That being said, there will be several on the Amoskeag Northern layout and I'll be detailing the research and construction of "Whittier". Whittier is representative of the town of Ossipee, which has three village districts, Ossipee Corner, Center Ossipee, and West Ossipee. Ossipee Corner and Center Ossipee have developed "down towns", while West Ossipee was more of station stop for the Boston & Maine. Whittier, will be a combination of the downtown areas of Center and Corner, so lets take a look at what the two have to offer.

 

Ossipee Corner has a rather small downtown section, containing a very simple garden square, a railroad station, a fuel dealer, and the county courthouse. As New Hampshire developed its secondary roadway system, Route 28 was relocated north about a half mile on a more straight alignment, bypassing Ossipee Corner's downtown. These downtown roads are now simply side streets on a road less traveled. The former "Main Street" area has houses that were built close together, and are of a typicalarchitecture of the 1800's in New Hampshire. The houses are generally very plain, with white painted clapboard siding, and maybe shutters of a "historical" color. The lots are small, generally about a 1/4 acre, and the houes sit close to the road, small picket fences or hedge rows on property lines. With little room for a driveway, some can only hold a car or two, while others have to park on the street. The courthouse is now long abandoned, its replacement built up the street on Route 171, is now being restored as a focal point for town gatherings.

 

Center Ossipee has what you can call the "real" downtown of Ossipee. Located around the Mountainview train station is the elementary school, post office, highway department, town offices, police department, the former Purina grain mill, and several former shops. The only thing missing in my point of view is a traditional tall steeple New England white church. The Mountainview station has been recently restored into a restaurant with a railroad theme, the tracks in front of it still used by members of the Cotton Valley Rail Trail Club and their track cars. What is of particular interest is the row houses, shops, and grain mill. These buildings, also typical of the 1800's, are run down, in muted whites and grays that are pealing from time, and have a general run down look. They hug the street, an aged sidewalk separating them from the traveled way. As you can see in the images, it is a great scene to model.

 

I think the best part of these two downtowns is that nothing has generally been changed over the years. While anyone of these homes and downtowns could be on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens, or even Yankee Magazine, they are the best they way they are. So, now that we have our inspiration, lets get down to recreating these scenes in miniature.

 

I first started off by searching for buildings for the town. I found several buildings from Atlas and City Classics that fit the bill on the style of architecture that I was looking for. I chose to use the 111 Railroad St Company house kits from City Classics, and the Kate's Colonial Home kits from Atlas. Kits for the shops and depot are craftsman kits from American Model Builders. I have not been able to find any plastic kits to my liking to represent the shops, but in all honesty, I prefer wooden craftsman kits over plastic.

 

The track is already down for the industries in town, so now I have the freedom to start laying the town the way that I want it. We'll start by building up the road and surrounding areas for the houses. Since this is a downtown road, we'll start with a basic 25' wide roadway, and add maybe another 3'-4' in front of businesses for street side parking. Cars parked along side the road will make the road look narrow, but that's the look we are going for. To make things easy, I use Woodland Scenics roadway system. I draw one side of the road with a marker so that I can get the path that I want, and then I use my scale ruler to measure the roadway width, and draw the other line. Using the paving tape, place it on the line, and mix the Woodland Scenics Smooth It per the instructions. Once mixed, pour the Smooth It between the paving tape and draw a putty knife across to smooth out the material. I like to wait at least another half hour, and then drag the putty knife across the road again, then let it sit over night. Once the Smooth It has dried, you can sand it with some fine sandpaper to knock down any irregular humps. Add any cracks and chips in the street with dental picks and old Xacto blades, then air brush the road in your choice of color. For asphalt streets I like to use PollyScale Weathered Black, following up with a wash of India ink to bring out the details in the cracks. Do the same for the driveways and sidewalks and you will pretty much have the hard part finished. Because these are back streets, there is no need to add lane striping.

Now we can start placing our buildings onto the layout, after having build them at the workbench. Once you have the placement the way you want it, spread ground goop over the area, and then press the building down into the goop in the position you want, and then remove it. This will create an indent that the building will sit in and make it look "planted". When you have removed the building, install your base scenery materials such as finly sifted dirt. For the houses I wanted to have the lawns appear well kept so for my ground cover I used 2mm Silfor static flock. The introduction of the Silfor products to the US several years ago has changed the way we model. Now we can have realistically looking grasses, fields, and weeds. Flock in 2mm, 4mm, and 6mm lengths, along with tufts and buffalo grass allows you to create some amazingly realistic scenery.
Once the ground goop and base scenery has dried, I soak the area with matte medium, and then use the Noch GrasMaster to apply the Silfor flock to the wet area. The GrasMaster gives the flock a charge that makes it stand up in the matte medium, and gives you that realistic grass look. I then let the matte medium dry a few hours before continuing on any more scenery.

Once you have the ground materials that you want, add your buildings and we'll start adding the utility poles. I add the poles in this step as the trees are not yet installed and there is no super detailing done yet, so you can get easy and clean access to buildings to add telephone, cable, and power drops. The poles are made using Rix 30' poles and cross arms, weathered using a razor saw and an India ink wash. The insulators are painted using Testors silver enamel, with a coat of Testors green enamel over that, giving them a realistic glass look. Cables are then made with Berkshire Junction EZ Line (for power primary wires) and button thread (cable and phone wires), secured to the poles with just a dab of gel super glue. Drops are then run to buildings and transformers, finishing the utility lines.

More to come!