Judging by the completeness of the benchwork, it seems unlikely that you will change the it or the trackplan at this point? E.g.if the benchwork was 6" higher, the cleanout looks like it would be underneath.
My suggestion would be a modular section on a rolling bench that comes completely away when access to the drain is required. It could be locked into place with bolts or catches, or some other positive method. Make it big enough that it provides lots of room around the drain so nothing gets bumped or soiled... :o
I think that this approach would require the least amount of modification to the existing benchwork for the biggest return in accessibility. A lift-off section of scenery would leave the benchwork in place, subject to bumping or worse... You'd have to do a bit of additional framing for the removable section, but it would not be overly difficult.
I've tried to estimate the drain position (green) and size of removable section (cut line in red) in the attachment.
Just for fun, here are two views of the drainpipe and East Portal area not long after the start of construction in 1994:
The biggest obstacle to a roll-out section is the L-girder constructon: I'd have to cut into the girder, which would be a major re-do of the whole thing. Better to let the plumber have his way! Actually, we had quite a bit of plumbing work not for from this area late last year, and while I had to move a lot of structures out of the way, there wasn't any major damage. The New River Mine building will, of course, be removable. I'm inclined to take my chances otherwise, if it's a choice between repairs later and major rebuild now. And as I say, I never intended the layout room to be mistaken for a high-end jewelry shop.
OK, it's time for the plaster cloth. I laid kitchen plastic wrap on the already laid and ballasted mine trackage to keep the plaster out of it as much as I can. I use an old kitchen pot for water and scissors to cut the cloth.
You dip manageable-size pieces of the cloth in the water and then drape them on the cardboard web. I don't know if Woodland Scenics has a DVD version of their old VHS scenery video -- I assume they do, or someone else does one just as good -- but you lay it double strength in an overlapping pattern. The lumpy side of the plaster cloth faces up.
Then I use a disposable foam brush to smooth over the lumps so there's a more or less consistent surface:
I added rock castings to the steeper parts of the scenery slope near the mine:
I figure this looks a little like Appalachian limestone, and I'll color them to represent that. However, up past the bridge I'm going to use a casting I've had lying around for quite a while, that I'll color to look more like Rocky Mountain basalt or whatever.
By the same token, when I get around to putting trees in this area, mostly after the mine building is completed, the lower slopes will have East Coast style deciduous trees, while the upper slopes will transition to Rocky Mountain pine.
I covered the hardshell between the plaster rock castings with Celluclay, until I ran out. I will need to get more Celluclay and paint for basic ground color next week.
Longer delay than I thought, a rotten chest cold was going around -- I got a flu shot last fall, but did no good for this stuff. Then I had to get a new flourescent bulb for this area. But finally made some progress, finishing the Celluclay and coloring the rock castings:
Next step will be coloring the Celluclay and dirting things in.
Here's the general project area with the rock castings colored and the basic scenery painted a dirt color:
I use kitchen plastic wrap to keep things like the bridge from getting paint on them when I'm at this scenery stage.
Next step will be to add actual sifted dirt and small rocks to the ground forms, followed by trees and other vegetation. I've been looking at the scenery stage of the MR Virginian project layout in the April issue with great interest, hope to get much more done this week.
Here is a layer of dirt and rocks:
I learned to do scenery as a member of the Slim Gauge Guild in the 1970s, when they had their big layout on Colorado Blvd in Pasadena. There were several geology professors as members too, and they taught me a lot more than I learned in my college Geology class. I sort of depart from the MR Virginian series here: when you look at a hillside on the East Coast, you see more than just the tops of trees. You do see rocks and ground cover and so forth as well. The real difference between Western US scenery and Eastern is simply that there are more trees covering the basic geology in the East, but that's no reason not to try to model all the layers, which is what I'm working on here.
When I go railfanning in mountain or desert areas, I often take some coffee cans to pick up dirt and small rocks for use in scenery. I have a collection of different colors, and I'll use three colors in the whole scene here.
Here's the completed basic ground cover in the project area, with a little vegetation:
A couple of guys have mentioned being sidetracked. The idea of a focused project with a deadline does seem to stimulate work in other areas. As time has permitted, I've started thinking about extending the project work to the left of the scene above:
I'd like to work the basic scenery over as far as the Rock City barn, but it's also time for me to start working on the new version of the Walthers coal mine that was part of the original project.
Thanks, Reinhard -- I'm not sure if the issue is just space. What I learned at the Colorado Blvd Slim Gauge Guild was more of a philosophy of not being afraid to push the limits of L-girder, not being afraid to go vertical, and designing things so the layout more or less surrounds you. If you think about it, you could use vertical scenery techniques on a version of the Gum Stump and Snowshoe style mini-layout, and John Allen's original G&D, which was something like 3 x 6 feet, also shows what can be done in a small space. Certainly a permanent location is a nice-to-have, but it doesn't need to be as large as some might think. In fact, I notice that David Popp in the April installment of the MR Virginian project series notes that hillside slopes are a real dividend for adding space to a small layout. Visitors to my layout have certainly noticed this, though my layout is a medium-large.
So I got to thinking: I can probably finish the Walthers mine building by the challenge deadline, but I probably have the time and materials to push the scenery farther to the left, even past the Rock City barn. I added some Celluclay to that area, and I've been incorporating scrap bits and pieces of stone wall from Chooch and elsewhere that had been left over from other projects. I leveled up a pad in the Celluclay for the Rock City barn:
And now a little farther around the corner, to meet scenery that had already had some basic color:
I replaced the Rock City barn in the second photo for reference, but I've learned it's a real, real bad idea to put a wood building on wet Celluclay for any length of time! Let's see how far I can get toward completing these areas and linking the previously half-done scenery with the new project.
Here's my second hack at the Walthers New River Mine getting close to completion:
I like the silver paint much better than the Floquil Antique White that I had the other one painted with.
Here's the expanded scenery project area moving forward:
