Before I left for my winter vacation I managed to get on a hot streak and completed lattice and tape - we can now see the final landforms on the south room portion. Here's a shot that shows three stages of scenery - finished on the left, grassed center, and lattice and tape to the right: Next up is a wraparound shot of the horseshoe. I deliberately left it a little messy...well, OK, I flat out ran out of time! And finally the area that's been shown for the "forest in a flash" thread. The holes in the fascia are for observation of the staging area; there are also throttle pockets and access to the prox relays in this area: When I return, it'll be joint compound time - I'm in the home stretch!
Looks great! My son thought we had a long train yesterday when we ran a train with all 17 of our autoracks. Wait til he sees your pictures. Jamie
Dave, I will absolutely buy more - the only minor quibble I have is with the LED color but that's an easy fix. They look great, they run well, easiest decoder addition ever, prepainted detail parts included! Fox Valley thought of almost everything. No question in my mind they have broken new ground and raised the bar.
Nothing new this week - here's a look back: The bare staging area about 14 months ago And the way it now looks: Very much looking forward to putting the finishing touches to the area...
Idling her days away in the Oakville engine facility is my first Oakville loco - that's an Atlas (Kato) GP30. I had an N layout much earlier than Oakville, but there simply wasn't room for it and all its' pieces were given away long ago. In reality the motor was stripped out a long time ago, and the loco sits forlonly in my parts drawer awaiting a call that might never come...
Why thats the best looking paint job of them all. Actually, that is one awesome looking collection of power!
I'm maybe a bit more partial to the red and silver...and I keep hoping that Buffet's New Santa Fe will bring it back. But any of the later Santa Fe schemes are near to my heart. I needed a large enough engine facility to rotate power on the six trains that are in staging at any given time. I like to change out occasionally and reverse ends so as not to have any loco "take a set" one way or the other. Besides, it's a lot of fun to switch the consists around. Come to think of it, the whole layout is getting to be a lot of fun now that construction is almost done.
Jim: Having seen your layout in real life, how about a suggestion for next weeks SNFF or for this thread? Lower your camera tripod so that the center of the lens is at rail height, sometimes your "overhead" shots don't really do your layout justice from my perspective. Considering you designed it at a great height for seeing the trains at just the right eye level, why not have the camera show just how great that eye level view is? Best, Bill
Hmm, so judging by the heights in this picture: the engine terminal shots must have been taken from ceiling height. Love the horsepower on display there!
Point taken, Bill. I guess I just like the helicopter shot - and I did want to see the other locos in the yard. I'll see what I can do... Gary, the ceilings are eight feet - that shot is interesting (to me) because it was taken a bit low. (I'm SO literal!) The background is about ten feet from where we stand. And the camera angle puts our heads at the soffit. I frankly had not noticed it before.
Another milestone this week - I've finished the basic scenery on the layout - all grassed! The staging yard is underneath these photos, taken on the west side of the south room: These two were taken on the east side of that room:
