Realistic Grade Crossings
As the Amoskeag Northern continues to gain scenery we'll be focusing more on specific areas of scenery and detailing. Whether you're modeling a backwoods branch line, or the action of the urban areas, the motoring public is going to need to cross your right of way. Since we are modeling trains, we may not think that modeling grade crossings requires a lot of our modeling skills or attention, however recreating these crossings properly can bring a realistic detail to the fore front of your layout.

Methods for Realistic Scenery
In the last installment we left off with laying track and turnouts, a large step in making this mass of plywood look more like a transportation system. In the next installments we'll be taking a look at creating realistic scenery, from rural to city. Scenery makes running trains all that much more like the real thing and can help you get that motivation to work on the layout, so let’s get to planting!

Easy Methods for Flawless Handlaid Track and Turnouts
Now that benchwork has progressed on the Amoskeag Northern, we can start laying some track so that we can get to the real point of the layout, running trains!

Starting the Benchwork
John Armstrong I am not, so I won’t bore you with what I think are acceptable track planning practices, which in all reality I would probably just be making up. So assuming you have already worked out a track plan, we’ll get down to building some benchwork and sub-roadbed.

An introduction to the Amoskeag Northern
My free-lanced Amoskeag Northern, set in Northern New England, features branch and secondary lines, and regional Amtrak service, run using a central dispatcher. Over the next several articles I’ll be showing you how I will be going about building, adding scenery, and running the layout, and hopefully provide you with some ideas for yours, regardless of scale.