Highlands

I soldered electrical leads to the bottom of the Marklin 8503 track at the east end of the highland loop, cut the wire long enough to run down and around the corner, and soldered the other end to the 1/8-inch phone jack.  I left the wire and track piece hanging over the edge of the suitcase for the time being.

A liberal amount of Scenic Glue was placed on the bottom of each of the highlands, which were then set in place. To make sure there was good contact between the pieces of foam, each highland was weighted down with jars of canned pickles and stuff from the cupboard.

After the glue had dried for a day I traced around the Z scale track with a pencil and then ran a bead of Scenic Glue down the center of the penciled-in roadbed. Then the track was set into place and weighted down to dry. The electrical leads to the track were pushed down between the foam and the suitcase wall.

Because the sky didn't look quite right coming right down to the foam of the highlands I used more white paint and created "distant hills in the horizon" around the highlands. I then poked cotton balls between the highlands foam and the wall of the suitcase to eliminate the gap.  This produces a bit of rolling texture to provide a transition between the foam of the highlands and the distant hills. The cotton balls filling in the gap beside the rock faces were painted with stone gray.

I used scenic glue to attach the remaining two Christmas trees to the south end of each highland.