Status
This scenic gap has been filled and one layer of ground foam has been placed over the painted plaster. The area in the back corner was done last year.


Design

This is a very straight-forward area. The diagram shows curves of 24" and 26" radii, but the real implementation is more like 16" and 18" respectively. Part of the adjustment was because we didn't want to start curving the track while it was still on the Fairmont Bridge. The curves actually have easements, because 16" is the tightest radius on the mainline in our layout. We wanted to give passenger cars and large steamers all the help they could get.

Progress
The next collection of photos shows the progress of this part of layout over the duration of the layout.

The area from the backdrop masonite board to the double mainline sub-roadbed was covered with cardboard. This will support the Rigid Wrap and Sculptamold materials.


Next we placed the plaster materials on the cardboard.


Over the last few nights we have been painting and covering the plaster scenery area. This is where we are so far. We have several layers of Woodland Scenic foam (blended green and blended earth), some brown soil from Arizona Rock & Minerals, and clump foliage for low-lying bushes. The photo is a bit over-exposed.


The latest photo of the Lyon Hills area. We have added layers of ground foam and lots of bushes.


It is time to fill in the giant gaping hole in the Earth in Lyon Hills. We started off by covering the Allegheny River with a towel so that the glue from the hot glue gun doesn't fall on the river surface. Next, we cut long strips of 1-inch (2.54 cm) wide cardboard left over from the packing material of our new table saw.


This is the scenery making method we like the best. Our previous layout used a lot of foam. This costs money, leaves lots of foam particles everywhere when shaped, and was hard to integrate into areas around plywood sub-roadbeds. The next photo shows the weaving pattern made from the cardboard strips. We only glued the strips to the plywood areas. This tight-woving pattern provides plenty of support for the next step.


Since the area is called Lyon Hills (plural), we decided to create another hill in the area. This one was glued from within the closet and so we covered the bridge with the towel. With some creative woodworking, we created a support structure that is glued to the benchwork to provide the basic support for the cardboard strips.