This topic may seem a little surprising. The great majority of my layout has been pretty much complete for ten years, and parts of it are considerably older than that (for some previous posts about my layout’s history, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/11/layout-origins-shumala.html or a more general one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/02/my-layout-description.html ). But problems do arise, or in some cases, persist for years. I plan to write several posts about correcting a few of them.
One of the areas on the layout that needs improvement is the location for my yard limit sign, for trains returning to Shumala from the Santa Rosalia Branch. This was a “small project” a number of years ago, and identified for branch train crews the point where they should stop and request yard entry. In my post, I even showed the SP standard drawing for such signs. (See that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/08/small-mdodeling-project-yard-limit-sign.html ).
Below is shown the area that includes the yard limit sign, and as may be evident, it is quite close to the track, close enough that steam locomotives with longer wheelbases often brush against it. This view is taken from right above the tunnel portal through which the Santa Rosalia Branch track exits the Shumala junction.
As you can see above, the problem is that the sign is already at the outer edge of the railroad fill as it is, and there isn’t room to put it farther from the track. So what is obviously needed is to widen that fill in the area near the sign location.
This is pretty easy to fix. I simply mixed up a little Sculptamold paper mache and adjusted the contours appropriately, as you see below, to widen this area of fill.
Of course this snow-white look is not too appropriate for the California coast, so I painted it with acrylic tube paint, Burnt Umber, as a foundation for scenic materials to follow. One thought for the next step was simply to ballast the entire new contour. But this is not what Southern Pacific usually did. Photos of SP right-of-way almost always show things like signs located on the ground outside the ballasted area. I decided to do the same.
My usual base scenery material for “ground” is a medium tan dirt, actually very fine real soil collected around home plate on a softball diamond. I paint the area with dilute matte medium, apply the soil, and spritz it with “wet water,” water with a bit of detergent. A few pinches of ground foam grass then help the area blend with it surroundings. At the bottom of this view is the yard entry signal for Shumala (which I described in a previous post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-yard-entry-signal.html ).
The next step once all the scenic modifications are dry and solid, is to re-install the yard limit sign, which I did with canopy glue. This is the final result, looking to a casual observer as being much like it was before, but as you can readily see by comparing to the first photo is this post, now it’s really well clear of the track. In fact, the post is now 11 scale feet from the track center line, in conformance with the usual railroad standard that everything is clear within 8 feet of the track center.
I continue to tour the layout from time to time, with note pad or clipboard in hand, and try and find every area that needs to be repaired, upgraded, or even scenicked for the first time (I described this approach in a post some time back: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/07/management-by-walking-around.html ). I will mention a few other recent refinements like this in future posts.
Tony Thompson
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