January of this year was the fifth “birthday” of the In-ko-pah Railroad. I broke ground right around New Year’s in 2005. After five years of construction, modeling, and fun, this year has been the time to do some repairs, maintenance and a few upgrades. (I’ve posted a couple of these previously – for instance, the paved road in Dos Manos and the completed bakery.) Here’s a look at some of these projects, in roughly chronological order…
First off, in January I tried an experiment to improve the appearance of the concrete stairs at each end of the layout. When originally built, I used crumpled foil sprayed with Pam to apply colored mortar to the stairs, giving them a stone-like texture:
But I wasn’t very happy with the color. So this year I brought a couple small stones to Home Depot and had some paint made to match. Then I used these paints, plus mixing in a few other shades as needed, to make the steps blend in better with the real rocks. So far I’ve only done the steps at the west end. Here’s how they look now:
Last year I completed a major project to rebuild parts of the mountains on the eastern end of the layout, making them considerably taller in the process. But there were still a few places that needed work – old sections with too many gaps showing between the rocks. I filled these in with mortar, and in some cases, thin stones. Then I went over the whole eastern half of the mountains and added “talus” made of colored mortar mixed with small rocks and dirt. Here’s an example:
With th
