Rainbows in the Lehigh Valley Gorge

[TMo]

Mo' trees... mo' trees...  I lose count how many I make....  Good activity while sorta watching a football game.

   

[TMo]

I'd been running this consist headed by my Intermountain/Athearn kluge SD40-2 for a few days now and things were passing by that switch just fine....  until they weren't.  Identical derailments through the turnout.  Time to get out my calibrated fingernail and check for gunk...    Gunk found and removed.  It's quite amazing how well plastic, metal, dust and dirt accumulate just in the wrong spots.  Here's that consist in action crossing the Lehigh at Penn Haven Junction.  The C628 is a Stewart, the C424 is an Atlas yellow box DCC mod.

   

Tree construction and installation continues.  With the limited space available and the flattening that the camera lens accomplishes, it's tough to get an overall shot of progress with my camera, which is a little frustrating - the end result with the human eye is much better.  The shot below was blind, placing the camera against the backdrop and taking a bunch of shots.  Thank God for digital media....

   

The dappled "sunlight" coming through the trees lends itself to some interesting potential photos...  It's tough maneuvering my big camera in between the trees though.  Makes me think about looking into a flexible inspection camera...

   

[LiveSteamer]

Great photo's. It does happen where stuff accumulates and you don't realize it until something happens. Glad you was able to figure it out and get it fixed.

[tompm]

Nice! The shots between the foliage are very realistic and cool.

[ngauger]

Great shots! The scenery is beautiful!

[TMo]

Thanks to you all - you're helping me push through and try to finish this section with the many kind words.  Prior to tree installation I've been installing underbrush on top of the "brown and green stuff" which I applied months ago.  The underbrush is nothing more than 3 different varieties of either Woodland Scenics Forest Blend Underbrush, or Super Turf Texture Foliage.  I put down some strips of full strength white glue first, shake some underbrush in the area and push it into the glue, and then dose the whole thing with diluted white glue.  Ready for trees.... rinse and repeat....

   

[TMo]

Made it to the peak of the hill, but still quite a few more trees to build and install before I get to the river running under the bridge.  I don't know if I'll get there this weekend, but the fun continues...  I did page back and found out I started the project building this foreground at the end of January!  How time flies.

   

[Charlie B]

Todd, When you get time would you do qa tutorial thread on how you make trees. They are A1 and I would like to see how you do them. 
You are a man that relly makes a mole hill look like a Pennsylvania mountain.  
Charlie

[ngauger]

Todd
If you do decide to do a tutorial do it in this section with the rest of the great subjects

https://bigbluetrains.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=44

[TMo]

Consider it .... Started! Shouldn't take me too long because there's really not a whole lot to the method of my madness after years of trial and....error.

[TMo]

Well, other stuff interfered with tree construction and planting, but I did get a little done while half watching the Eagles/Chiefs game.  Here's a shot from the bridge side:

   

...and here's all that is remaining:

   

[TMo]

Allright, I'll beat you all to the punch.... That does look like a face on the rock face! It was NOT an intentional Mt. Rushmore!

[TMo]

Not much progress or good news to report this week.

Decided to run my TOFC D&H Apollo this week - it's been problematic lately and I wanted to figure out the reasons for the problems.  It's a long train with long cars on marginal curves for them and I was running into an issue when the locomotive consist was headed back downhill out of a curve pulling the rest of the train coming up the slope.  The extra strain was transferring to the first TOFC flats - I was getting some bucking that led to derailments and tossing of trailers into the Lehigh.  Turns out my Athearn Genesis GP39-2 was only pulling sporadically - running....not....   running...not....  Ran it by itself and consisted with another locomotive after checking everything over.  Didn't get better - in fact it ended up with a hot and non-functional DCC decoder (21-pin type).  New one has been ordered and I'll re-double check wiring in the meantime.

I did some prep work - underbrush for more trees.  I might get to build and install some trees this evening if I can get the bathrooms cleaned.

   

[TMo]

Well, a couple hours on the Mo' Tree Express after I got those bathrooms taken care of....

   

   

[Charlie B]

Now the mow crew will have to cut those darned trees so the railfans can take pictures.       Nice trees. 
Charlie