Progress of a Small Diorama. All the work and the descriptons are from John Cubbin (www.ztrains.com)

How everything started...

Feb.13

We'll be doing the wood finish here at our studio, but here is your frame in raw, unsanded form. The colors in these photos vary a bit, but the wood is a nice mahogany color and will display a beautiful reddish sheen when finished. I wanted you to have an early look at it. The center base portion is treated MDF for stability.

As you can see, there is a small "step" cut into the underside of the Sapele mahogany, it's subtle, but it gives the piece a nice feel. As we discussed, the interior dimensions are 8 inches by 21 inches... this give us a lot of room.

Feb.20

The mail from England to New York was held up a little bit, but I received your North American style Wright Turnout in the mail today. As you can see, this is a beautiful match to the Micro-Trains flex track. Peter Wright uses actual Micro-Trains rail for an absolutely seamless fit.

March 10

I've been playing with your track and turnout and I'd like to know how you'd feel about me adding some extra "dead" track lines? I've enclosed a photo of an older mock-up diorama in an early state. Now we're going double mainline with you, but if you look in at the photo you can see these very short, additional track lines among the foam. These lines eventually got treated as if they were abandoned with soil and weeds growing over them. Aside from a nice effect... it does give you a little extra space to park a loco, weathered caboose, etc.

March 15

I've been adding, cutting and adding more foam today on your piece. I haven't applied the white latex paste shell to this yet as I'm still deciding on a few details. One of these details is the use of portals. While a double (and a single) portal will be used... that leaves us with several track ends that need to be properly terminated. I could use portals there... but I think we'd be missing a good opportunity. Using all portals on a diorama can give things a bookend, or boxed-in look. Also, by having some of these track ends opened up... it would allow you to take some head-on photos of the locos on the track. On a few of these track legs, I like the idea of having them look abandoned and semi-covered with weeds, tress, etc. It adds a bit of history to things, a bit of a story.

March 16

I have drawn and printed out a pair of double portals on paper and photographed them in their approximate locations. I've also worked up an alternate look in Photoshop for you. As you can see, the portals will take up about 2" of space on each end. I had an idea to use no portals whatsoever... but to simply have all track ends simply end at the end of the diorama base. Now this is up to you, but it's sort of an interesting look this way. Since the diorama is lower in front than it is in the back... If we eliminate the portals and add open rockwork there... it has something of a tiered "stage" look to it I think. I've used this "no portal" technique on smaller dioramas (see photo attached "main_lrg") and I liked the way it looks. By having the rock walls slightly freestanding as in the attached Photoshop photo... it would be an interesting look, it may give it a more open look. Don't get me wrong, I like portals, but the more I looked at your piece, eliminating the portals has appealed to me.

March 21

I wanted to show you your portal(s). I just finished this master last night and will cast them later today. I wanted a concrete look, and I also wanted to capture the form marks that the wood form leaves when cement is poured. I used a scale sized 8" wide, maximum 10' long board. The actual material for the boards are styrene strips, .040" wide. I also etched the board a bit to better simulate wood, and have built it so that it appears some concrete flowed between the boards when it was poured. There is also a small keystone at the top of the arch.

March 28

I got a little more involved in your portals then I originally thought I would. I considered this carefully, and though the portals would have looked fine by themselves... I felt that additional pieces would look outstanding . The 2 portals have now grown to be an 8 piece set: the two portals, two unique retaining walls and 4 tunnel liner sections.

The portal is based loosely on this photo:

The earlier photo I sent you was of the "clean" styrene master, these photos are the cast pieces I made from RTV molds. I experimented using resin for these casts, but frankly it didn't have enough "grit", or "bite" to it. These pieces are now being cast in Ultracal 30, a very high strength gypsum product that captures small detail very well. You'll noticed these pieces have been chipped at the edges... I wanted to simulate the look of old concrete. Also, all visible surfaces have the concrete from marks. As you can see, every visible surface has been covered in the .040" wide styrene.

In these photos, there is no color or weathering yet, only the Ultracal 30. They will really come to life with weathering!

On your trees, I'm going with twisted wire armatures, coated with latex caulk then weathered. Flocking material is then added. I'm going with some tall scale trees here, from 70 to 100 feet tall (4 to 6 inches in Z). These take longer to produce... but I feel they are absolutely superior in Z scale.

