The wife's HO Atlas layout...

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Tony excellent atmosphere in this video! Congratulations, the lighting effect is very convincing. (by the way, your new con cor cars fit nicely on the layout).
 
Yannis,

Thank you and yep, those Con Cor cars work nicely for me. What I now need to do is get the right coupler for the FP40 and I will be able to run it as an Amtrak train.
 


Evening All,

Not too much has been happening with the layout of late; however, I have gotten it cleaned up and thought I would "show case" my CSX engine pulling 8 cars without a hitch!

https://vimeo.com/139813910

Have my new Penn Central GP38-2 from Athearn now as well and have managed to get sound on my little GP15, something I haven't as yet achieved with the CSX Tsunami install.

Terry,

Still intend sending these engines to you for checking and fixing as needed, so long as the offer is still there.
 
Thanks new guy ... you say I do "interesting things", some others may call what I do something different :D

Anyhow as promised - the Lake at Night:

https://vimeo.com/138427782

Well, THAT'S Bloody MARVELOUS, Mate!

The water came out really, REALLY nicely and the light effect is very realistic looking in the night scene!

I could only hope to get a very small portion of my layout up to that level of detail in a very many years! KUDOS!
 
new guy,

Thank you very much for the kind words. I still have a lot of "detail" to put in yet, especially on the "Town Side" which is only in its basic stages.

Believe me, once you start putting in your scenery, it will come together very quickly. It's just a matter of knowing what you want and where you want it - that is the hard part where I am concerned. Once you have an image in your mind of how you want your layout to look, or even a section of your layout, the formation of your layout or that section will just happen.

Not sure if this will help or not but, even though my layout is 100% fictional, it is made up of places that are real and that I have been too. All I have done is (attempted) to recreate those real world places to one degree or another, at the very least, the atmosphere of them.

The one thing I can pass on as advice is to "loose lay" everything BEFORE you decide the final positioning. You will be surprised (perhaps) how often you will look at something, after it is completed, and think "wish I had have done this or that". As an example, my "Town" has been "loose laid" for almost a year now and every time I remove the buildings to do something I find a better, or more interesting, way of arranging things. To be honest, of the 14 structures I have for the town, only 2 of them have their permanent place - the rest, get swapped around on a regular basis and, most likely, will continue to be changed for awhile yet. That also includes things like Street Lighting, man holes, benches, tree's and almost everything else as well.

Any way, bottom line is this - know what you want and where you want it THEN play around with it before settling on a final position, place or idea.

Getting the "reality" isn't hard either - look around your town, for example, and see what things are there, on the streets, around lakes, rivers, parks and so forth. I doubt there is anything in the real world that isn't also available for our hobby.
 
The Complete Layout and Town

Evening Guys,

Here is a video of the complete layout with close ups of the Town Area. As you can see, there is a lot of work yet to be done around the Town including the placement of additional buildings, street lighting and street details to start with:

https://vimeo.com/139895569

At the moment there are 10 buildings in the town with a further 4 or 5 to be added mainly to the "vacant lots" at the rear of the towns main street. A railing, trees and benches along with street lighting has to go down the perimeter road (elevated section of town) as well as drains, manholes and foot path definition for all side walks (foot paths).

The area to the left of the Gas Station (Service Station) is to be converted into a small park and the center section will be completed with homes of some kind.

The new area along the front edge is a "no mans land" at the moment as I have no idea what to do with that.

The mountain over looking the lake is yet to be tree'd, obviously.

Any way, thanks for taking a look guys and having the patience to stay with this build. As we all know, a layout is never really 100% complete and I think I am only about 60% of the way to getting it to a point where I will (no doubt) make changes. That is the fun of a layout :D
 
Gettin' there Tony, lookin' good. Your white patches of plaster around the streets looks like the hailstorm they had in NSW last week, not big stuff, just volume. 8" to a foot in places, broke the roofs of a few flat top carports. Looked like snow.
 


Toot'n,

Thanks mate and I have to tell you, I don't miss hail storms at all. Can't say that I ever remember seeing 8" + of it anywhere though, but can imagine it would have caused. Reckon there'll be one or two nice little insurance claims lodged out of it though :D
 
new guy,

Thank you very much for the kind words. I still have a lot of "detail" to put in yet, especially on the "Town Side" which is only in its basic stages.

Believe me, once you start putting in your scenery, it will come together very quickly. It's just a matter of knowing what you want and where you want it - that is the hard part where I am concerned. Once you have an image in your mind of how you want your layout to look, or even a section of your layout, the formation of your layout or that section will just happen.

Not sure if this will help or not but, even though my layout is 100% fictional, it is made up of places that are real and that I have been too. All I have done is (attempted) to recreate those real world places to one degree or another, at the very least, the atmosphere of them.

