So here is a close up of my hand laid railroad ties in HOn30. The ties were cut from basswood strips bought from a hobby store. The ties were aged and distressed first by scoring all the sides with a hobby razor say blade to add and enhance wood grain detail. To remove the wood 'fuzz' that the process creates I then rub the ties through super fine steel wool. After that I then dipped them into a solution of extra strong vinegar/steel wool mix.

To make the solution you just get a bottle or jug of white vinegar and shove in some steel wool. I used several wads of the wool and then over the course of a week or two the vinegar dissolves the steel wool. When wood is dipped into the solution two things happen. A chemical reaction that helps age the wood, and second; microscopic iron particles are deposited into the wood. So as the vinegar evaporates the iron particles oxidize and gives the wood a nice aged brown color.

I elected to hand lay my track as there just isn't any commercially available track for HOn30 that I like. Micro-Engineering used to produce some, but that product has been discontinued. PECO is the main producer of HOn30 track, but they use code 80 rail which is FAR too large, in scale, for some po-dunk, backwoods mountain narrow gauge railroad. Code 80 is more appropriate for standard gauge. Code 40 would be more appropriate, but I elected for code 55 rail in my case. And I will be hand laying my track on the layout also.

The ties are glued down to Woodlande Scenics N scale "Trackbed", which is a foam product with sound deadening qualities. And given the smaller size of the road bed I think it would look more realistic for narrow gauge use and also some standard gauge applications.

The next step is to cover the whole diorama base with dirt, real dirt. I mean c'mon! What looks more real than the real thing!? Joey Ricard of Trackside Scenery has some awesome YouTube videos on scenery techniques. I HIGHLY recommend you visit his channel and watch his videos. They're informative and entertaining!

I'll cover the are with dirt once I know where I will be placing my structures. I won't ballast the track yet, but I'll also be ballasting with dirt. Which was common practice for narrow gauge lines here in the states. The odd thing here is I'll be ballasting BEFORE spiking down my rail. I thing it will make the ballasting process easier. Plus I want to weather my rails prior to spiking them down and then clean the tops of the rails once they're in place.

As always, comments are always greatly appreciated! Especially if you fave!!