Computer Scientist, Graduate Student, and Geek

Tag: scenery

Interstate 80

January 08, 2012

My N-scale model railroad of Grinnell, IA now features the beginnings of Interstate 80. Adding Interstate 80 to the layout provides a way to hide part of the track so viewers cannot see the entire loop. Shortly after I decided to include Interstate 80, I read the Step By Step article "How to build a highway overpass" in the December 2011 issue of Model Railroader. I am basing my design off of the article.

I began in the front-left corner of the layout by adding a hill. Below is a picture of the foam that forms the base of the hill with some cardboard standing in for the road. You can also see two of the new vehicles I got for Christmas (thanks Llewellyn).

After I had roughly shaped the hill, I built two abutments out of some styrene sheet. You can see one of them, unpainted, in the photo below. I also cut the road surface from styrene and glued it to the hill, weighing it down with soup cans while the glue dried.

The hill, road, and one of the abutments are now complete.

Next, I need to build the hill for the other side of the tracks.

Categories: Model-Railroad

Tags: scenery, structures