The one thing I can pass on as advice is to "loose lay" everything BEFORE you decide the final positioning. You will be surprised (perhaps) how often you will look at something, after it is completed, and think "wish I had have done this or that". As an example, my "Town" has been "loose laid" for almost a year now and every time I remove the buildings to do something I find a better, or more interesting, way of arranging things. To be honest, of the 14 structures I have for the town, only 2 of them have their permanent place - the rest, get swapped around on a regular basis and, most likely, will continue to be changed for awhile yet. That also includes things like Street Lighting, man holes, benches, tree's and almost everything else as well.

Any way, bottom line is this - know what you want and where you want it THEN play around with it before settling on a final position, place or idea.

Getting the "reality" isn't hard either - look around your town, for example, and see what things are there, on the streets, around lakes, rivers, parks and so forth. I doubt there is anything in the real world that isn't also available for our hobby.

I don't know if I'll ever 'tack' most of it down, changes were part of the long term plan! The scenery is (I hate to admit) a completely secondary aspect of what I'm after in this hobby. My main focus is running trains, there will be scenery and I have plans to model at least three places from the 'real' world, a stretch of tracks through a section of lowland hardwoods I walked many times, some upper peninsula of Michigan Lake Superior shore areas and of COURSE a 'Rock Ridge' just BECAUSE! Also planning a corner to represent the D.M.Z. in Korea where I served in the 80's, spent three solid months playing "hide and seek, with guns" in there looking for the N.K.S.F.! Good Times!!!
 
I don't know if I'll ever 'tack' most of it down, changes were part of the long term plan! The scenery is (I hate to admit) a completely secondary aspect of what I'm after in this hobby. My main focus is running trains, there will be scenery and I have plans to model at least three places from the 'real' world, a stretch of tracks through a section of lowland hardwoods I walked many times, some upper peninsula of Michigan Lake Superior shore areas and of COURSE a 'Rock Ridge' just BECAUSE! Also planning a corner to represent the D.M.Z. in Korea where I served in the 80's, spent three solid months playing "hide and seek, with guns" in there looking for the N.K.S.F.! Good Times!!!

If you're planning on having some grades/changes of levels on your empire and you'll be initially just laying the baseboard flat on the framework, consider one of these tools http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=2125200202&pf_rd_i=552922 so you can do cookie cutting of plywood. (I'm off to bed now so I'll leave you to ponder, if you're not familiar with the concept)
 
If you're planning on having some grades/changes of levels on your empire and you'll be initially just laying the baseboard flat on the framework, consider one of these tools http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=2125200202&pf_rd_i=552922 so you can do cookie cutting of plywood. (I'm off to bed now so I'll leave you to ponder, if you're not familiar with the concept)

No, no ,no. Cookie cutting will not occur on this ply, foam will take the hits for a roundhouse pit and such like! The corners will be rounded off during construction and so no need of that nifty saw at this time. It IS a sweet little dealy though!
 
Enjoyed the videos Tony. Saw them over the weekend on my phone but had to see them again on a decent size screen. Looks like everything is really coming together. The broader curves look so much better. Well done mate. appl.gif
 
Hey Tony,

Very nice videos.
With all the mess cleaned up, you've got a very nice layout.
I like the view of the houses on top of the hill from downtown with the lights in the street and the lit houses

Well done
 
Thanks guys, still a lot to do but it IS getting there gradually.

My next (shudder) task is to redo the wiring and get that sorted out so it is neater and traceable should there be a problem at any time. Apart of that includes reattaching feeders from the new track, something that will, touch wood, make the trains run a little more smoothly. At the moment there only 4 feeders connected to the track work and all but one of them are on the town side.
 
Evening All,

Today I received the last of my Town buildings as well as a bunch of the Model Power Street Lights.

The buildings I got are as follows:

1. Sully's Tavern (Built Up)
2. Fresh Market (Pre Fab with Decals)
3. Planters Feed and Seed (As above)
4. Main Street Mercantile (as above)

I also dug up a couple of other buildings I had (and forgot about):

1. Roberts Dry Goods (DPM Kit)
2. Stone Bakery (DPM Kit)

I think these additional 6 buildings will fill the vacant areas I have and will add to the town in an appropriate way and will give me a total of 16 structures for the Town.

The worse part is having to paint everything. I say the worse part as I am (apparently) not that great at detailing these things.
 
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Stones Bakery

Thought I would show some of the progress I am making (or not making) on the buildings for the layout. This is the first of the buildings being put together and painted, Stone Bakery:

Img_0851_zps3fqydwgu.jpg


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Img_0852_zpspbx91c50.jpg


Img_0854_zpskxmjjp2m.jpg


Img_0853_zps1quucgma.jpg


Obviously this is a "work in progress" but wanted to show it as I go to get any ideas and ways of doing things better.

Not sure if anyone is interested in this side of the build but the colors I am using are as follows:

Apple Barrel "Brick Red" for the brickwork (bet you never guessed that right :) )
Apple Barrel "Pewter Grey" for the Top Brick work and Bay Window Roof
Model Master Acrylic "Radome Tan" for the sills, window surrounds and the lower floor (yet to have the detail done)
Model Master Acrylic "Deep Sea Blue" for the windows themselves
Model Master Acrylic "Earth Red" for the accents
 
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