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Many of the portals on the Lorraine Valley and James River Railway were carved out of blue Styrofoam using a heated cutting tip made out of a length of dowel and a piece of nichrome wire.  This melts away the styrofoam rather than cutting it like a knife does.  This eliminates all the little bits of foam that stick to everything.  I wanted to include a photo of my cutter, but I cannot find it!  Maybe it went to join the other tools lent out over the years that never quite made it back.  Anyway, pink Styrofoam would work just as well, but the white stuff made out of a lot of little beads joined together is not strong enough.

After carving, the Styrofoam was textured by tapping it gently with a wire brush.  This  put a lot of little holes in it.  Then it was painted using latex paints.  The first coat was light grey, which was worked into
the grooves with a brush.  Then a light brown "rock" colour was applied to just the surface of the blocks, leaving the mortar lines light grey.  Next came some thinned, rust coloured latex, about the colour of raw
sienna, dabbed here and there to mottle the light brown.  Finally came a thin wash of black to highlight the roughness created with the wire brush.

Many of the LV&JRR portals, including the one shown above, stand unattached in front of a false portal
made of plywood or particle board.  The false portal is similar in size to the finish portal except it has a larger opening to allow the plaster of Paris tunnel liner to extend right to the finish portal.  If loose pieces on the layout offend you, you can attach the portals to the false portals with white glue or better, silicone bathtub sealer, but it will be much more difficult to move them out of harm's way next time you are doing heavy construction work on the surrounding scenery.

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