each turnout.  With ballasting next up on my to do list, I needed to get them installed and then all the track and ties painted before ballasting can begin.  I used Floquil rust for the rails spayed at an angle followed by Floquil railroad tie brown spayed directly from above.

Warehouse Parking Lot Weathering and Fence

I took a piece of 220 grit sand paper to the parking lot to give it a faded look and installed fencing between the parking lot and the yard tracks.  Sanding the parking lot brought out the seams between the styrene sheets, so I used a fine point permanent marker to simulate regular tar seams.  The fencing is from Gold Metal Products.  I reused fencing from the Rochelle Sub.

New Blog Name

As you can see, the blog has a new name as suggested by John Claudino of Aztec Engineering; UP Excellence in Miniature.  Congratulations John, the locomotive will be on its way soon.  Thank you to everyone who voted and to everyone that submitted names.  Thanks also for supporting our advertisers.