Tracks and Tunnels

Having given the track 24 hours to dry, I finished removing the ties in the areas damaged the previous evening without incident, and successfully ran a few test laps with Pete’s Speeder around the oval; all rail joins and turnouts were smooth.

I weathered the ties and rails by applying several light coats of different coloured spray paint, alternating light mists of black, tan and brown. I waited for the paint to dry before scrubbing the tops of the train rails with a fine emery paper, removing the excess paint.

With the track now complete, I focussed my attention to the tunnel. I ripped some scale 6”x6” lumber on the table saw, and with glue gun in hand, began installing the tunnel portals. A great deal of time and effort was spent trying to create a minimally-intrusive tunnel configuration – bearing in mind that both the upper and lower track levels needed adequate clearances, and the scenery would need to look moderately believable.

By evening’s end I managed to create one of the two portals. The configuration is absurd, as it would have been far more efficient to have simply created a bridge rather then a shallow tunnel, however I like the idea of the speeder disappearing into the ground, and hopefully appropriate scenery treatment will add some believability.