Up the tunnel

[Woodie]

Guys,

What do you guys do inside your tunnel entrances? How far up do you ballast/weather the track and do you enclose the area inside the entrance?

I've heard that crunching up (then flatenning out) aluminium cooking foil and painting it black and lining inside the tunnel entrance makes for a good "rocky" look when you look up the entrance. Wouldn't that puncture easily from derailments or extraction attempts of derailed rollingstock?

The first bit of landscaping Garahbara is gunna be "over the back bit" when the mainline exits a tunnel and rounds a riverside embankment.

 

[sumpter250]

Whenever I put a tunnel in, I try to provide access to the inside...just in case. The tunnel on the club layout's narrow gauge section is only 140 scale feet long, and is timber lined the whole length, and plastered in. Extrications here are done ...very carefully.
Pete

 

[TrainClown]

Hi there Woodie

There are molds you can get to cast tunnel liners out of plaster. Or you can make your own tunnel liner by using crumpled foil as a mold and casting thinnish rock pannels that you can hot glue into the tunnel liner.

Tunnel liners make all the difference. Foil is weak, so use it only where the trafic will be low.

Here is my foil cast rock display. The tunnel liner is the cast-on-foil way, but I enclosed the end of the tunnel to make it dark with just a piece of foil as this is just a display.

If you look you can see how the foil still reflects light and there is a defonate difference in the plaster wall and the foil end. You can also see the pin holes of light from behind. I made the rock face of the cliff out of foam, covered with a base coat of plaster, then a stiff coat of plaster and pressed on the crumpled foil. I'm still working on this display. The colors are not right yet.

TrainClown

 

[jwmurrayjr]

I provide access panels on the fascia. These are secured with Velcro.

I just "finish" the tunnel with some dark paint and some sort of texture (foam or crushed foil) just as far as you can see from a normal angle. Painting the rest black and keeping out stray light helps the effect.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Hey Jim,
Whose toys are those piled under your layout?
Doc

 

[SteamerFan]

Hey Jim,
Whose toys are those piled under your layout?
Doc

oh you had to go and ask, we all know they're Jim's

 

[Lighthorseman]

I've seen a few (in magazines and in person) tunnel accesses done as shadowboxes, and the effect is very impressive. Something to ponder. :thumb:

 

[Fred_M]

I've seen a few (in magazines and in person) tunnel accesses done as shadowboxes, and the effect is very impressive. Something to ponder. :thumb:

I too have seen one like that and it's great. Someday I may go back and redo my tunnel as a shadowbox. The one I seen had a plexiglass cover and wonderful timber lined interior with a trak crew working with led lanterns, and a dinosaur bone in the rock above the tunnel (but behind the plexi). The plexi was hinged to allow clearing the tunnel. Was a real nice scene. Fred

 

[jwmurrayjr]

Hey Jim,
Whose toys are those piled under your layout?
Doc

Well...er...uh... ops:

 

[Doc Holliday]

Hey Jim,
I was wondering when you'd check back in.
Don't worry, we all have our little secrets. Look on top of the TV in the corner. What's worse is they talk to each other.

Doc

 

[spitfire]

Doc, I love the stencil on the duct-work. I don't see any forehead-shaped dents there though! Just goes to show you, no one ever reads instructions!!!

Val

 

[docsnavely]

Doc,


your basement looks awesome! Everything on the ceiling exposed as it is looks like the berthing compartment on my last ship......except the stenciling of course! !!

R/
-doc (the other one)

 

[Doc Holliday]

Everything on the ceiling exposed as it is looks like the berthing compartment on my last ship...
-doc (the other one)

Hey Doc (the other one),
Having a basement to work in is great, except for the low ceiling (which results in the low duct work). My house was built in 1915 and it's amazing how much crap (wires, pipes, cables, ducts, etc) runs through the basement. A lot of it has been abandoned over the years with numerous home improvement projects and is no longer in use. I've taken quite a bit of it out or rerouted it around the outside walls. It also looks a whole lot better after I painted everything white, and I mean everything. I masked off the windows, water heater and furnance and let her rip with the air sprayer. While the ducts are gonna have to stay, I plan on redoing one duct junction box that's right in front of the layout and will live with the rest.
Doc

 

[lester perry]

Wait a minute here guys. I am missing something here I can't find any pics of Docs layout
Les