Pictures of your steam service area

Doctorwanye, where did you get the loco shed , who makes it, & where can I get it?Click image to view full size.

That background hill already needs a little maintenance before it is photo ready. I only model in the cold weather months and in the mean time, my layout becomes a mouse playground and they really did a number on the poly-forest. A lot of the balls are laying on the ground and some need a new application of ground foam. Not that it is a disaster but it does need some touching up. My efforts this season have been on a town in the opposite corner of the basement. I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on that one and might get around to fixing up that hill before the season ends. Eventually, I want to replace some of the front row trees with some made from WS products but the poly trees work for now.

To my eye, it looks better from a low angle than the overhead shot. My feeling on background scenes and backdrops is that don’t need to WOW anyone. They just need to fill a void and not be a distraction. This keeps the focus on the foreground scenes which is where I put most of my efforts.

I’m curious as to which of the stuctures you think has a foundation problem. If you are talking about the building flat to the right, that is one piece I am really not happy with. It looks like a flat and not the illusion I want. I have come to the conclusion that building flats and low relief stuctures need backdrop structures behind them to create the illusion of depth. Against a blue sky it is too obvious what they are.

Yes the flat off to the right. Again not nit-picking. it was more a pun. I do not see the slant in other pictures.

That is what I wanted to see also, from a low angle. I fully agree it should not distrack away from the layout. Everytime I see pictures with this type of poly-ball in MR or MRC, they are from up high. I wondered if the view was different, if not if there was someway to blend them more together so the roundness disolves.

Luke, the main shop building is a Vollmer three stall roundhouse that I built many years ago. When I realised that I didn’t have room for a roundhouse in this narrow area, I tore it apart and rebuilt it as it appears in the photos. The grey “Stores” annex in the first photo was scratchbuilt from basswood siding, and the “Office” annex, visible in the fourth photo is another Vollmer kit. The roof and clerestory windows were scratchbuilt from styrene.

Wayne

Thanks Wanye. You sure can build building & modify locos. Man, you have MRRing touch.

[(-D] No, Tom, that’s a gallon of bleach. She somehow managed to sneak out of the laundry room and into the train room. After I took the shot I saw her and chased her back in there witha stick! [:-^]

Has this railroad been abandoned? I ask because there are lots of weeds in the yard and the engines and rolling stock appear to have all been sent to the scrapper.

Mark