The Crystal River area of the layout was probably the area I liked the most. The sweeping S-curve of the double mainline, and the smooth-flowing river next to it was very enjoyable to watch. A great spot for N-scale "railfanning"! Some of this same concept was used in the later Chartier Branch S-scale layout. The first photo was the last overall photo, but not the last photo take before the layout was dismantled.

This area is dominated by the Crystal River itself and the swooping S-curve of the track, matching the river's flow. After building this track I discovered that an S-curve angled toward the viewer makes for excellent photography angles. This was a good lesson to learn for future layouts. The mainline curves on the right-hand side of the diagram have a 24" and a 26" radius respectively.

The first track-level photo shows the double mainline with its s-curve.

The large mountain to the left of this area was being built, so it flowed over into the background behind the track.

The basic scenery base, made out of plaster cloth, was next.

The next major scenery item is the river itself. I cut it, free-hand, out of 1/2" plywood the basic river shape. Several boards were added to support the river. Vertical 1"x2" boards were installed against which the front fascia board will be mounted later.

Whenever you work with wood you can never have enough clamps. The front fascia, made out of 1/8" masonite board, is in the process of being glued to the vertical support post here. I cut the masonite to be 9-¼" wide. This is the maximum height difference between the bottom of the l-girder benchwork and the top of the sub-roadbed.

I cut the front fascia contour using a jig saw. In the process the vibration broke a piece of the masonite board loose on the right-hand side, so that was being glued while I took this photo. You can see the contour and the cut-away on the left-hand side where the river leaves the layout.

With the river bed attached, I could then finish the cardboard webbing for the rest of this area.

After the webbing, naturally, the plaster cloth base layer.

Not much appears to have been changed in the photo below, but I painted a primer layer onto the river bottom, and I applied Scultamold to the scenery base. This was the first time I used the material, and I love it!

The scenery base has been painted with a brown latex paint, and the river bed received a total of three coats of primer, and two coats of black acrylic paint.

It doesn't take too long before weeds and grasses start to grow on newly cultivated land.

To protect the river bed, I applied masking tape all around its edges, and then proceeded to apply ground cover to the entire area. Note also that during all this work, the track has been covered with masking tape. Don't leave the tape on the track too long, or else its glue residue stays on the track. At this time, there were four layers of material on the scenery. The first layer was Woodland Scenics' green turf blend, the second layer was Arizona Rock & Mineral's earth, the third was Woodland Scenics' blended green, and the final thin layer was Woodland Scenics' turf soil. Also seen is a rough outline of the mountains being painted on the backdrop.

From watching one of Allen Keller's videos (Hooch Junction), I learned about using spray paint to weather the track. This photo shows a close-up of what the track looks like. I used primer brown and flat black ($1.00 each at K-Mart). It smells, it sprays everywhere, and it takes some elbow grease to clean the tops of the track, but, boy, does it look good!

This overall photo show the backdrop painted with some distant mountains.

The mainline is now open for business.

This was a good time to installed and finalize the tunnel portal into Allegheny mountain.

The next step in this area was to apply a layer of gloss medium to the river bed. Before I did that I had painted the river edges a brown matching the scenery base to mimic shallower areas. This was the first time I used gloss medium. What you see in the photo below is what the material looks like when you apply it.

Well, it turned out pretty well. It looks just as good live as it does on the photo. I had also started gluing some low bushes in various locations. The little bit you see there took almost an hour, so it is going to be quite some time before it is all done.

The first scratchbuilt trees are appearing the area.

Here's a nice helicopter view of the area.

I started painting some of the exposed rocks to draw more attention to them.

The next task was to build the abutments for the Crystal River bridge. Since I had just finished building the Fairmont bascule bridge over the Allegheny River, I was a bit tired of building bridges. This one was going to be simple and functional. The abutments came from kit-bashing a collection of Atlas piers I had bought for my original 4' x 8' layout two years ago. I also decided to fill in the area near the river (this is all on the right-hand side of the river) rather than try to build a curved bridge, which had been my original intent.

The bridge spans needed to just be functional, i.e. hold up a passing train. They were installed at a slight angle to the abutments so that the easement of the curves could be accommodated. First the bridge spans were glued to the abutments using Testors plastic cement. This did not provide enough strength, of course, because there wasn't much glue surface. However, that did provide me with the time to install the C-channels under the bridge spans. These did provide enough glue surface to provide plenty of support. From a side profile the C-channels look like embedded I-beams in the concrete of the abutments. The sides of the bridge spans and the C-channels were painted with a stainless steel color.

And here is the more-or-less completed project. The bridge didn't quite turn out as well as I had hoped, but it IS functional. I placed AMI Roadbed on the bridge spans and then the track. The track was ballasted as is done on some bridges in the real world. Detailed patching will need to be done some time in the future to completely hide the AMI Roadbed with more ballast.

More bushes and rocks were added to the scenery.

Added the first "large" tree I scratchbuilt.