Also the first pics with the new digital camera. There’s still a lot of detailing, weathering, and decaling to be done but these show the results of two winters of work on the yard and engine service facility.
I wi***he water tower was the result of skillful modeling. The truth is that after the initial coat of flat black spray paint was applied and I began assembly, I got a little sloppy with the glue and repainted the section to cover the mess. When it dried, the repainted section had a different texture than the rest and it looked terrible. I repainted again this time covering the whole thing with this coat. After this final coat dried, the water tower took on a texture that looked like what you might expect from a painted metal surface after years of baking in the hot sun. From there, I just added a few rust streaks and it turned out better than I ever expected. One of the best pieces of advice I ever read was in the first article I read by Mike Tylick in MR magazine. He said one of the keys to good scenery is learning to keep the lucky accidents. This was a perfect example.
The name of my freelanced road is the New York, Binghamton, & Western. It is a composite of the NYO&W, the Erie, and the DL&W. Like the NYO&W, it has trackage rights along NYC rails to reach the Hudson River opposite New York City. The western terminus is Buffalo. None of these three prototypes had all the features I wanted so I merged them into one road with the modeled portion set in a series of fictional towns. The Erie-Lackawanna would have been a good prototype for me had the merger taken place during the transition period which is when my road is set.
What was the full name of the NYW&B you mentioned.
I think the night shot of the roundhouse is my favorite pic so far. Photography is not my forte but I got lucky with that one. The great thing about digital cameras is you can take all the pictures you want and delete the bad ones which in my case is about 80% of them.
I have found that adding structure lighting to the layout is addicting. The more you put on, the more you want. I’ve ordered a set of floodlights so I can light up the whole yard and engine facility. I don’t know how much night operations I’m going to do but it does make for some great pictures. Night shots also are a great way to hide the flaws on your layout.