Tunnel portals: Black smoke tell-tale, or not? May 27 - Done!

They must see more rain than trains these days. I know darn well that one at Harpers Ferry had black on it at one time. If your runnin steam engines I like the black on the portals.

David

Personally I would not pass up the opportunity to add some railroading character to the portal with some well done smoke effect. That's a steam fan talking though.

Bob

If you have a lot of steam on your roster I would add some black above the portals.

The leaves at least 3' up the trees at Greenfield Village that hang over the tracks are totally black.  I couldn't picture a tunnel portal being any different

The smoke marks are definitely correct for a steam-era layout.  But, I have always been ambivalent about adding them.  I'm not sure why, but somehow it always strikes me as kind of a cliché. It is really no different from a lot of other details, so I can't really defend my position.  But that's how I feel.   Maybe people just overdo it.  Dunno.

I have to say, I agree w/ Avanti/Pete about the ambivalence and not being sure why. I never got too fired-up over that feature, though I've accepted such a detail if it were present on a portal I bought commercially. I just don't add the feature, for some reason.

Frank

P.S. Doesn't that girder-bridge, visible toward the bottom of the Harper's Ferry portal  photo, look great in its real-life weathering!

I watched another video last night and even though it was from the end of the steam era, the tunnels shown did not have the smoke finger prints.

I cannot figure out how some of the old portals don't show the smoke tell-tale. As David said: "I know darn well that one at Harpers Ferry had black on it at one time." Maybe they were washed; other than rain, that is?

I am going to finish the two that I am making now and place them on the layout without the smoke marks, and see how they look. I can always add the smoke later on rather easily.

The problem is that these two are in close vicinity to several others that already have the smoke added, and the new ones may look out of place.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Alex

I think it just depends on several factors.  Material of the portal, up or down grade and so on.  I have seen some basically clean and some just flat out covered in soot.  Such as.....

Harpers Ferry is covered in smoke during the steam era. What you don't or might not know is that there is a 1100 foot cliff rock face directly above this portal. A great deal of water comes down when the rains move west to east.

The engines running westbound would be pulling hard before a series of grades.

There was a time the other Portal was flooded almost completely through back in the 70's? Anges if memory serves. They played a Canoe either in a picture or TV on the water near the top of the portal... something like 25 feet up.

In my days of trucking the only time I saw black smoke was two situations, running a natural air breathing engine without a computer in sight working hard or a failed intercooler clamp on a computer controlled engine. The result would be smoke that has to stick to everything with oily substances.

There were entire strips of hard coal/coke country where green was replaced by grey/black of the fires.

The word Telltales show me a post with a series of ropes to warn brakemen riding atop of cars that there is a tunnel coming and not far away.

I hope that this contributes in some way.

Chris,

Thank you for the pictures; they certainly helped me decide: add some smoke! My portals look somewhat like a couple of the pictures as they have a ledge at the top and are mostly cement; simulated, that is.

Lee,

Thanks for the information; and yes, it helps!

I have finished the portals and the mountain (hill?) side, and now I am working on tying or bridging the two ends of the mountain together. I'll be able to post a few pictures in a day or two.

THX!

Alex

Alex,
What I meant to say was I remember it being black when I was a kid. My brother worked for an outfit during the summer that traveled up and down the eastern seaboard  cleaning tunnels by using steam or sandblasting when he was in college.
They clean the tunnels periodically to so they can inspect them but in the early 60's that portal was as black as the ace of spades. I guess with clean burning diesels and lighter rail traffic these days it stays clean from the rain.

If you want to know what the outside looked like, look at your pic and look at the ceiling on the inside. That's what it used to look like.

Hope this works Alex this is a pic of the Columbian coming thru the tunnel in 1949

 

David

Your welcome Alex. 

Finished the west portals a few days ago, and then the rest of the mountain. Here are the portals.

(Click to enlarge)

Thank you for your help!

Alex

Alex that looks great.

Alex

    Very nice work. You could try shaving the sticks and applying with a soft brush. This will give you a more feathered and realistic look. Just my 2 cents.

Ray Marion

This picture has a tell tale visible below the locomotive.  The tracks it was protecting are gone, but the tell tale still stands south of Douglas, Wy on former CNW line.