Looking good, Jerry.

Quoteby adding some curved sections it made the layout "flow" in the room and look larger

Interestingly, by doing this and taking real estate away it still makes the layout appear larger.

QuoteIn my opinion, losing sight of the train, even briefly, adds to the feel of the train passing through the scenery, and helps disguise the layout's small size.

Agree totally.  And its fun to do!  I have immense fun playing around with tunnel entrances, blocks of polystyrene and rock castings!

Cheers, Mark.

 Jerry,

Happy to see this thread back up and running. You've been busy and I love the look of the track plan.

Looking forward to more.

Tom 

There you go!  Glad to see your making progress and looking forward to the new additions you make.

Jerry

Quote from: Mark Dalrymple on March 14, 2024, 11:32:31 PMLooking good, Jerry.

Quoteby adding some curved sections it made the layout "flow" in the room and look larger

Interestingly, by doing this and taking real estate away it still makes the layout appear larger.

QuoteIn my opinion, losing sight of the train, even briefly, adds to the feel of the train passing through the scenery, and helps disguise the layout's small size.

Agree totally.  And its fun to do!  I have immense fun playing around with tunnel entrances, blocks of polystyrene and rock castings!

Cheers, Mark.

Mark,

I only have one tunnel to play around with, and it wasn't what I really wanted but the lack of space in the corner pretty much dictated its use rather than the (prototype) through truss bridge I wanted to use where the U&D mainline entered the layout to give me an interchange track for operational purposes. 

Quote from: ACL1504 on March 15, 2024, 11:42:06 AM Jerry,

Happy to see this thread back up and running. You've been busy and I love the look of the track plan.

Looking forward to more.

Tom

Tom,

Thanks for looking in.  I am quite a bit further along than what you see here.  I'm trying to get caught up to where the layout is at the moment.  It was a challenge to figure out how to get a reasonably long run into such a small space and be able to have some switching for freight cars.  The passing sidings are much shorter than I wanted, but with small engines and short trains I think it will work out.  There are not a lot of photos of the prototype, but none I have found show more that seven or eight cars trains. 

Quote from: Jerry on March 15, 2024, 12:53:04 PMThere you go!  Glad to see your making progress and looking forward to the new additions you make.

Jerry

Jerry,

I wasn't sure it would be worth it to re-start this thread since I didn't take a lot of photos when the forum was unavailable.  Thanks for your encouragement to post the photos I do have. 

The first photo shows the northwest corner of the layout, another way to describe it is it is the right corner furthest from the entry door. 

The other photos show the hill in the corner of the layout in front of the closet door.  I felt I needed to do something to break up the end of the loop track so people could not see the train make a 180 degree turn.  I have thought about putting a water powered mill in the right hand corner in front of the covered bridge in that small open triangular spot. I also have been considering using that corner for a bluestone dock.  The prototype D&N had several along its length, and in fact, shipped large quantities of bluestone to NYC for use in sidewalks and building construction.   

I have never seen a single photo of a covered bridge across a railroad track, but I felt I needed more of a view block that a truss bridge offered.  Plus, and a big plus, if it works for George Sellios, how can I go wrong? 

I look forward to seeing what you do with the landscapping.

Nice view block.  Looking forward to your progress. 

Jeff

Looking good, Jerry.

The view down the curving road into the township is great.  Can you manipulate (rotate clockwise) the covered bridge to give a view through the bridge to the curved road and township behind?  Alternatively, cutting into the hill a bit to the left of the bridge to allow that view.

Cheers, Mark.

Quote from: PRR Modeler on March 18, 2024, 10:52:13 AMI look forward to seeing what you do with the landscapping.

Curt,

You'll need some patience because I have barely started to do scenery in one corner.

Quote from: Zephyrus52246 on March 18, 2024, 11:15:09 AMNice view block.  Looking forward to your progress.

Jeff

Thanks, Jeff.  

The bridge isn't as good a view block as I had hoped it would be.  The layout is roughly 45" off the floor to track level. I planned it so I could work on it while standing on the floor.  That hasn't turned out to be the case, as I use a step stool constantly.  had I realized I would need to use a step stool to work comfortably, I would have raised the layout 3-5".  That's the old 20/20 hindsight.  Still, it does somewhat disguise the fact the track runs along the wall at the back of the layout.

Quote from: Mark Dalrymple on March 18, 2024, 03:12:03 PMLooking good, Jerry.

The view down the curving road into the township is great.  Can you manipulate (rotate clockwise) the covered bridge to give a view through the bridge to the curved road and township behind?  Alternatively, cutting into the hill a bit to the left of the bridge to allow that view.

Cheers, Mark.

Mark,

Honestly, I never thought to try that.  I did as you suggested but it really did not allow me to look through the bridge into the town.  (I assume that is what you were thinking.)  The curve in the road kept me from seeing more than a small piece of the town.  

Also, moving it meant the viewer could see the now completely exposed track that runs along the back wall next to the backdrop.  Originally I had planned to put a stone dock in the corner in front of and below the bridge.  Since I was fortunate enough to find an FSM MacKenzie Milling kit for a reasonable price, I now want to put it in that corner.  I used 1" foam on top of 1/2" plywood when I built my modules.  That kit needs more than one inch of depth below the tabletop for the water wheel and the basement.  That little corner piece with the unpainted backdrop is simply screwed to the end of that module.fastened to the end of the module.  My plan is to lower it an inch, and add another inch of foam, thus giving me the necessary depth for the kit.  This is another of the 20/20 hindsight things.  If I had used 2" foam I could have put that kit almost anywhere.  

I do like your suggestions, I have learned a great deal from you on placing structures to maximize sight lines. 

Now in some ways we're hitting the wall as far as photos.  Once I finished adding some foam to have some change in elevations, I stopped taking photos.  No forum, so no photos, at least that is my excuse. 

In some ways that is not a big deal, I plastered some scupltamold on top of the foam to fill the cracks between the layers of foam.  Then I brushed some brown latex paint over that.  Here's the one shot I seem to have taken.  This also shows where I extended the filler section at the end of the room that spans the gap between the modules on each side of the room. I did that to give me a little more room to develop the river I use to provide somewhat of a break between scenes.

I did have one of my photo cards get corrupted not long ago.  I believe there were quite a few photos of the layout construction on that card and I'll try to remember to explain why I believe that in the next post.

Great progress Jerry, thanks for posting.....