I-80 was started in 1956 as a major East/West route across the United States. Completion of the Interstate Highway system was coincident with the decay of railroads as major transporters of people and products in the United States. These interstate highways allowed anyone with a car the ability to travel long distances in a short amount of time on THEIR OWN SCHEDULE - which was not possible before their construction. People were now free from regulated train schedules and could travel throughout the country at their convenience. Cheap gasoline and heavy trucks on interstate highways would also put a dent in the railroads monopoly on moving commerce. Transportation changed drastically as a result. It seems fitting to me that I'm modeling the town of White Haven where I-80 runs right over both the Lehigh Valley and Jersey Central mainlines, the ruins of the Lehigh Canal as well as the Lehigh River. I've driven over the Lehigh on I-80 countless times in my life, and I think every time I've gone over that bridge headed east, I've taken a look down the river at the LV railroad bridge and the CNJ overpass. When I first had the idea of modeling the Lehigh gorge, I thought one of the key components would be the town of White Haven, and I had to include (somehow) the I-80 interchange with PA 940, the I-80 bridge over the river, and its abutments.
Modeling roads sounds easy - essentially they're just flat and uniform. However, as roads age, they crack, you get potholes, the roads get a smattering of oil. Seems to me that roads can look almost too fake if you don't get them right.
Last Christmas's list included kits from Woodland Scenics (Road System Learning Kits). I'd seen these on a video on their website and thought "that's a no-brainer". However, the video only really addressed asphalt roadways. Back in 1976, I-80 through White Haven would have been simple concrete. Think "kachunk, kachunk, kachunk" as you hit each expansion joint.
I've also seen some videos on simply preparing dense styrofoam, cutting into the surface to simulate the edge of the concrete and the expansion joints. I could have done that pretty easily, but elected to get familiar with the Woodland Scenic products - I'll be using them a lot to finish the asphalt roadways in White Haven. Even though the video doesn't address concrete roads, I'm going to try to make it work, and I think the result should be good.
Way back in 2013 I'd emplaced the bridge abutments for the bridge over the Lehigh, and I also have abutments for the 940 bridge over I-80 at the interchange. You can see those in pink styrofoam in the picture below.
Back when I did that, I also sketched out a possible lay of the road as it curves away from the hills to the south. I also had the forethought to add a little forced perspective - the road will get narrower as it gets closer to the backdrop and disappears into the distance.
What I did first is add a layer of Sculptamold to the plaster cloth I laid last week, and I troweled that on the area for I-80 and interchange. Once that dried, I sanded it until it's quite smooth where I'm going to lay pavement. Next the guidelines were laid and I added the single-sided tape barriers that came with my roadbuilding kits and then I poured and smoothed the "Smooth it".
Next I let that dry for about an hour and etched in the expansion joints (measured for them before laying the tape down). I'll also be doing the off and on-ramps and PA 940 in the next couple of days. I did learn a couple things about this road system - the tape doesn't like to stick to Scuptamold that hasn't quite cured, and you have to make sure that you don't have stray Scuptamold particles migrating into the Smooth-it or you have to remove them. On flat roadways the stuff seems to fill in pretty nicely if it's soupy. I thought The roadways on slopes might be more difficult, but as long as the consistency of the Smooth-It isn't too runny it stays where you want it. Another thing - as the Smooth-It is drying, simply running your finger over it is enough to smooth out the surface, or I suppose, would be enough to make a pothole or imperfection.
While I was waiting for things to dry, I applied some attention to the scenic areas around the interchange. A number of the slopes are very steep - really only one option there (and it was an option employed around Rt. 80 in many areas - lots of bare rock. I re-used a technique I used often in the construction of the Black Creek pass over to Hazleton - added a thin layer of Sculptamold to the stuff that was already on the face, and then while it was still malleable, stuck a crinkled piece of aluminum foil up against the surface, worked my fingers into the surface, and after a few minutes, gently pulled the foil away. Wa la! Instant rock surface. For even better results, stick a few plaster rocks in the Sculptamold before adding the aluminum foil. Checked my stock - I didn't have many pre-made rocks to pick from, so I mixed up a batch of plaster, poured it in my molds and let them sit overnight. I then hit the surface with some dark gray and then highlighted with brighter colors.
I also painted the concrete areas a nuetral base gray color and added the asphalt coloring on Rt. 940.
From there, it was a matter of finishing off the rock areas, painting the remaining white Sculptamold areas a generic brown...
As you can plainly see in the photo above, all of the concrete roadways were painted a generic light gray. Real concrete roadways, however, are not one homogenous color - they get worn by tires, rain, snow and salt. The color of the aggregate stone used sometimes gets displayed due to wear. So, it was time to weather the roadways. I loaded up a bunch of browns, grays, whites, blues and blacks and got a relatively stiff bristled brush out. I started with a very light brown and taking almost all of the paint off the brush, started stipling in the brown by lightly punching areas of the concrete that would receive the most wear.
