TUNNELS! Show us your tunnels! Outside or Inside!

Does this count?

Couple shots Rusty

I’m still working on scenery but this tunnel scene is starting to come together.

Well, one outside (*really* outside!):

. . . and one inside:

My 40 year old, screen wire, newspaper and textured powdered paint light weight mountain with tunnels.  Two tracks in and four tracks out with two Marx 159O switches.

Charlie

A few tunnel pictures from one of my old layouts.

Here’s my tunnel with a scene on top. I had to make it taller than it should have been because it’s above an incline curve. The concrete wall is 32 scale ft. 😳

Gene

Here is my one tunnel!  Lionel pre-war fiberboard with a course plaster like finish.  Lionel NYC F-3 just about to enter.

Hornby PO locomotive exiting tunnel with a "wine car" tank wagon

Hornby Type 20 exiting tunnel with open wagons.

Hornby Type 50 and Passenger Consist entering tunnel.

Best Wishes, Don

The tunnel at Loafmore Junction.

My tunnel portals are scratch built, carved styrofoam and/or wood.    My tunnels are all lined on the inside with what I call "Tunnel Walls".   I did a post:  What did you do on you layout today, page 168, 11/13/15 at 11:23am that illustrates my method:

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...21#45355705289272221

Cheers, Dave

All carved from foam board.

Exiting the double track tunnel ....

This is one of my favorite train-watching spots on my Christmas layout - I always loved how trains go under streets and cities as in Philly and NYC.

Here's my first "tunnel" made in 1982 - I think many, OK , some of us used to make these paper tunnels, right?

Here's my next paper tunnel the following year

And here's a special one that I made. not a great picture but it's the only closeup that I can find.

- walt

Don't have any photos but what we have done is place the non rotating searchlight car in front of a camera caboose.  The image is projected on a large flat screen tv located on the wall behind the layout.  Gives visitors a look of what the inside of the tunnels look like.

Tunnels on this year’s Gobblin’ Gulch Halloween candy-delivering layout:

They’re really more portals than tunnels, but from the viewpoint of the trick-or-treated they look and function like tunnels.

The two clicks you hear at the end of the video are the second and third log dump cars dumping.  I failed to trigger the first one.  Log dump cars are how our candy bars are delivered to the ~250 kids next Thursday and for the past 4 years.

@CSXJOE posted:

Don't have any photos but what we have done is place the non rotating searchlight car in front of a camera caboose.  The image is projected on a large flat screen tv located on the wall behind the layout.  Gives visitors a look of what the inside of the tunnels look like.

That's not a bad idea! I already have a video projector mounted to the ceiling over the layout (feeding audio to the 100 watt Fender Rumble Bass amplifier under the layout), so all I'd need is a small wifi-enabled camera and a wifi dongle to feed the video into the projector to get a real-time tunnel experience. The searchlight car illumination idea is good, too. Hmmm . . .

Here are some tunnels/entrances on my layout.

I built this rock portal using rocks I selected and brought home from a nearby river.

This tunnel has a partial real stone interior.  I also found some flat rocks on the banks of a nearby river, brought them home,  and used them as an interior near the mouth of the tunnel.  Doing this gives the impression of the tunnel having been carved/dug/blasted out of stone.

You can see the real stone on the left and paper bricks on the right.   I've since replaced the brick paper with black foam board.

A favorite vantage point for viewing train on my layout.

The Toad Hollow Tunnel is near Bohemian Falls on the Northwestern Pacific RR right-of-way.  Engine #730 is celebrating steam by pulling an excursion “wildflower special” for enthusiasts in the coastal mountains of Northern California.  Note the men, they do not work for the railroad.  These moonshiners were surprised while making “hooch.” Trespassing along the little used and remote track is common.

West (considering North as towards the center of the layout) portal of the Loyola Tunnel.  Named after the adjacent Loyola station, which was named after a CTA Red Line station.  One of the very few Chicago L stations that doesn't have a street name.

The configuration of my layout required getting creative.  With two loops in the tunnel and a camera car in the collection, I needed to line everything and install 5 tunnel portals.  One of them had to be 4’ wide to prevent binding.

All but one of the portals were repainted using washes and dry brushing techniques.  The exception was the 4’ tunnel portal that is hard to see on the back of the layout.

The 4 ft opening was required due to double switches that ended up partially under the upper level.  Made the opening out of a double portal with ridged foam insulation spliced then carved into each side of the center keystone.

The interior of the tunnels were lined with foam board and then covered by painted crumpled brown craft paper to imitate rock.  The painting method was textured spray paint, then dry brushing a few colors.  It required 8’x4’ sheet of paper to completely line.  The floors of the tunnels were finished with glued down unscented gray clay kitty litter to save money over traditional ballast.  It took over half a jug of kitty litter to complete.

Lining the tunnel was necessary due to a decision to add an avalanche shed effect on part of the tunnel.  The track is on the edge of the layout in the tunnel area.  Instead of covering it all, I wanted to add visual interest by partially seeing the trains passing in the tunnel.  It also needed to be structural to help support the upper level that overhangs the lower level at that spot.  The shed was made out of plywood and 1/4” rigid copper pipes.  All painted and dry brushed.

I still have work to do on the sides of the mountain, but the interior tunnels are complete at this point.