FURTHER FOREST SCENE DEVELOPMENT AT PRYOR AND MONTIETH ROCK

This year my major scenery development has been in the area of Monteith Rock (aka, “Rooster Rock”) and the adjoining “Pryor” area of forest.  I have developed this in steps, building up literally from the rock to the trees.  Indeed, the later stages of the effort have been paced by my tree production.  August and September saw major advances on the tree front such that the scene is now approaching “completion.”  

 

The 01-EURVY climbs the Cascades under Montieth Rock, now surrounded by forest.

 

As I finished off the forest on the hillside above the track in the area, I realized I needed more trees on the downslope from the track.  I needed to ballast the track in the area before closing it in with trees.  That diverted me to adding ballast to a couple of areas.  I began at Westfir because it was very open and accessible and then continued on to the entire stretch of mainline between Tunnel 21 and Montieth Rock down toward Oakridge by way of the Salmon Creek mainline bridge and up to the Beech Street road crossing at the geographic east end of Oakridge.  

 

The beginning of ballast at Westfir.  My first step involves gluing a base strip of ballast on the outside of the ties.

 

Ballast at Salmon Creek.  The bridge has a ballasted deck—that finally got ballast during this effort.  I needed to remove stray ballast rocks from on top of the ties and along the rails after the ballast was applied outside the ties and then brushed and shaped inside the rails and along the ties.  A putty knife and half of a tweezer set (a favorite tool created after the tweezer “handle” bond failed) were very handy for removing stray rock.

 

Once the ballast was cleaned up from the track, I used a Woodland Scenics steel rail paint pen along the vertical edges of the rails.  The rail paint has been applied on the right side of this photo.

 

My previous month’s effort left a gap of trees that needed to be filled with the correct height trees—this month’s effort.

 

The tree gap was filled with another 15-20 trees.

 

With the tree gap filled, I returned to the adjacent corner scene to add more trees.  I also began adding trees on the aisle side of the track.

 

The completed scene with tree groves on the aisle side of the track.  Photos of the prototype scene show the downslope side forest is sparser than the hillside above the track.

 

With the forest filled in on the backdrop side of the track and groupings of trees now located on the aisle side, this scene captures the look of the railroad’s climb up over the Cascades.