If anyone is new to all of this branch line business, and is interested at all, I did two very long threads about the layout a while back. Lots of narrative and explanation about how and why things got done. An awful lot of talk about such a little layout.
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Itâs not the size that matters, itâs the quality. 
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I apologize in advance for duplicate photographs that might appear from time to time between this current post and the earlier ones listed above. My memory isnât what it used to be and they say your short-term memory goes first. However, my long-term memory is very intact. Like all the times I saw steam engines when I was extremely young, I can review those memories every day and they are just as clear as photographs.
The 180 is my very first Bachmann steam engine. I bought it in 2007 and it is still running with the original decoder. It is very close to Missouri Pacific prototype but different enough that I invented the 180 class, which never actually existed in reality, to accommodate these slightly different locomotives.
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This is on the Gulf Coast Extension layout in Mississippi. I have a Pacific that Iâll never run on my main layoutthat I brought over here to try out.. it actually makes it around the 18 inch radius curve and doesnât look that bad on eye level. A number of folks are not aware of that pacifics were used in freight service more often than one would think, notably on the KCS.
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My branch line is a country railroad, just like the one I grew up with. So I made sure I had a stretch of actual countryside. This is something you donât see much of on very many model railroads, people are trying to get so much onto their layouts that they donât leave very much free space at all. My layout is pretty small and I gave up a couple of industrial spurs to do this countrysid, but Iâm glad I did, itâs one of my favorite places on my layout. No buildings, no super detailing, no nothing, just landscape.
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Totally agree with you. The phrase âNegative Spaceâ just doesnât do it justice in my eyes.
Oh and that Loco looks pretty nice despite the distractions in the background.
That 4-6-2 is on another layout with incomplete scenery.
Sundown on Donna Pass. Actual natural sunlight, setting in the real world. I have two places like this on the layout where natural light will come in well enough to do this kind of thing two or three days a year for two minutes a day. I wouldâve preferred another locomotive in this scene, but by the time I wouldâve gotten it placed on the layout, the light would be gone.
I almost didnât put this photograph up because in it is a painful reminder of how oversized the code 100 rail looks that I never shouldâve used on this layout and have regretted ever since I did. But with the short remaining life expectancy of this layout being about two years at this point, I donât think Iâm going to do anything about it.
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Hereâs a couple of photos at thunder Grove from several years ago.
This one shows a southbound freight arriving, very nearly at the end of track. Both the corrugated warehouse and the white general store are no longer on the layout, having been replaced by the Hardbilt Rice Elevator.
The next image is at the same location, but showing a thunderstorm coming in. The effect is a combination of the corner of the room enhanced by different lighting directions, but I think it came out great.
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Same engine, same train on another day. Natural light on the layout at this spot lasts about one minute on two days of the year. The metal warehouse building at the right has been removed in an ongoing effort to declutter the layout even more.
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Keep posting please! Just because we donât respond much doesnât mean weâre not enjoying your photos! Sometimes the only words that come to mind are ooooh and wow! 
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I concur!
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Always happy to see the olâ MoP!
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