CITY PROGRESS PHOTOS

A few images of the current status of the city.  I still have a few more LED-lit cars to add, and need to straighten some light poles (Wow! Its amazing how the camera can reveal the slightest angle) and lot's of details!

Above is the street that will parallel the passenger station tracks (it has a name! Its called the "Avenue of the Liberation of Quinntopia"! See my map here)...below is the area in front of the Metro Station...

 Another shot of the area that will eventually be next to the main passenger terminal.

The below photo should provide a pretty good idea of the layout.  Right now the City is sort of an island surrounded by wood, which will eventually be the tracks.

I still need to add more detail, but I'm pleased with how the Metro Station turned out. I still need to add a decoder to the second Tokyo Subway train so that trains will operate automatically in both directions/

An overhead view of "Minitrix Avenue" on the back side of the Metro Station and the recently completed "Gorham Building".

And finally, a street level view under the Metro Viaduct on "Kato Avenue"...

GORHAM BUILDING COMPLETE

Hello modellers!

Wow, it's been awhile since my last post. I've been busy!  I'll have a few more updates shortly.

I've been adding my buildings to the layout and arranging them, which also means putting together a few kits that have been sitting around.

I purchased CMR's Gorham Building several years ago (based on this actual building) and I decided to finally put it together. It's the ideal size for a certain spot, and decided it was time to get it on the layout!  Below is the plat where this new/old building will be installed.

The CMR kit is made of an interesting material.  It's a laser-cut sort of styrene or plastic. I actually really enjoyed putting it together. And while the pieces are all flat plastic, once complete they look really nice.

The instructions advise you to paint the structure after assembly, but as I wanted to use different shades of grey for the different layers, I sprayed them all beforehand and then glued after they were painted.

Interior detail was primarily limited the large ground floor entrance/lobby area.

I really like how this building turned out. in addition to lighting, I applied several coats of washes to really draw out the laser cut details that CMR puts on the pieces.

 More updates to follow! Thanks for reading!

IT'S DONE! LATVERIA STATION COMPLETE!

It's done!

And it only took a year!  Literally.

It was a year ago when I had my basic plan for how I would construct an early 20th Century style elevated metro/subway station.

Hey, these things take time!

Below are some photos picking up from my last post.  As you can probably tell from the photos, lot's of strip styrene....

 For the windows on the roof, I had some transparent Evergreen Plastics sheets on which I masked and spray painted horizontal lines to simulate window panes.  On top of this I glued pre-painted styrene strips.

 Of course now with the roof finished, I can start to enjoy the station area a bit more!

One of the many tasks that made the project take time, is having to complete various details.  The station platforms were built from scratch, painted, marked with pencil, and of course had people and various bits of details added.  Something like this can slow down actual roof construction for several weeks!

 Interior view with platforms..

 I almost did not have glass windows on the roof, but I knew that I would regret not being able to see the station interior from the top, plus I like a bit of ambient light coming out of the station!  So I'm glad I did it, but it was yet another complication to the roof project that added at least a month of work.

 So, with the station really almost done (Not true: Still a few more details) I can start working on the rest of the city and (believe it or not) actually putting down tracks for the 'main lines'!

Thanks for reading!

ROOFING THE STATION

Hello World of Modelling Fans!

I apologize for the dearth of posts lately. Its been freaky cold in Quinntopia (the garage where the layout is) and work has been super demanding. The combination of the two means slowwwww progress.

But that doesn't mean NO progress! I've been building a roof for my station!

I started with some laser-cut trusses from Luetke Modellbahn. There are too long, so some editing was in order.

 I measured the dimensions of the station to determine the even distribution of the trusses and rough sections...

 With the correct dimensions established, the trusses are laid onto long strips of styrene to form the roof (and the place to attached the LED strip).

 With the too-long ends of the trusses trimmed, and a bit of glue, a test fit was in order....

 Now to add the roof itself, paint, and the lighting....

But for that...you will have to wait for my next post! Thanks for reading!

STREETLIGHTS AND LIGHTING BUS

With most of the sidewalks and street markings complete in the Commercial District and station area, I am now adding street lights! Below is what they look like ---without power!

I'm using very inexpensive, yet surprisingly good-looking LED light posts from We_Honest (and others) from China, available on eBay.  They are straight LED's without resistors, so you can't just hook them up to your accessory output - you need to add resistance.

However, one of the challenges with these lights is that the wire connectors are a very fine gauge - maybe 30 AWG or so? Pretty difficult to work with - particularly after being threaded through the layout and working over your head under the layout.  The goal is to speed up and minimize the time and effort connecting hundreds of wires under the layout.

My solution to this is to create a 'lighting bus'.  This is simply a thin, narrow material using copper tap (or somethings bare copper wire) attached to both sides.

The resistors are added to one side (I'm using 470 ohm resistors - you can wire these lights in series with lower resistors, but its actually more work to connect these tiny wires than just attached each light separately to its own resistor).

Then these strips are hung or attached underneath the layout parrelel with the streets and the wires from the street lamps.  Now its just a couple of quick taps with the soldering iron to soften up the solder and attach the wire tips and their bare wire leads.  Voila! Done!

In addition to street lights, having this wire bus also makes it easy to add lighted cars.  As you can see in the below photo!

I'm working out from the Station area towards the Commercial district: Below is looking up the Avenue of the Liberation of Quinntopia towards the Commercial and Residential areas.

Piko Street passes under one side of the station and connects Avenue of the Liberation of Quinntopia towards Minitrix Avenue and then onto an end where it does a hard right and turns into Kato Avenue.