April 2

I wanted to write and let you in on what we're doing here, and on some research I've been looking at. Now I believe you mentioned you're getting an AZL Cab Forward loco, and I see you have some UP as well.

This tells me one very interesting thing, and that is the rock color I've been working on for you. Originally I had cast gray rock to simulate the large amount gray you typically think of in the Cab Forward areas. However there is also some... not a predominance, but some, red rock in these areas.

From a purely aesthetic point of view on this diorama, I would prefer to see a red rock... but not a strong Southwest red... more of a washed out red to pink color, such as in the attached photo. I believe this color rock will work nicely with the area and with your locomotives. It will work particularly well with the trees we're using. If you have no objections, we'll go with this red to pink color and variations on this.

Another note... the top track line (the single one)... I had mentioned that I would leave that open at both ends and make it an abandoned line. Frankly this had been bothering me just a bit. One end of this track line "open" (abandoned) is good, but both seems to me to be too much. So I'd like to change this to another portal... but this time, either a old time wooden portal or a rock blasted portal. This I feel will do two things:

1) Make the scene look more realistic by giving this single track line more definition.

2) Allow for additional photo possibilities for you.

April 13

I want to keep you posted on what I'm trying to achieve at the moment, and that is a truly convincing rock portal with continuous rock work that extends into the tunnel a bit, like the tunnel liners on the concrete portal set I sent you. The portals and supporting pieces I've already built for you were simpler in one way, they are modular. This is of course how they would be in real life. Each of these real life molds gets built, then concrete is poured into them. With a blasted rock portal however, I feel that in order to be truly convincing, the entire portal and tunnel liner must be cast as a single piece. Here's why... Have a look at the attached photo.

This is an HO scale rock portal. Although it looks nice enough... integrating this into a scene would actually be a problem for two reasons. First problem are the hard, square outlines of it's outer dimensions. Real rock doesn't end in hard right angles. Adding
surrounding rock could be a real issue. Second problem is inside the tunnel. Now if you used a portal like this, you'd have to match it up with rock on the inside of the tunnel. Since this is a mold with a flat back... this would be virtually impossible to do without seeing very visible seam lines. These seam lines would look very wrong when dealing with natural rock. With the concrete portal, they look very right, but not here on the rock portal.

April 18

Here are the portal photos I wrote about last night. I'd like your input on this piece before I proceed. Now the cast is just gray with a quick wash of India Ink, your rock will be that washed red color. This portal will be at the top right of the diorama, and the other end of this track leads off into an abandoned section... should be very good for photos.

These photos are of a Marklin Pacific loco sitting on Micro-Trains new
sectional track. There's not much clearance, as you'd expect to see on many of the rock face portals. If you like, I can add a bit of height to the master and remake a new mold.

April 30

I just finished taking some additional photos for you. The portal has been heightened to allow for a better visual, the new portal is completed.

Now one thing that was... bothering me just a bit was the top, abandoned line of track. It was missing something. I've now added a cut to this top line to act as a wash. In our western states (where the trains you have run), a wash is essentially a dry stream bed. These beds become quite active during heavy rains. In many ways, these washes act as culverts, carrying the rain water under roads and tracks.

I wanted more than a simple culvert though, so I looked into the design of the bridges over these washes. Bridge is almost too strong a term, and there is no real trestle work to speak of. Generally these "bridges" are little more than railroad ties on top of the local rock. There are also, many times, rudimentary abutments involved. It's an interesting look!

Since this is to be an abandoned line... I wanted this bridge and abutment walls to have a beat-up, old look to them. Attached you can see these photos. I'm now going to build the second abutment wall. These pieces should look great when colored and weathered.

I had made several versions of this, but didn't like any of them until this
design. I think this will work very well.

May 7

Just wanted to keep you posted on your diorama. All the castings are now completed, including the new wash bridge set (4 pieces). I really like the way this wash set came out. I've been working on your rock color for a couple of days now... testing and retesting in my molds. Gray is a relatively easy color to get right, but your tints are proving a bit more challenging. As I've mentioned before, most any variation of red, red/brown is difficult as it is very easy to look "toy-like", something we must of course avoid! I have more cast colors in the molds now setting up, and I'm moving towards a very light brown / terra cotta color. As the color changes as the piece dries, I must wait until all the pieces are dry before deciding on the correct mix. I do believe by adding the tint directly to the Ultracal 30 rather than painting the rocks later, we achieve a much nicer finished piece.

