Back to the Layout - The Tunnel at Herdon

So, this mass of debris is where we have to develop a webbing and mountain to cover our exit from one side of the view block to the other. I have had a heck of a time attaching the Scenic Express wing walls to the cast plaster tunnel portal. The casting is done in a rubber mold originally fabricated by Ed Rappe and the portal was cast by Doug Jones, a member of the Washington group. Ed used individual blocks to make the master. I obtained it from Doug's old layout.  On the wing walls, I added an extension as the wings were not as high as the portal. You can see the ends of the extension in white as I carved them from the foam casting. They are stepped down.

The green tape covers the track leading around the curve and into the tunnel. This was a trying exercise to make work as I had problems holding the extensions vertical as they are in the air. So, I eventually settled on some webbing holding them in place plus some wide shipping tape around the back. Then I ran white glue down the rear of the joint. I will have to go back and add some plaster to the seam to make it look right. That will come once I do the plastering of the hill. You can see I had to pull one piece of webbing all the way across the track to hold that end of the extension up. There is still a lot of work to be done but it now has some form. 

This distant shot shows the run of the hill to the right. It will turn down about where the webbing on the wall ends and I will begin a photo mural just to the right of this point. It will simulate a hill in the foreground, made of plaster, and blocking our view of the more distant scenery. There will be a tower where the glue bottle is located, and a maintenance shed on the other side of the track. I hope progress speeds up as this has taken me too long to develop.