Arkham & Miskatonic River - A bit strange

What's the tariff for a shoggoth?

Arkham & Miskatonic River - The plan and beginning

Missing is one 6" end cap one the right side for staging, overall length of plan is 13'. All three large modules are built up, track laid and wired. There's still some track tweaking to do, but overall it seems OK. My Forney runs over most of it at 2-3 scales mph without an issue.



The dock is just a temporary one along with a mockup of the lighthouse.

Buildings Along the Historic Maine Wharfs

The Maine Memory and LOC websites have many wharf side pictures taken over a period off one hundred plus years. The following characteristics are typical of these structures:

Siding

• Wooden shingles, this seems to be a very common option, they seem unpainted in the photos.
• Clapboards are another common option, painted in light and dark colors.
• Vertical board siding without battens. Painted and unpainted.
• Unpainted horizontal board siding.

Windows

• Typical tall and thin Victorian windows with two sashes with 2x3 panes. Very little decoration.

Roofing

• Wooden shingles, this seems to be a very common option
• Tarpaper on low pitch leantos laid horizontally.
• Most roofs are very simple with the occasional dormer, a few hip roofs show up in fancy buildings.
• Can be parallel or perpendicular to wharf.
• Most roofs run the same way, also neighbors don't seem to worry about water draining. Buildings can be very close together.

General Condition

• One or two stories.
• Most buildings are in good condition but some do appear slightly swaybacked.
• Some ads scattered about, but usually only on certain buildings.
• Some warehouses hangout directly over the water.
• A wide mixture of sizes is not uncommon.

The Arkham Doubling Lighthouse

The Old Warehouses

These will be built slightly swaybacked with clapboards and wooden shingles. Windows will be the new Grandt Line #3276, doors and additional hardware will be scratchbuilt for the most part. Photos from Portland around the 1900's show these older buildings in remarkably good shape with the exception of some settling and while the first floor doors were modified at sometime to be roller doors, the second story did not change for 170 years. There will probably be at least one more of these on the layout near here.

I am going to experiment with paper clapboards so I can model the settling of the buildings, I will use the same shingling technique as for the storage shacks.

The Finished Large Warehouse

The Storage Shacks

These sit on the right hand side of the crossover between the tracks.

Arkham Depot Diorama

I've built this small diorama from foamcore, stuck it together with book tape on the corners. It was wrapped around some styrofoam (yes, the evil white bead stuff)  and attached with double sticky tape. It has a very slight warp caused by the use of lightweight vinyl spackle, but there is 0 bracing and no glue. I suspect if I glued instead of taped the foam, this would not be an issue. Sides are two inches (50mm) tall. Track is handlaid.

Rolling Stock

new March 19th, 2010
Steven's Creek Laser Kit, builds up real nice!

1. Prime with Tamiya fine light grey primer (also comes in white, so read the label)
2. Using a very stiff brush, drybrush 3-4 coats of craft acrylic onto your car. Make sure your coats are very thin, the first coat should do nothing more than add a reddish tinge to the grey undercoat. I used Apple Barrel Bright Red, Black and Territorial Beige (light brown). These colors are good for all the surfaces, a muddy black for the undercarriage, a nice red for the sides and roof and a rusty brown, read and black for the trucks.
3. Sometime after the second coat, wash the car with a mixture of red, black and brown to punch out the shadows a bit. Use a soft brush for this.
4. After all of this, I used a fiberglass scratch brush to remove the paint in strategic areas letting the grey or even the underlying wood to show.
5. Add a bit of thinned black to the distressed areas to represent rust stains and water damage.

Photos from Maine Memory

This site is well worth a visit and has a very good search engine
attached!  Maine Memory Network
Cycle No. 1, Portland Company, ca. 1889 #1
Cycle No. 1, Portland Company, ca. 1889 #2
Portland & Rochester Boxcar - Really a caboose!!! Very cool
Portland & Ogdensburg RR Hay Car, ca. 1880s
Old freight house, ca. 1900
Grand Trunk railroad station, Portland, Maine
Portland from Grand Trunk elevator, ca. 1900
Boston & Maine Parlor Car, c. 1900
Grand Trunk Railroad Roundhouse
Grand Trunk locomotive, 1850s
Locomotive, Portland Company, ca. 1860
Portland Company Civil War locomotive, ca. 1863
Grand Trunk Railroad Engine #255 #1
Grand Trunk Railroad Engine #255 #2
Grand Trunk Railroad Engine #255 #3
Portland Company engine
Grand Trunk Railroad's engine #140
The State of Maine locomotive
Maine Central Railroad boxcar, ca. 1890

Prototype Photos of Use From LOC

• Bob's Finishing Shop
• Riggs Wharf Buildings, Riggs Cove, Robinhood, Sagadahoc County, ME
• Union Wharf Building (19-22), Commercial Street, opposite foot of Union Street, Portland, ME
• Burnham Tavern, High Street, Machias, Washington County, ME
• Moses Riggs House, Riggs Cove, Robinhood, Sagadahoc County, ME
• Nantucket Historical Study, Nantucket, Nantucket County, MA
• Sunapee Mill/Storehouse No. 3, Monadnock Mills
• River Street from the cupola of the Sugar River Grist Mill
• Step down tenements on Pearl Street, from the northeast
• INTAKE TO THE POWER CANAL AT DAM No. 5. IDE'S 'ROUND BUILDING' IN THE FREEMAN AND O'NEIL COMPLEX IS VISIBLE ON THE LEFT.
• EAST END OF THE TIMBER CRIB DAM AT THE GRIST MILL (right) AND THE SAW MILL (center).
• IDE'S ROUND BUILDING (1859), A PART OF THE FREEMAN & O'NEIL COMPLEX.
• Morris Canal, Phillipsburg, Warren County, NJ