PCCM Update - Weehawken Yard / Live OPs Staging Tracks

Hello everyone. Today's blog post is geared more towards my virtual operating sessions that we call Penn Central Car Movements, or PCCM's. These moves involve two other railroads; Sir John's New York Central Train Layout and PC Ralph's Kings Port Division Railroad.

The area I focused on is to get the lower level staging track area more involved. In the past, I would show this area as 'Weehawken Yard' part of the Penn Central System back in the day. Here's what I used to show on my blog...

As you can see, a lot of my benchwork is exposed and quite honestly, doesn't look nice. 

I had bought some retaining walls from a company called 'Scenic Express' out of PA. They do the large train shows, like the Amherst Railway Show in West Springfield, MA every year. Lots of great scenery, ballast and more. 

I chose to use the Multi Scale Block Stone to add some 'scenery' to this area...

They come painted in a light gray, and in some areas, you can see the foam underneath. I chose to paint mine a flat gray primer, mainly due to the fact that the other grays that I had didn't look as good so the gray primer was it...

I painted 8 sections, plus some seam sealers to white foam board, which I painted a sky blue color....

As of today, I've installed the 8 sections and some seam sealers. I have 5 more sections coming, which I will add to the end of the yard area. In addition, I just got some foam sealer to eliminate the space between the foam boards...

I added the freight cars and engines back to the tracks as I have an operating session coming up on July 24th, and it takes me some time to get everything staged. When the 5 sections arrive, I'll paint them and add them to the end area, which you can see in the image below. One more thing I want to do is to put a tunnel portal on the north end of this area to make it look like it's coming out of the tunnel or overpass on the PC River Line... 

I would say this is my first venture into anything that is remotely 'scenery' related. Once everything is in place, I'll move the freight cars out of the way and paint the areas around the track a dark gray. I'm happy how this came out. Now I can try working other areas on the railroad up top. 

This area will be featured in my next PCCM virtual op session, which I know will be a great one!

Thanks for reading!!