The Bennington Terminal Railroad

 Welcome to my home on the web. I had an introduction but wanted to make some changes. Im currently in the process of making drastic changes to my layout.   The space for the layout is a 17 foot by 24 foot room with an extension of 8 feet by 18 feet. The layout is point to point with staging.    My original creation was the Green Mountain and Berkshire railroad. It was composed of the old New Haven branch from Danbury Connecticut to Pittsfield Massachusetts and the branch from Pittsfield to North Adams Massachusetts. From there it was trackage rights to Petersburg Junction New York and running the old “Corkscrew “ line from Petersburg to Bennington Vermont.    I’ve got locomotives painted and lettered for the GM&B and have been happy with it. I have JMRI set up with the railroads information but everything got to be too much work for just me to enjoy casual operations.    I have decided to backdate to the early 70’s and have removed sever...

  When I got back into the hobby after a 15+ year hiatus I dipped my toe in using an app to find local train material. I would have loved to go code 83 on the mainline and code 70 for everything else but my wallet wasn’t very deep. With an empty basement, access to free 1 x 4’s and some plywood I was able to essentially build beyond my means which meant I had to make concessions with things like track.    I struck some good deals on used Atlas code 100. While not my first choice it allowed me to get up and running for pennies on the dollar. I’ve followed some techniques others have used to tone down the code 100.     Brown camouflage rattle can treatment is first. It gets rid of the black ties and shiny rail easily. Next I use gray acrylic paint to heavily fade random ties. I then pretty much dry brush the tops of the ties to bring out the wood grain detail. Finally, at the spots where ties were removed at joints I put wooden ties in to fill the gaps. ...

 As I rebuild the center section of my layout I'm trying something somewhat different for my scenery base. With large empty spaces and access to free cardboard I went with the old school mesh base. With grandchildren and my own clumsiness I wanted something more forgiving than plaster for cover. I stumbled upon the felt and paint technique.   I purchased as close to an earth color brown felt as I could and using wood glue, secured it to the cardboard webbing. The glue holds the felt fabric to the shape of the webbing giving great contours. I purchased some cheap flat earth toned house paint and using a brush slowly painted the felt. The felt soaks up the paint so patience is needed. Before the paint dries I sprinkle some ground cover material over it.    I like the flexibility of it and it takes static grass easily using the normal static grass method. I hope this method finds a few of you who are looking for different techniques.