thanks, everyone!
Thanks so much for the kind comments and welcome...
I lived in Hawthorne, CA for fifty years. Hawthorne was a great place to grow up in during the 50s and 60s... my Dad was the Beach Boys' mailman! Really!
The weather in the midwest sure isn't Southern California! :curse:
On the good side, we were able to get a brand new home built with a 1200 square foot basement, of which, so far, I have set aside 800 square feet for the layout, and 100 square feet for a workshop, and another 200 square feet for stacking model kits.
Along one wall, which is 40 feet long, I am reliving southern California as I wish to remember, with a hodge-podge of scenes including an orange grove, Route 66 and country store, a couple of packing houses, and some agricultural scenes. I have used the Library of Congress' American Memory website for information, as well as the 'net, and information from several yahoo groups, including citrusmodeling. This part of the layout is 30 inches wide.
The green packing house is a scratchbuilt building based on a Del Monte packing house in Corona... the model is ten inches wide and 24 inches long, about half the width of the prototype, but much larger than the model that Walther's is selling based on the same building for $40. My model cost me about $10 and about a week. I put in over 5000 nail holes with a push pin, and cut my own stencil to copy the painted business name from the photographs I have.
There is a middle peninsula which is 30 feet long and six feet wide, which on one side represents the RGS territory in Colorado, with Vance Junction and the Ophir Loop. On the other side there will be an Appalachian coal town lost somewhen in the 1930s.
On the other side, I eventually plan on "doing" San Francisco wharfs.
Although I've been here a little over three years, I've had to drywall and insulate the basement, hang a ceiling, install the electric, etc.
Additionally, I've had spinal surgery and open heart surgery due to a genetic trait, so I've been a little slow on what I'd like to do.
I hope to post some more photos as I work along.
Once again, thank you.
Jim