Little Things

I had planned to put up some more of the backdrop tonight, but when I went to get started I discovered I was almost out of screws and certainly didn't have enough to do another sheet.  Instead of calling it for the night I worked on some small things that needed doing here and there.  I suppose that's good.  After all they still have to get done but aren't always the most exciting.

While I was working I also started setting up a mock scene with the fascia.  Something I noticed right off is that the backdrop doesn't seem so tall once the fascia goes up.  Not being able to look through the jousts of the benchwork suddenly make the whole appear lot more complete and the backdrop doesn't jump out as being odd.

As you can see I also started setting up a mock scene to get an idea of how the scenery and track plan might work.  I have a track plan from a book that I had started following, but before I fully committed to it I wanted to see what other options might be hanging around.

I plan to write more about this later but one of the railroads that's really inspired me is Ferrocarril de Rio Mantanas by Malcom Furlow.  It's his 1:20.3 freelance railroad, which he describes in his words as, "my 1930 border-hopping, Tequila-drinking, gun-smuggling free-lance creation set somewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border." (Furlow, pp 66, Model Railroader September 2003).  I wanted to try a small re-creation of his "Mexican Hat Canyon".

Whether or not that's possible with my layout is still to be decided.

This closeup gives you an idea of the sort of 2-level approach I was messing around with.  What I absolutely want to avoid is the "wedding cake" look as most model railroaders call it.  The idea though is that the mainline is down low and some other line is up above, perhaps some mining line dumping it's ore down to the mainline for transport.  Perhaps half the town is on the upper level and half is on the lower level or something ridiculous like that.

I don't know.  But what I do know is I need to hit the sketchbooks and come up with some solid ideas for scenes before I start building.

One thing I've decided is that I want to build the railroad in waves, sort of.  By that I mean the farthest left on the railroad will be the most done, and as things move right they're less and less done.  Ideally I'll have working track and scenery in before I'm even finishing the benchwork for the end of the line.  In this way, hopefully, I can avoid making the same mistake over the entire railroad and can adjust my process as I learn from previous sections.

With that, my best case scenario is that by this weekend I can be putting down sub-roadbed for this first section and perhaps have track down before Thanksgiving.  Knowing the speed I work at that's probably really ambitions however!