 Next! More lights! Once the street lamps (and cars) are installed, then buildings can be placed.

MAP OF NEW QUINNTOPIA!

As the municipal electrical employees begin to add street lights to New Quinntopia (having completed adding all of the necessary street markings last week), the city planners have published their first map of the street layout of central New Quinntopia!

The central area of New Quinntopia is currently laid out in three sections.  Below is an overview of the central area with some of the key features:

Starting from the left, there is the undeveloped industrial district, which may or may not have factories:

Next to the industrial area, and bordered by the QMT (Quinntopia Metropolitan Transit) line, is the Commercial District. This is the area where the main QMT station is located (Latveria Station) along with many office towers and hotels.  Planning is underway for the intercontinental railway station Gare de Quinntopia. Which will be completed someday. Probably.

On the right side of the Commercial District, the elevation grows and clusters of houses and apartment buildings dot the hillside.  This area is also currently undeveloped.  There is some concern from city planners that the ground has a strange pink appearance and is very soft.  Outside consultant assure future residents that layers of a new environmental solution called plaster will cover up the toxic and unsightly mess. Everyone is happy.

The City Planners have also given each street a distinctive name.  The below images show the city streets without the QMT elevated transit overlay.  As you can see, Latveria Station faces the Avenue of the Liberation of Quinntopia (named after a famous battle that took place in Quinntopia).   On the opposite side of the station is one of the main thoroughfares of central Quinntopia; Minitrix Avenue. The station is bounded by Piko Street on the left, and Tomix Street on the right.  A very narrow street - Roco Street - bisects the block opposite the station.

Moving to the right of the station, we see that Minitrix Avenue continues, while the Avenue of the Liberation of Quinntopia turns into a one lane road before ending at Fleischman Way - where the future train station will be built.  Parallel to Minitrix Avenue is another major roadway: Kato Avenue.  Here in the heart of the commercial district both Minitrix and Kato avenues cross Fleischmann Way and Arnold Way before they continue on and merge in the residential areas along the hillside.

Unfortunately, New Quinntopia is not a great destination as no one road yet known to us actually leaves New Quinntopia; so if you get there, you may never be able to leave!

SIDEWALKS FOR THE CITY

The new layout slowly develops...currently my focus is on arranging the city, which is defined by the placement of roads and sidewalks.  This is both fun and somewhat complicated; it's nice to try different placements of structures, but also complicated trying to allow for somewhat realistic looking streets and placing buildings so that they look right when lined up next to each other.

For my previous layout, I used styrene sheets for the 'sidewalks/city blocks' (see here), which was adequate. However, styrene sheets are somewhat expensive for this role and are a little difficult to cut. This time I am using card stock.  I paint it with a 'Dark Aircraft Grey', and then using a pencil add gridlines and then some weathering powder to 'dirty it up' and then finish up with a matte coat of spray paint:

In another new method, I'm actually glueing the sidewalks to the streets. Previously they were held in place by the streetlights, but since I''' me using a different type of streetlight this time, I decided to permanently affix the sidewalks to the street base using contact cement:

 The advantages of both the cardstock and applying the sidewalks with contact cement is that the sidewalks now have a more realistic looking lower profile, and they now always sit flush to the street itself.

As I mentioned above, building placement is a tricky thing.  I have small buildings, old buildings, new buildings, tall buildings, apartments, offices, retail, etc... so trying to combine them appropriately so it appears to be how a city could naturally evolve is kind of a challenge.  There's a certain commitment level to it as well since the sidewalks are basically designd to fit a certain group of buildings.

I say all that to point out that my next blog post with any visible updates may take a while! So in the meantime, thanks for reading and check back soon!

The Slow Methodical Process of Kit-Bashing a Metro Station

As noted in my last post, track (and the related elevated track structure) is on hold until I figure out the precise electrical requirements to automate the metro trains.  On the other hand, I was able to make some progress, albeit somewhat slow, on the metro station itself.

I am using Walther's Northern Light's Power Station as the early 20th Century inspired basis for the elevated station. Its not as long as I needed, nor do the windows align properly, so some cutting and kit-bashing has been required.

First, I had to decide that in order to have the proper elevation for the track level, I would need to add at least 15mm of space between the windows on the ground level. Fortunately, this Walther's kit is made of fairly soft plastic to cutting and filing is not a big issue.

I initially planned on having five windows centered on a central lobby, but I couldn't figure out how to have the right pedestrian entrance on the ground floor; the Kato structure - that was the original inspiration (and will still likely donate some parts) - has a large entrance with stairways which I like a lot.

Ken (of the fabulous Sumida Crossing blog) left a comment (see? I read and listen to comments! At Quinntopia, we're all about listening! :-) )  that inspired me to open up the ground level some more, and be less focused on lining up windows with interiors (if you read his comment on this post, you'll see what he means).

I also decided to lengthen the structure so the entire Metro train will be in the station, so a second Northern Light building was ordered and sacrificed to kit-bashing to help complete the station.  I originally planned on have the second Norther Light station used for the 'back site of the station, but now I'm not so sure.  Basically, I'm tired of spending money on kits and don't want to order a third, but I expect I may have to!

The photo at the top of this post shows the general look that Latveria Station will ultimately have.  Lot's of 'open space' for parking/pedestrians, and nice open entrance to the station proper.  I've also ordered some girders and other etched brass detail pieces which I think this project will require to get the right look.  This is starting to get fun! Some projects (I have found) are good ideas that require more effort, but then it seems like a 'tipping point' is reached where you find a newfound enthusiasm and vision for the project and it really starts to get FUN!  That's where I'm at now. Thanks for reading!