Building a New Layout

[Woody Elmore]

Jon - In the mid fifties GM was into pastel colors. My godmother had a Bel Air that was turquoise and white. They did have them in lots of colors but not purple. Just kidding about the color - the cars are a addition to the layout.

Purple came in with Chrysler in the late sixties - early seventies. They called it "Plum crazy" and the color is coming back. My favorite Chrysler color was a weird green that they called "Gang Green." After negative comments they changed to "Go Green."

Keep up the great work. By the way, I didn't a lot of those old chimneys have ladders on them? Maybe you could hide the seam that way.

[WoundedBear]

Woody...........

The Chrysler green was never called either of those names. Green Go (think Gringo) was the name Dodge used and Sassy Grass Green was the Plymouth name. Plum Crazy's Plymouth name was In-Violet.

Sid

[ebtnut]

I guess I'm going to have to suck it up and get the Hodges truck from Greenway tomorrow if they have it with them.  I expect I will also order one of the Cal-Scale Cole truck kits from Bowser in anticipation of acquiring one of the new P-5's.  That is, unless I decide to kind of fake it get a Delta truck and make believe the loco is a P-6. 

[Terry Toenges]

In the late 50's and early 60's my grandparents had a farm and they lived at the end of a road. You had travel an old hilly gravel road through woods to get to it. Then it opened up to a big field before you got to the house.
You could hear a car on the gravel before it ever came into view. We all watched from the window for it to come into view way across the field and when it did, Grandma always said,"Purple car coming up the road." and we would all laugh because we all knew that there were no purple cars.

[jbrock27]

for the barbed wire, I used my new favorite modeling medium:  2lb test fishing line.  I tried that twisted wire technique on the youtube video... not so good for me.

Regards,

Jonathan

Looking great, of course, as per usual

Just a point of information; razor wire and barbed wire are not the same.  I would not have bothered with following that video either, it  was not one, clearly, that I had referred to.

[ebtnut]

Well, it is feast or famine at train shows.  I've been on the look-out for a number of years for one of the Rivarossi B&O
S-1 2-10-2's.  In the past, if I saw one at all, it was really over-priced.  At Timonium this Saturday I found one in the first 15 minutes for $85, which I felt was a reasonable price.  I really wanted the tender to go behind the new Bachmann Light Mike.  The engine represented by the B&O number on the model got a large Vandy tender later in life and that's what I would like to do.  Well, went in the south hall and found two more, one without box for $40, the other in box for $75.  Figured that was how life sometimes plays out.  Then as I was getting ready to leave and making one last swing I found just the Vandy tender for $10, so got that too.  Now, since I have both the full loco as well as and extra tender my plan is as follows - the loco just barely runs; I think it needs lubed mostly.  But now I want to track down one of the IHC 2-10-4 models that has the correct size drivers for an S-1 and a much better mechanism.  Plop the Rivarossi superstructure down on the IHC mech, do some surgery at the rear of the frame, and I should have a very nice S-1.  The extra tender will go behind the Mike.  Will have to cut out the coal load to access the interior, but that's not a big deal. 

[jonathan]

What follows are some photos of my power plant and substation, now that they are planted on the layout.

I'm a bit tired this evening, so I'll just link the photos and explain them tomorrow.

Regards,

Jonathan

Addendum

I tried various lighting conditions and lenses for the photos of the power plant ops.  Took around 60 photos for practice.

The yellow utility truck was a bonus at the last train show. Got it dirt cheap.  I wired it for headlights and put in a driver, of course.  Haven't connected the wires, yet.



The substation lights are SMDs pointed down.  I painted the tops of the lights and wires to match the substation:


I disassembled the vehicles, weathered them, and added drivers.  In this case, I wanted some sort of interesting action going on around the substation gate.  That poor driver has no legs and only half a right arm.  Well, I had to get him to fit bwahaha:










I used two 500-watt halogen floods to simulate daylight.  Still learning photography.  I can see that I should have had a third flood pointed towards the back of the layout, so the daylight continues through the whole shot.  I'll get there:




Another bonus was this 1953 White 3000 dump truck.  I added this to the coal mine to run under the external bins.

Photos revealed I hadn't quite secured the cab back onto this dump truck after I tinkered with it.  That is now corrected.

Along with weathering and loading it with coal, I added and driver and his faithful dog.  They were hard to get together in a shot, but I did my best.  I used a macro lens to get as close as I could:


I bought a 3 lb. bag of fine coal at the show (finally found some). I'm going to do my best to use it all up:

[jonathan]

This is just a little bump.  I added some explanation to the photos I posted last night.

V/R,  jv

[WoundedBear]

Gawd Damm Son....I think you nailed it....lol.

Jonathan, you have produced a really great little patch of scenery here. I really like the scene where the driver is signing in at the gate. The night shots look exceptionally good as well.

Very well done!

Sid

[jonathan]

Thank you, sir!

Means a lot coming from a scenery king like yourself.

Regards,

Jonathan

[Terry Toenges]

I got my VHS to DVD converter. I started copying the tapes from our Western vacation in '97. After we left Missouri, one of the first places we visited was the Rails West Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
They have an HO layout. As I started watching the tape, I'm thinking this all has a strangely familiar look to it. I kept thinking about your layout and how much some things on here reminded me of yours, especially the town. It's hard to believe this thread was ove a year old.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzs6qZhP6w0&feature=youtu.be