Come along on our adventure

[interurban]

Spitfire, thanks for the tip. We'll try to spruce up the downtown area (pun intended). Will put this on the ever growing list of things we need to do on the layout -- do you all find this to be the case -- every time you get one area on the layout going you think of 20 other things you ought to do to that very same area to make it all the more realistic. I think that is the fun part! Since our small world mimics the real world, with all its detail, it is amazing to try to replicate a small slice.

That`s why a L/O is never finished :thumb: theres always"somthing else to add".

 

[trainwhiz20]

Looks great Cabdriver. I love Main Street, with the road, parking lots, and cars!


You are making considerable progress. I admire what you've done so far. Keep up the good work. :thumb:

As always, I look forward to updates.

That gravel company area is really coming along.

 

[emt49]

No responses, so you MUST NEED MORE PICTURES !

Here are a few more pics of the gravel area.

you are doing amazeing job on that layout cabdriver. and even if i dont respond all the time i am looking for updates on your layout every time i get on to the gauge just to see whats new :thumb:

 

[cabdriver]

EMT49,

Just kidding with you guys -- we're not really that sensitive about your responses ...... Now, if we don't here for a couple of days, well then....... I'm glad you like to follow the pictures -- we like posting them -- gives us a real sense of accomplishment to post our progress. Thanks for your interest. We'll keep them coming.

The one thing I have to say is that we have learned SO MUCH about building a layout by trying our own ideas and getting suggestions from folks on this board. We already have the requirements for the next layout mulling around in our heads -- MORE TRACKS, MORE TRACKS..... We have so much to do yet on this first layout, though. You guys have been so encouraging -- you spur us on! Yee Ha!!

 

[cabdriver]

Hi all. Well, as you can tell its been a little quiet on the ol' Alamo Southwestern line. Previous weekend was a visit to my Mom's and this past weekend was tied up with Easter and all -- not much time to work on the railroad or even surf The-Gauge. Trying to catch up now on postings. We'll be finishing up on some of our buildings this week and hope to have some pictures for posting this weekend. Stay tuned !

 

[trainwhiz20]

As always, we look forward to it!

Hopefully, I too will have an update. Goodness knows it's been long enough! Hehehe.

 

[spitfire]

Good stuff Cabdriver - we'll be looking forward to it!

Val

 

[cabdriver]

Well, here we go. Got one of the building sort of finished -- still need to work on the inside of the building, lights, curtains, etc, but we got it on the layout. It finished out one side of the street as far as major structures go.

Here's an overview shot of main street with the car dealership on the bottom left and the new shops next to the gravel car lot area. Still a lot to do to blend the shops into the surroundings, but at least the main structure is now in place.

 

[cabdriver]

Here's another shot of the main street area. You can see the new building, the alleyway, the gravel parking area for the car dealership all in one pic. It looks really compressed in the picture, but is much more spread out in "real life". Anyway, the main street area is getting basically laid out -- so much more to do to get it looking realistic.

 

[cabdriver]

Some of you may have been wondering why I've been sitting on the hood of my cobra at the car dealership all these days -- well, when you are in a small town, sometimes you just have to wait for the new stuff to roll in.

 

[spitfire]

Glad to see you back at it Cabdriver. The "compression" in the second photo actually looks good - it happens in 1:1 scale too, especially with downtown shots like yours.

Val

 

[J&A_RR]

looking good cabdriver, I like your downtown area.

are ya'll going to the train show in SA next saturday? should be a pretty good one. Hopefully I can score a few things for our layout.

 

[cabdriver]

Unfortunately, no. We've got company coming in for a visit, so we'll have to stay put. Hope you and Andrew have a great time! Let us know how it went. Take pics if possible.

 

[cabdriver]

We've been working on the areas behind the main street buildings. We decided to add a Diner and make the ground asphalt. First step was to mark off the buildings then paint the foam bed and add the asphalt. We're using Woodlands Scenics "Cinder" ground cover -- Painted the undersurface then laid the cinders, then followed up with Scenic Cement spray. Here's a pic in progress.

 

[cabdriver]

Here's another picture of the basic asphalt area behind the buildings. Diner area had been masked off.

 

[cabdriver]

Well, here is how it turned out. I had to do some rework on the asphalt area to smooth it out and get it level up to the building area. My second son worked hard on the Diner and got the wiring done so you can see it light up. :thumb: I'll post some pictures here of the almost finished product (need to add scenery, people, etc) but the basic structure is in place. :thumb: Progress, slowly but surely .....

 

[cabdriver]

Here are a couple more. By the way, the neon looking sign is actually lit up -- that's not just painted. Kids think that is pretty cool.

 

[Chessie6459]

Looking Good :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

 

[cabdriver]

Here's some work just starting up around what will be the lake. I took some leftover plaster that I used around the gravel works area and once it dried, I broke it up into various size pieces. I then took some Yellow Ochre paint, diluted it with a lot of water, put the paint in a baggie with the plaster frags, and shook. I then let these dry then dabbed them with a little bit of heavily diluted stone grey paint. You can see the before and after pictures of my new rocks.

The first pic is the raw plaster. The second pic shows them drying on the paper towel. Exciting, I know

 

[cabdriver]

Then we painted the raw bank (foam) with the same yellow ochre, put some of the rocks into the bank surface with foam tack glue, then "landscaped" the area with WS soil and fine turf. You can also see where we are going to have some rocks that have fallen into the water once we get that poured. We hope it doesn't look too bad for leftover plaster. :thumb: Looks great to us .