Like any model railroad mine is always a work in progress. The picture to the left is on the old camp grounds on my layout, one of the first sections completed. It was equipped with 3 mountain cottages by Walters nestled in a thick forest of trees showing fall color. I am a true believer that trees mixed in with a printed background adds so much to the detail of the layout. There was a dirt road leading to the area and I used Woodland Scenics cars filled with campers pulling trailers.
I had always yearned for mountains and some part of my railroad to be elevated. I regret not having built the layout on two inch slabs of foam insulation so I could have ravines, rivers, lowered roadways and an assortment of bridges adding interest to my layout. I know that for sure my next layout will be built using the foam method. You can see in the picture below that I have torn out the original campground area and replaced it with an elevated section of railroad that ran the full length of the layout with a small industrial park located in the middle.
I used Kato elevated track and bridges and Kato's pier system underneath the mountain to support the track. I was just not satisfied with the way the addition looked and felt it took away from other parts of the layout. In addition, I was limited as to what size Motive Power I could run on the elevated section because of clearance problems with the Kato elevated curved track. I have a large inventory of steam engines none of which could make it up the inclines pulling a decent amount of rolling stock. By no means would my 4-8-8-2 Cab Forward navigate any part of the elevated section. It just looked cluttered and uninteresting and hid a lot of the other all ready established track and scenery.
I really did need more storage space for rolling stock and wanted to keep the third loop that was created when I created the elevated section. I tore it all out except for the two existing mainline tracks. A third ground level loop was added in its place with a short passing siding used to work the small industrial area.
I found a new background on the internet that I liked better than my existing one. Since I was tearing out a large section of layout, I decided to add the new background at the same time. The background was just more to my liking and seemed to blend better with the trees and buildings. The picture below gives a nice view of the new industrial area that replaced the mountain area and the raised loop. I did rescue all the buildings and trees and put them to good use in the new area. I will be adding more details such as improved roadways, grade crossings, signage, and telephone poles complete with EZ Line stretched between the poles.
The orange warehouse is the Kitt Transfer Company. It was build from the Gripp's Luggage Mfg. kit by Design Preservation Models. It is fenced off from the right of way with a chain link fence by Gold Medal Models.
Behind the transfer company sits the Quality Furniture Company. The is a vintage HELJAN kit number B 672. It has been painted and weathered.
Roadways have been a real problem for me. I have tried different track roadbed painted Stone Gray C1218 by Woodland Scencs. This caused problems in the downtown district when adding buildings and sidewalks. To match the same level, I had to mount each building on the same roadbed which became a real pain. Grade crossings were an issue and I did not achieve the look I was wanting using the roadbed. I tried using Wallboard Joint Compound which was hard to control and very messy. I finally painted the roadways on the plywood deck of the layout, used the Easy-To-Build sidewalks by Bar Mills, and painted heavy card stock that allowed me to make nice approaches to the grade crossings. You can see the grade crossing have been started in the picture below on the right. My next project here will be to line the roads and add the railroad crossing stencils to the roadway. Hard to see in this picture are the Blair Line railroad crossing signs.
