Hi everyone,

Recently I've been drawn to a new micro layout project in memory of our dear departed Shortliner, and have been umming and ahhing about what theme to go for. As I've been playing a lot of xbox recently, in particularly Tom Clancy's The Division, I thought about potentially crossing the streams of my hobbies and potentially making the layout set within the world of the video game.

A brief history of the game to set the context of the layout - the game was inspired by a real life US military training scenario called Operation Dark Winter, which was put together to test the resiliency of the US infrastructure in the event of a large scale bioterrorist attack - theorised as a release of a weapons grade strain of smallpox. In the game, the virus was spread on Black Friday using infected dollar bills, and thus became known as the Green Poison, or Dollar Flu.

In an attempt to contain the spread, the emergency responders - EMS, FDNY, NYPD, National Guard, CDC - grouped together into a single organisation known as the Joint Task Force, and they tried to create a quarantine area from 56th street along the southern edge of Central Park, all the way down to 29th street. The walls of the Dark Zone, as it became known, ran from Columbus Circle down Broadway, along 29th Street, then back up Park Avenue all the way back up to 56th street.

These walls were built from huge quantities of concrete blocks, steel girders and miles of razor wire. The layout represents as small open space between the canyons of the city streets where part of the metro lines were used to ship in the materials used to build these walls, as well as shipping contaminated materials to disposal locations known as burn pits - infected cash, clothing, materials, hospital waste, etc.

The layout backscene will represent one of the western edges of the dark zone, with concrete/stone blocks used to build the walls covering most of the backdrop, and will include huge gates used by the JTF to send in bioterror response teams to try to contain the virus. The layout will be set at night, and lit almost entriely by scale lighting - building interiors, street lamps, spot lights, etc. I've always wanted to make a winter layout, so the scenery will be mostly snow and ice. The game itself contains hundreds of murals, graffiti and other artwork commissioned by the game developers and created by New York based graffiti artists, and I am hoping to add in a lot of these into the layout, likely by painting them freehand.

In terms of operation, the layout is built in an APA box and is a small inglenook - using 40ft cars to allow for full use of the minimal space. A lot of the features of the layout will need to be scratchbuilt, so it might be a bit of a slow burner. Traffic will be mainly boxcars and repurposed ore cars, short flat cars, beer can tank cars, etc.

I have ordered a large amount of cast resin detail packs from a railways/wargaming supplier called Anyscale models, so when those turn up I'll need to spent time painting them up and blending them into the scene.

The layout has been fully tested and works perfectly. :)

Enough of my rabbiting on, here's some pictures!

A fusion layout, with dependancy on Rule 1. Should be fun and I hope the concept works out Dan, but I'll have to take your word on that one!

Bon courage and happy modelling.

Bill

Dan,if you can resize your photos to 800 x 600 they will show better on screen.

Hi Spurno - I've no idea how to get Imgur to do that, unfortunately. I'm currently hunting for another free image hosting site that won't break forum display settings, but so far I've come up with nothing.

Progress photos for this week. Still a lot to do. :)

For those who are not familiar with the game this layout is inspired by, here's some concept art/in game screenshots from the game to give an idea of the subject I'm attempting to capture:





Christoffer Radsby - Senior Environment Artist - Portfolio - The Division - Environment Art




Most of the relevant images are right near the top - they are for a game level set in the Hudson Rail Yards, which - in the in game world - have been converted into a refugee camp for survivors of the virus.

How cool - making a computer game a living model railway!!  

Michael

Thanks Michael. I've got more work done on this but no photos as of yet. I'm currently splitting my time between 3 projects - Piedmont Blues, this, and a OO gauge micro layout, so progress is slowing down at the minute.

I'll get some photos as soon as I can. :)

Sorry it took so long, but here's the latest progress photos. I'm usually limited to posting from my phone and for some reason I keep getting webpage errors when trying to upload to the gallery from my phone.

Ah well, sorted now! :)

There's almost everything but the kitchen sink in there Dan - some interesting graffiti too.

Is the idea to play the game once it's all done or was the game merely the inspiration ?

Thanks Peter.

The game was the inspiration. I still play the game - and it's sequel - 4 years after it's initial release. There's something about it that keeps bringing me back. :)

When the layout is going to exhibitions, I intend to have a book stand next to the layout with an art book I have for the game on display for exhibition visitors to see the inspiration.

I've also got some ideas for another APA box to extend the layout, but that - if it comes - will be a project for a much later date.

Hi all,

It's been a while, as I've been busy working on the layout, but with a week to go before the layout is due at Mansfield show, lots of progress has been made.

Scenery is pretty much complete now, I just have a handful of tasks that need to be crossed off the list. Thankfully I'm off work all week now so I've got plenty of time to get it done. The resistors and battery pack for the street lamps need to be added to the back of the layout, and the frame of the APA box needs painting black. I've then just got to put together a quick fascia for the fiddlestick I've made and paint that black, and then print out a few information sheets to go along with the layout at the show. Finally, I'm weathering up some freight cars to use on the day. :)

This is the current status of the layout - with a much less harsh set of blue lighting now I've fully wired up and fitted some of the LED reel that I bought. :)



Finally, here's the motive power for the layout, a Bachmann 44T switcher that started life in ATSF black and silver. I've repainted and weathered it, though I need to finish off the running boards, side frames and trucks before I add the grab rails back onto it. :)