Archie’s garage is done

This week I was able to finish up Archie’s garage. The walls were sprayed with a Krylon white / light tan colour and lightly weathered with some Tamyia Smoke. The foundation was painted with Polyscale Aged Concrete, and when it was dry it was loosely washed with some thinned flat black to simulate oil stains. The roof is built up from Campbell scale siding superglued to a styrene sub-structure. When dry it was washed with some flat aluminum and flat black paint, and then highlighted with a little rusty-coloured chalk.

I built a caricature of a rolling door for the entrance - that's it in the photo below before it had been sanded, painted, and generally made a bit more presentable. I’m glad I didn’t spend too much time on it because it is barely visible now that it’s installed. It just gives a hint that there is a door there and nothing more.

It’s not a very practical or realistic building, but I rather like it and hopefully I’ll figure out just the right place for it on the layout.

Light Ray Blues, part 4

“I’m glad you’re here. You need to call your station for more police and an ambulance.”

“I am not with the police.”

“Yes you are. You said you were.” I said petulantly.

“No.”

He was right. That voice had fooled me. He had on clothes that sort of looked police-uniform-like in dim light, but it was partially covered by an overcoat. I never asked for ID. I never challenged him.

“We must leave.” Barry White was long gone and Darth Vader was back.

He stepped passed me and removed a wallet from McMillan's pocket. He checked its contents and put it in his own pocket. He then put a hand on McMillan’s shoulder and paused for a moment.

When he was done it was back to business, “Let’s go.”

“I don’t know who you are and I need to call the police.”

“No. You are coming with me.”

For a man with a voice like he had he was surprisingly small. He couldn’t have been more than five foot seven or eight with shoes on. A bit on the thin side too. I could have probably knocked him over or out ran him or both. But he persuaded me not to. He drew a gun. 

“We are going to my office for the rest of the evening.”

“I need to get home. My wife will be wondering where I am and I’m dead tired,” I whined.  I was tired. I’d been working long overtime hours for the last three weeks pushing to get a stable solution to those equations, then nearly witnessing some sort of crime earlier this evening, and now this, with a ‘50s ray-gun and all.

Darth grabbed my arm and we started walking towards an alley. He was stronger than I thought. I could feel the gun against my ribs.

“What about the car?”

“Leave it. It will be hard to trace. We are going to walk over to Scarboro Square Station and take the train. I know some back streets to get there. This is not going to be a perfect escape, but if we have some luck, and not draw attention to ourselves, we will disappear.”

We were lucky. Extra lucky even. After about fifteen minutes of navigating the alleys and back streets of Agincourt we came across an overflowing Salvation Army clothing drop box in an unlit corner of a parking lot. Five minutes later we had some different coats and shirts. Fairly good ones too, but a bit smelly. Although, I wasn’t smelling so good myself.

“Don’t worry. People will think we are just business men who have had a little too much fun and too much drink. Just act the part a bit,” came Darth’s sage advice. I was nearly falling down with exhaustion. I could probably pass for falling down drunk.

Once we were on the train I immediately fell asleep. I never seem to learn from my mistakes.

You can find Part 5 here.

Basic paving wraps up

Last weekend I finished up the styrene paving job in the urban area. I’ve been working on this for a few minutes each evening over the last two weeks, and I was able to devote a few hours on the weekend to finishing it. After the last piece was in place I had a long look and was struck by the feeling that the layout is starting to look done, and less and less ‘in progress’.

Before cutting and installing the median strip between the tracks and the outer ring-road, I got the GE 45 tonner off the shelf to check clearances. It’s got the widest profile in my fleet and it has unearthed some problems with scenery placement in other parts of the layout, so I thought I’d check that it got though this section of track without scraping against anything.

That’s Stella’s in the distance. I’m having a difficult time finishing it off. I think I’m being too apprehensive about whether it’ll turn out alright. I just need to dig in, finish gluing it up, and then use whatever results as a starting point for any corrections or modifications. I’m more and more seeing it as a learning piece about what not to do on my next high-rise!

Well, it’s on to painting.

Disguises

[Main DCC terminals]

I used Atlas terminal track for connecting power to the rails. This makes for an easy, solder-free setup, but leaves the unsightly screw terminals visible on the train board. On this little layout I’ve got three of them: one for main DCC power, one for the DCC program stub, and one for a future DC power connection so I can run my old DC equipment. In general, trying to have a dual power DCC / DC setup on a layout might not be the best thing, but on this small layout my plan is to have a master switch that applies either DCC or DC. I’ll need to be careful and make sure I’ve removed all the DCC rolling stock before flipping the master switch.

[DCC power terminals hidden]

So far, I’ve built some camouflage for two of the terminals. The DCC power terminal is covered by a rise in the pedestrian walkway. It’s built from styrene sheets and hand-rail moulding. It just needs to be painted. I have some more hand-railing in my stash and I plan to install it along the walkway further down into the high-rise area.

[DCC program track terminals]

The DCC program track terminal is covered by an old equipment shed that is a survivor from my childhood ‘70s layout. The paint has been touched up a bit and it’s been glued to a styrene base that does the actual hiding of the terminals.

[DCC program track terminals hidden]

The DC terminal is way off on a stub in the rural section. I haven’t come up with a disguise for that one yet.

Light Ray Blues, part 3

A shiny dark blue sedan came down the street and stopped beside me. Barry Vader and the driver exchanged glances. Barry held open the backdoor and I got in. This is a nice car. Leather. Wood grain. Budgets must be flush at the police department these days. This was a far cry from the usual grubby Crown Victorias.

“Where are we going?” asked the driver.

“I live a few blocks from the Darlington stop. We can just drive north along Sheppard until we get there, and I can show you the turns from there.”

I’m always forgetting my manners, “My name is Ed. Ed Bryce.”

“Constable McMillan,” came the reply.

That was the end of our conversation.

We drove for a few blocks until the headlights revealed a big lump in our lane. We slowed down and the lump took on human form. It looked like a bicyclist had got his rear wheel caught in the streetcar track and had fallen. He wasn’t moving. 

McMillan stopped the car a few feet from the downed rider, got out, walked over and leaned in to see what was wrong. Then a miracle struck the rider. In an instant he reached into his jacket, pulled out a gun and fired it point blank into the constable’s chest. 

McMillan screamed. The gun was silent. No gunshot noise. No smoke. There was just an intense red beam of light that seared straight through McMillan and petered off into a dim white light before completely disappearing a few metres down range. McMillan crumpled over onto the bike’s back wheel. The rider didn’t waver and held the gun firm as the beam sliced through McMillan’s torso as he fell. The rider didn’t kill the beam until the constable had fully replaced him as the lifeless lump on the road. The rider then got up and ran down the street.

After I had finished seeing the cosmos spin wildly before my eyes, had broken into a cold sweat, had barfed up my dinner of vending machine sandwich and coffee, and had felt my legs recongeal after turning to rubber I got out and staggered over to McMillan. He had a hole in his chest the size of a baseball with a thinner diagonally radiating slit that tracked the arc of his fall. My stomach started to heave again but there was nothing in it now. I was shaking. I tried to steady.

The beam had seared and sealed his wounds like burnt barbecue. I knelt by him. I tried to calm down and figure out what to do. There was no traffic. No people. No cars. No dogs. Nothing.  It was just as dead as him. I’d have thought someone would have noticed the commotion. I needed a phone. I got up to see if there was one in the car.

From behind me I heard, “Leave him. We need to go.” It was that voice again. I need to pay more attention to my surroundings.

Part 4 is here.