I have been ask by several to post full views and explain the double loop of the east and west mountain. My railroad is designed for short trains and mostly gear engines.
My mountain loop has a loop on the top of east mountain and the bottom of west mountain, with 4 bridges that connect the mountains.
The bridges now are temporary bridges, once the mountain work is all done the permanent bridges will be built.
This view shows the bridge area, this is 4 levels of tracks, the top 3 are part of the mountain loop, the bottom connects the loop the rest of the railroad. The temporay wooden bridge in the background connects the loop on the bottom, it crosses the stone arch bridge and connects on the other side back to the track completing the bottom loop.
Full View of the North side of east mountain next view is the south side of the east mountain, the stone arch bridge and the steel arch bridge
The view above is the south side of the east mountain
Below is the southside of east mountaint just closer to the bridges and close to Mashville station.
Next view is southside of the west mountain
This view is the south mountain with the east mountain in the backgound
The wooden temporary bridge, will have a new water feature installed next spring
I purchases a 300 gallon watering stock tank, the tank goes where the temporay bridge sets, so
the tank will be about 20 inches deep in the ground. Two bridges will cross over the tank.
The view below is the east mountain ( closest) west mountain the farther mountain
WOW!!!
Dennis,
Quite an impressive sight when you see the whole thing! 
Hardly believe, all I can say, WOW,
You won’t believe it when you see it in person.
amazing!
I need to learn how to do this!
are there step by step pictures somewhere?
thanks
JKS
John
I thank you and others for your compliments, John I have no absolute instructions on how to do this.
I have several post on here and MLS , Cliff has a long posting on MLS on how he done his. Him and
I spent some lengthy conversation on the phone with Cliff.
Tom Ruby has a post here and MLS of him building mountains my way, which is quite detailed, except for coloring. I have taught and helped Tom build a couple nice sized mountains,
If you or anyone is really interested I am open for phone discussions.
Thanks Dennis
yeeeeeessssss!!!
thank you
where in missouri did the molds come from?
JKS
http://www.bragdonent.com/index.htm
Tom did make a mistake where the molds come from.
Dont select only big molds, I prefer 3 or 4 sizes around 8x14 and a couple bigger sizes.
After they are poured and dried I break them up into smaller pieces,
Occasionally I use the full size, but never next to each other. I break them up turn them over.
When ordering molds, food for thought, if you buy layered stone, they are hard change alot because
of being layered.
Order the larger rock formations, most of there molds fit smaller scales.
I started with 2, played around some, then ordered 5 more.
My favorite section is the south side of the west mountain, I broke into smaller sections
You need to figure the style you like and go that way.
Cliff made a great mountain without any molds, over half of mine are without molds, they are
harder, and takes alot more time if you like alot of verticle mountain walls.
Cliffs are more rounded northestern mountains, mine are more rugged western mountains.
Most important thing to remember, it is your RR you do it the way you want it.
Dennis
It all looks great! Another alternative for commercial molds is to use Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil and crumple it up. After a few you get to where you can make very realistic rocks and whole mountain sides using Quick Set patching or repair cement.
I have used heavyduty tin foil with good results, compared to the molds it is some more work.I
I have had some good results, The biggest time is removing all the little crumpled pieces of foil out
of the crevices.
On the southside of the west mountains picture, on the bottom is where I layed lava rock on plywood
covered with thin plastic and poured 1-1.5" of cement over the plastic. Next day I Pulled the cement
off the plastic and then took a sharp tool and scratched the face the create scratches. It has its place
the face on the plastic is really smooth.
Andrew Moore said:
It all looks great! Another alternative for commercial molds is to use Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil and crumple it up. After a few you get to where you can make very realistic rocks and whole mountain sides using Quick Set patching or repair cement.
Andrew I did that in HO, with plaster, but I wouldn’t have thought about trying it in large scale with concrete. I did have to fix some minor details in my HO plaster rock work, to do so in cement I would have to pull off the foil while the cement is still green.
Yes David the foil must be removed while the concrete is still green.
Beautiful!
I sometimes wish I had done this sort of thing on my layout instead of using real stone. The stone is great and I love it, but casting concrete “rocks” in molds would have allowed me to sculpt realistic landforms with greater precision.