May 14

I wanted to pass along this photo... it shows the base rock color I've decided on for your diorama, this is before any weathering or additional staining is applied. This is the color that is mixed into the Ultracal 30. In this photo you can see some of the earlier color tests I ran. Also is a photo of the Donner Pass, this is approximately the area that I see your diorama being placed in.

May 20

Just wanted to let you know where we are... the piece is coming together beautifully, I ended up using more rock work than I originally envisioned. Once the rock started getting put in place, it looked so good that one piece led to another... I really love the color, it was well worth the effort to get this mixed shade.

I've been working on your portals today, and am faced with a decision. Since the tunnel depth, from the front of the portals to the back of the tunnel (including the tunnel liner pieces) is only about 2" deep, I've been experimenting with what to put inside the tunnel behing the concrete portals.The rock portal is an easier decision, since it is an abandoned line, we can fill it with rock debris, plants, etc.

The two portals down below are more difficult, since they are to be "active" tunnels. I see two options here. One is to line the back of the tunnel with rock, but to give it a much darker shading. The other option is to use a small piece of mirror. This can be fun as it would give the appearance that the tunnel does extend much further than it really does. The possible downside to the mirror is that it must match up perpendicular to the tracks, and the track then must butt directly up against it for this illusion to work. I'm concerned that this mirror may shift it's position in it's travel to Switzerland.

I'll be working on a solution to this issue today. After this is resolved, we're close to completion of your diorama.

May 20 later

I've spent several hours now on what to put at the rear of your lower level portals, rock work or the mirrors. I bought and cut mirror panels to size, as well as ran some rock tests. Although the mirror effect was cute, it had the unexpected effect of giving the diorama a toy-like appearance... it looked like a bit of a cheap trick really. Now I know mirrors get used to good effect on a full layout, but I felt it lessened your diorama when placed inside the portals.

So I will go with the rock at the rear of the concrete portals, weathered darker than the rest of the diorama rockwork. I'll soften the look of the rails running into the rock by adding small plant material and soils on top of the track where it meets this rock work. I had also played with painting the rear of these tunnels pure black... the problem here is that the back of these tunnels are visible, so this did not work... this black treatment simply had an unfinished look to it. Not very pleasing.

June 4

wanted to keep you updated on your diorama. I'm shooting for the end of this coming week (June 10 / 11) as the date of final completion for your piece. I have attached a couple of shots I took after the basic rock placement was in place. These shots were taken about 10 days ago taken prior to additional rock shading. The currently installed track work looks wonderful with the Micro Engineering weathering solution applied, I'll send along photos early this coming week to you. The piece looks very dramatic, and I believe it will be just terrific for your photos and display!

This will be a busy week as the remainder of items for your layout have
arrived. We're now using brass telephone poles from Micron Art.

June 22

I had a couple of issues with the diorama... small but important ones, but they have been resolved. The main issue was with the soil. I was not happy with the color / texture of what I was using.

I had to remove the majority of what I had in place. I did find a source of natural soils / talus that I feel work very, very well with the rocks on place. Attached are three photos from late last week that show the new soil... the grasses and portal castings and trees are now in place, and I'm just finishing up the additional weathering and blending of colors. The water is the very last thing to be poured, and that should happen this weekend... my goal is on Saturday. I then want to let that cure for a least a day or two before I pack it all up. In short, this entire project should be wrapped up by this coming Monday, June 26!

June 30

I've poured several coats of water, some tinted a nice algae green color, and am just waiting for it to dry. Everything else is 100% completed. I've attached a couple of quick shots under a single 60 Watt bulb... not the best lighting, but I wanted to give you a feel for the piece.

While I was waiting for the water to cure, I added some grass "tufts", 4mm high, I really like these as accent pieces.

I sincerely hope you like this piece once it arrives to you, I've become quite fond of it! I really do believe this will allow for very nice photos for you.

Again it's been humid here, so this is slowing the curing of the water. Since some small bits of material (very small) will shake loose during transport, I want to water to be as dry as possible so that these small bits will not stick. Even if a few do stick, you can remove them carefully, then polish the water.

Happy End! Thank you so much John!