Final Preparations

Now that I had finally finished with the benchwork and put down the base of foam, it was time to see how things would actually fit on the layout. First I drew in the most of the track plan and then began placing cardboard mock-ups of the major buildings I hope to use. Once again this proved to be rather frustrating. I have already had to make many compromises to allow for the space I have available and now it seemed that none of the scenes I have visualized were going to fit either. Finally after many hours of pondering and moving buildings around I figured it out. It would required another slight modification to the base and benchwork but all the scenes I hoped to have on the layout should fit.
Although I don't
think I'll be able to have passenger trains due to the tight radius curves I still wanted a depot andI wanted it in a particular place. I also had wanted an oil dealership, a coal dealer and a furntiture factory and lumber yard, all industries that would be located in the mountains of NC. And I will have my truss bridge over a river and hopefully I can develop the scenery making skills to do a decent river and waterfall.

First Structure.

Well, it's been almost exactly two years since I last updated this site. Mainly because I hadn't done anything. Life kind of got in the way again and my interest had been focused in other directions, but recently I've gotten my motivation back. I did finally finish the last of the benchwork and laid down the base layer of foamboard. Now I am starting on laying out the sub-roadbed As soon as I make some progress on that I'll add another update. In the meantime, this is the first structure I've built that will eventually be on the layout. I liked it because it reminds me of the tourist traps my brother and I would beg our parents to stop at when we were on vacations in the mountains, especially in Cherokee.

Once I place it on the layout, I'll be detailing it a little more. A little funny I guess that my first structure is not railroad related but is definetly a part of the flavor of the area I hope to represent. It will be along the road on the edge of town close to the river and the eventual roadside picnic area.