I followed that up with darker browns, blacks and grays. Sometimes things got too dark, and I simply stipled on some of the original gray until I was happy. It was all trial and error, but after about an hour I had the effect that I wanted. I let it sit overnight and took a look the next day.
Satisfied with the effect, I then highlighted the expansion joints with a very narrow-tipped brush and some dark gray paint.
I wanted to try some additional weathering techniques on the concrete, but figured I'd spend some time on the bridge at the interchange. I cut some Plastruct 3/16" I-beams to appropriate lengths and laid them between my two bridge abutments, and then cut a piece of plastic from a For Sale sign to function as the road deck between the two sections of PA 940.
I painted the sign black to temporarily simulate pavement and then glued on some "Modern Highway Overpass Railings" available from Rix Products.
Next I proceeded to add a pier that runs from the median to support the middle of the bridge. I used some 3/8"-thick pink styrofoam board, and cut and sawed carefully to get the right profile. I cut holes in the plaster cloth and Sculptamold to support the pier and worked out how to hit each of the I-beam girders. I then hit it with a coat of acrylic gray paint. Looks pretty nice already!
Received a shipment I bought with a Christmas gift certificate (thanks family!). Included within that shipment were some yellow and white "Road Striping Pens". I was excited to mark up the roadways with some of these but quickly became frustrated. The paint would either not come out or come out in globs. I expressed my displeasure to Woodland Scenics (they usually make great stuff, but this was one of those times where I didn't feel I'd gotten my money's worth). The next day I went out and bought some normal paint pens in yellow and white from Sharpie and got much better results.
After marking the lines a few times I then painted in some aprons on the roadways, added some gravel near the central pier and abutments, and added some turf on the median.
I also weathered the overpass bridge and put lines on it. Love the result!
And then it was time for trees, underbrush and ground cover near the interstate. The first picture shows the additional puff-ball trees I emplaced and the ground cover (I made the ground cover stick with an application of diluted wood glue). I had plans to take a bunch of pictures but got in 'tree-building zone' and didn't take many, but the 2nd photo below is the end result after all of the cleanup (you always make a mess putting a bunch of trees in an area). The third shot is a closeup at road level - it's always good to take these shots to see how well you've done your work! (A little more cleanup to do...)
At any rate, until I finish the river section near the railroad bridge, I'm suspending any more work near the interstate - it's good for now. It's nice to see something that I started 8 years ago with a piece of styrofoam board and a few created bridge abutments has become a finished scene. I hope you enjoyed it too! Polishing this off will lead me right next door to the town of White Haven, which I expect may take considerably more time depending on how much detail I want to add for each property.
September 2021 update: I've done quite a bit of the work with the town of White Haven and have been working a lot with models made from paper. There was a railroad girder bridge that I thought would work really well to simulate the girders on the I-80 bridge over the Lehigh. I'll talk about how I build that in the "Fun with Paper" blog and post some pictures here when I have most of it completed.
Before I could add the bridge, however, I needed to make up the space I'd previously cut out of the bridge abutment (I'd originally planned to put in plastic I-beams that were not as tall as the girder bridge). Fortunately, a small piece of foam board was able to be layered in and plastered over with some spackle.
Some concrete-colored paint completed the revised abutment, but then I had to add supporting columns to hold up the girder bridge (like the ones supporting the real bridge in the photo below).
A couple of pieces of pink foam covered with spackle did the trick.
I also needed to devise a concrete support for the free end of the bridge similar to what's there now (the vertical support columns in the picture below).
More pink styrofoam coated with spackle and sanded smooth.
Once all of the parts were cut to size and fitted and sanded, it was time to paint all of the "concrete". Below you see everything with a base coat of gray.
I like a mix of light gray and tan, and I like to stipple in some other colors and add some weathering, staining and rust. I also simulated multiple pours on the abutment with subtle lines of brown.
I then decided to try something different. I got my weathering powders out. I usually use them to weather locomotives and rolling stock, but I thought a bit of powder would even out the concrete look. I also wanted to add some rust running down the abutments using powder.
Then it was time to weather the road surface of the bridge. First I cut some expansion joints in the spackled surface and painted them a dark brown.
Then a variety of grays, browns, blacks and browns to simulate a mottled and traveled bridge.
I then added some powders...
...and finally some paintmarker applied for lines...
I then weathered the other bridge support near the "end" of the bridge
I plan on getting the west-bound bridge span done fairly soon. And here it is. Didn't use any different techniques in building the west-bound span - it just didn't take as long. This marks the end of my major work on I-80 through my layout. I'm sure there will be plenty of pictures taken as trains travel under this bridge complex.
...and here's a shot from bridge level of the completed interstate highway.
