It has been said when a project (or a difficult time in life) is nearing the end that one will "see light at the end of the tunnel." The comedic retort to this phrase is "yeah, but it may be a locomotive."
Early in the visualization of this model railroad, I wanted to see a large mountain with a few tunnels. Perhaps inspired by John Allen's floor-to-ceiling mountains in his Gore & Daphetid railroad masterpiece, the mountain would touch the "sky." Space limitations (and desire) eliminated the floor as an anchor.
Before the mountain construction could begin, I had some tunnels to build. After a little research and some failed test castings with aluminum foil, I landed on Woodland Scenics Tunnel Liner Form. By the time I had enough sections, I had poured about 30 tiny batches of thicker than normal plaster of Paris. These were all primed with rattle-can light grey primer and allowed to dry. Then, each was painted with a thick wash of dark brown followed by the ubiquitous alcohol / India ink wash. Then, I added some streak of light brown, light green, and white.
After installing the tunnel segments onto the layout base, I covered the tunnel with foam sound-proofing panels. I had read that this can help sell the illusion that the train was deep into a tunnel.
Check out the small photo album of the process:
