John, that caboose is gorgeous. If I find one at a good price, I will re-paint it, and re letter it for Lehigh Valley. Maybe 2 another for my Seaboard C420
Added a backdrop today. The idea is to give the effect of a night sky.
John - beautiful caboose. Conrail blue has never looked better.
Thanks Paul ! Nice backdrop too ! I never thought of a night time one, but with house lights off & just a lot of layout lights, etc, that would be really nice !
Nice photos/layout progress, all; particularly biased towards Santa Fe (Pigseye locomotives).
Visited my buddy’s layout yesterday. He grew up in NY in 50s and recreated the harbor scene and others on his NYC toy train layout. I’ll have more fotos up later but busy now at work so here’s a small sample of one:
Oh, forgot to mention.
He’s sort of details sensitive guy and wants everything to be perfect. Even put barnacles on the pilings; that level of detail! He has a bunch of seagulls on the dock and I mentioned that he needs bird droppings. He looked kinda hurt and said darned if I didn’t forget that. I’m sure he’s doing droppings as we speak.
Love the photos! Tom has a lot going on at his farm. My daughter and I worked on landscaping our small layout’s farm yesterday. Almost done.
Paul, nice countertop layout. Love the night sky background. A refreshing change! Also, I’ll bet the smoke shows up better against the dark background.
Jim
Nice pics GIZ!
laz57
I’m bigger than you are kid, move over. [;)]
Nice Layout Photo’s Everyone. Dwayne- Like your prewar trains & they are displayed nicely.Tim- Looks like the Big Yellow & Red Santa-Fe wins.[;)][:)]. Colin- Good Luck with your repainting. Take Care.
As promised, here are more. Wait, who’s that knocking on the door??
Why it’s BB the beagle!
OK, I posted some O stuff so apologies but asking permission to post some G stuff as well…at least you can see his aluminum bridgework which may interest one or 2 folks here.
Ben, whose handle is BennysRR2, lives atop a hill overlooking Amish farmland in Lebanon County, Pa. The hill gets quite a breeze. On Saturday when I visited him, the wind was whipping up so much that the only train that would stay on the track without blowing away was a colorful ACL RS-3
Some koi have taken up residence in the layout’s pond. Hey, if you get bored watching trains, you can always go fishing! Just be sure to return them, as Ben doesn’t like the idea of guests eating his fish.
Notice Ben’s engineering skills with his trademark aluminum bridge. He apparently used a lot of trigonometry and other types of math to get the curves just right. And even with the strong wind, the bridgework does not sway one bit. I took a closeup photo of the construction to copy.
Ben has a giant indoor layout as well that perfectly complements his wall of trains (top shelf is the actual running train, which goes all around the top of his basement.
Notice all of the Hershey’s trains, some of which are handpainted? Why so many? Well, Hershey, Pa., is a stonesthrow away from his house for one. Also, Ben retired from Hershey’s plant, working in the syrup department. What a sweet job!
Moving again outside, we see that Ben makes use of common
Very cool pics - I love the G scale stuff and that night scene is cool too!
David, I will see Ben in York for the East Coast Large Scale Train Show. I have a huge liking of Hershey Cars, but do not own any yet.
[:D] Thanks Keith. One of these day’s I’m going to have a layout to run them on. For now, I’ll have to settle for the Christmas oval and displaying them.
Dwayne
Layout is really progressing nicely. Have a station ordered, should be coming soon.
PBJ,
That is very innovative and spectacular. You’re breaking new ground.
TMCC,
Ben is cool. He also has some toy train stuff but not set up. I’ll try to post some other pix of another garden layout I visited.
Hibernation of the Woodland Railway
Jim Strong’s Woodland Railway was featured in the Dec. 05 Garden Railway magazine. Here’s a photo essay of his railway, taken last Saturday, during the dormant time of year when leaves, twigs and gumballs clutter the tracks and many of the structures are protected with heavy-duty garbage bags, while other structures suffer thru the harsh weather months.
With no trains in sight, trespassers are allowed to hike along the tracks, which extend for quite a lot of distance, taking up approximately the space of a miniature golf course. And the rough terrain resembles a miniature golf course, with mountains and greens, represented by a profusion of mosses, which are thriving in the cool, rainy months. Actually, the area deer, rabbits and foxes enjoy munching on the moss and scattering it around.
The trackwork, handlayed, is holding up well after 20 years, as are the trestles, all made using redwood. Jim has an innovative way of keeping the track in place, running a steel strip beneath the center of the track (steel strip like that used to separate grass from sidewalks). The underside of the ties are notched to fit on the steel strip. I might be explaining it wrong but that’s my understanding.
One question I failed to ask, is how often Jim treats his ties and trestles and what type of treatment is used. The wood shows no sign of decay and is rather stunning for being outside so long.
On the topic of trackwork, Jim has some very intricate crossings and turnouts, which look like they were built by a rocket scientist. Actually, they were, as Jim is a retired NASA scientist. One advantage of Jim’s R/C-layout is that since electrical power is not used, the railheads can be rust-colored in places, adding greater realism.
The layout is ergonomically planned very well to accommodate heavy pedestrian traffic. Jim has skillfully layed out flat natural rock pathways throughout the layout that blend in very well with the
Dave- Those are very nice photo’s of Jim & Ben’s Outdoor Railroads.Looks like they put in Hundreds of hours to get every detail right. Sounds like you enjoyed your visit as well.Did BB come along for this trip? Take care.
Thanks, Keith, 3 visits in 1 day to layouts, as well as to my sister’s house in Pa., left me pretty happy but exhausted. BB the beagle didn’t make the trip as she gets carsick.