Plaster, Cardboard, Painting and a Couple of Cabooses

Since the ground around the real Farmington is pretty flat, there is not much to put on a backdrop so I contented myself with low rolling hills and distant mountains. The Sculptamold will eventually be painted and covered with dirt.

After some family activities which occupied about a week of time which could have been spent on the railroad, I finally got back to it this week.It seems that all of the necessary buildings for Farmington have been constructed and so it was necessary to get on with the scenery. Cork sheets helped to build up the structures so they would be even with the roadbed. Sculptamold was then used to even out some of sharp edges created by chunks of plywood and cork. When covered with dirt and vegetation, the landscape will look fairly realistic. Cardboard strips were laid down to mark where roads will eventually reside. When the Sculptamold is dry, it will be painted the same bland color the rest of the area is painted.
     This morning, I went down to the basement to see what I could do about a backdrop. I have never made claims to being an artist and I only aspire to my backdrops providing the suggestion that there is something beyond the railroad. They don't have to be perfect. After all, I hope the visitors are looking at the trains and structures more than the backdrop. In any case, I managed to get the job done and am reasonably satisfied with the work.
   

Farmington is at the end of an aisle behind the photographer, or will be. Now it's strung out all along the railroad. Once the scenery is done here, there will be a long stretch of track with no unscenicked sections.

After deciding where each structure was going to be placed, I removed them and stacked them on other parts of the railroad. I had no idea that they would take up as much space as they do.
     A few weeks ago, I had finished a grain warehouse but wanted rolled roofing to complete the project. My normal supplier was suffering, as everyone else is, with being confined to his house. It took a few weeks to get the material but it was finished this week and that structure is now ready for placement.
   

Two S&I cabooses awaiting a train for Ione. Now all I have to do is get a couple of working locomotives.

While waiting for roofing and things to dry, I took a quick break and built up a couple of narrow gauge caboose kits for the Stockton & Ione. These were Grandt Line C&S kits I had had for a while. One of them was built per the kit with a cupola. The other I decided to represent as an old car which had yet to be fitted for a cupola. Both were readily assembled even though some of the kit parts are very tiny.
     At least the world situation has allowed me to get some work done and clutter up the railroad while I do it.

Progress at Milton

Looking a Milton from the south, the town is arranged along the east side of the town plaza with the warehouses on the west side. The Masonic Lodge looms over the entire scene.

After several months of structure and scenery construction, Milton is starting to look like a town rather than a bare piece of plywood. So far, there are 17 structures which have been built, only one of which was from a kit. That was only because I had no pictures of the building and the kit was the right size.
 

Looking north up the main street, the Milton Hotel is on the right with the Peterson & Dake store on the left. Stores, barber shop, saloons and a livery stable are all present. Church's Mineral Springs was a hot springs in the area.

 It was a challenge to build a whole town to scale but rewarding for me. The only thing out of scale was the depth of the scene looking from the aisle. I just did not have quite enough depth but it isn't real apparent unless you study old pictures or have visited the actual location. The structures were styrene with Grandt or Tichy windows and doors. Dimensions were taken from Sanborn insurance maps of the town. Building colors were a little trickier. I had to take educated guesses based on the varying shades of gray from the old photos and compare that with other pictures taken with the blue sensitive film of the day. The names of the establishments were taken either from photos or the town directory of the 1890s.

The Tornado Hotel was named for an 1873 tornado which ran through town and turned the under-
construction hotel on the foundation. The owner finished the building and named it accordingly.

   On the prototype, Milton was the end of the line and almost all of the goods traveling to the gold country passed over the rails to end up here. Freight wagons carried the goods to the places like Angel's Camp, San Andreas, Altaville, Sonora, Columbia and Jamestown. The large Masonic hall on the hill was the dominant building in the town and lasted until January 2016 when it burned. It was the last remaining structure in the town which was there when the railroad existed.
 

An overall view of the town looking from the north. All of the platforms need some "set decoration" and the streets need wagons. The Tornado Hotel is just out of the picture to the left.

 There is still a lot of work to be done to build a turntable, stock pen, livery stable and blacksmith shop as well as stock the loading platforms with goods and the streets with wagons and buggies.

A Beginning . . .

The Sierra Nevada Mountains can be seen from the line of the Stockton & Ione. In August, most of the grass on the foothills is dead with some contrasting bushes and trees.

Many of you may have noticed that the Stockton & Copperopolis has had no backdrop other than a painted sky. The main reason for this is that I have been wary of trying to do any painting of hills, trees, etc. In school, art class never really interested me and I have had little in the way artistic training. A few years ago, though, I attended a clinic put on by Dave Biondi of California. He is an excellent artist and gives good explanations of what he is doing and why. We had the opportunity to talk for a while and I eventually purchased a DVD showing how he paints California type foothills. After reviewing this DVD, I finally felt somewhat confident in trying my own hand. If things went wrong, I had plenty of "sky" paint to correct the mistake.
 

The Amador Coal Company mine will be located in Ione. Hillside scenery will be added to the left and right sides of the mine building and blended in with the backdrop.

 Today, I painted part of the backdrop along the Stockton & Ione line. There were no structures as yet so the painting would be easier. Here are the results. I still don't consider myself an artist but at least I feel I can do some justice to the backdrops of the layout.
 

The mine building is left from my last layout in California. It will be re-
purposed into the Amador Coal Company's headquarters.

   Over the last few weeks, I have also managed to install lighting and valence along the S&I. It's starting to look like a railroad!
   Next comes the backdrop behind Ione City at the end of the line.
   By the way, if anyone is interested in the Dave Biondi DVD, it is entitled Painting California Foothills and Forests and is a two-DVD set. It is available from Daryl Huffman's website.