Backwoods NE in Florida

[cuse]

Cuse,

Wait, is that track work I see? As SBG Bob said, looks incredible.

Sorry, but unfortunately, the SBG here won't be for several more months. However, you guys can get together and have a Northern SBG lunch and meet.

By the way, we made Rick an honorary member of our group when he was here two years ago. Ron, elwoodblues, is also an honorary member. He came all the way from Canada for his visit.

Miss you guy also.

Tom

thanks for checking in Tom...take care of yourself. We'll see you soon.

let me know if there's anything you need.

[cuse]

Continuing to move structures around and adjust landforms. I plan to add a single HOn30 siding along the upper level from the bridge to the right to "service" those industries and give me an excuse to display my finicky brass Shay and some cars and not feel like I'm abandoning my HOn30 roots...as I've mentioned, the lower level trackage is HOn3 and the locos are exclusively a couple of Blackstone C-19s - there is absolutely no prototypical basis for this, but man they look and run great  . I'm liking the feeling of progress again and, once I get the landforms finalized and secured, I guess I'll be moving into actual scenery - my favorite aspect of the hobby...I actually ballasted some hard to reach track in a rare display of foresight too.

[cuse]

The National Narrow Gauge Convention is coming up in early September, so I always tend to make some progress in the interest of juicing up my interest and also helping to generate something of a shopping wish list...those are really the BEST shows out there and often the only place to find such a great inventory of narrow gauge equipment.

Let me know if I should be looking for any of you...if it's a possibility, make it happen, there are some great layouts to visit and it's a very friendly city. I've been to a prior NNGC there a while back and I also lived there for 3 weeks while attending DQU...that's Dairy Queen University. My business partners and I purchased a DQ a while back in a misguided attempt to do something "peaceful" outside of our busy medical practice...turned out to be a lot of work and a lot of tolerance for a workforce of knucklehead kids...but, good memories and I enjoyed my extended stay which allowed me to explore the city a bit.

We decided to scurry back to bossing around medical professionals - they're easier to manage.

[PRR Modeler]

Great looking layout. I love the backdrop.

[Jerry]

That is really looking nice.  Can't wait to see the scenery.

Jerry

[cuse]

Thanks guys...I'm trying to do it right and avoid too many do-overs this time, so...

-Scenery secured from rear to front...to make it easier to reach 'hidden' areas and detail whatever can be seen
-utilize as many of the amazing built-ups I already have without cramming them in in a ridiculous manner
-SLOOOOOOW down and enjoy the ride...it's a small layout, no reason to rush or cut corners
...none of these suit my nature 

[cuse]

Little more progress...I've just roughed in an upper deck of HOn30 track - just for scenic complexity & to display some of my awesome but unreliable HOn30 rolling stock. I've also roughed in some foreground landform on the far right. I'm using an old N scale Rix highway bridge to help visualize the idea, so I've ordered the HO size version. I'm also waiting for an additional stone retaining wall to place under the brewery building on the far right before I can finish and secure that area. I guess the next thing I should do is pull out all of the loose foreground stuff and ballast any more track that will be tough to reach later and then really begin to do the upper deck scenery work - meaning "ground goop" and cover, vines all over the bad wall joints, permanent tree positioning, road paving and HOn30 tracklaying (starting on the bridge).

[cuse]

The last picture above is the "other" side module, which is isolated from the main area (better view of the whole attached). I'm still undecided what to do there, but I'm absolutely ignoring it for now...I DO have the backdrop in hand and should probably mount it just to get it off the floor before a dog or grandkid messes with it  ...I expect that I'll be leaning for something more rural and 'backwoodsy' than the way the front two modules have leaned...maybe just a steep hill behind the sole building and then just a ton of trees and maybe a good sized rockface.

[Mark Dalrymple]

Looking good, Cuse.

You are making some great progress.

Cheers, Mark.

[PRR Modeler]

John your making good progress.

[friscomike]

Howdy John,

The module continues to look better and better.  Nice work.

Have fun,
mike

[ReadingBob]

Amazing! I love the look of it. We need to get together for lunch someday so I can check it out.

[cuse]

Thanks for checking in guys...

Bob, I've got the NNGC in two weeks, let me know if you want me to be on the lookout for anything. Either way, I'll reach out when I get back...hopefully, that will give me time to get a bit more done too.

[Jerry]

John that is coming along nicely. A great update.

Jerry