“Hi Alistair.

Farm and Station area now finished here are the pics, still to do the water in the middle, I’ll get around to ti soon I hope

Cheers

Stuart”

“Hello Al,

Just puttering around waiting on the conversion of my locomotives to battery and Radio Control.

I finished up putting together the Oil Refinery in staging form. I have yet to add detail and some figures but thought I would send it along as a follow-up to my last entry. It was a fun little project and I used up some bottles, empty spray paint cans, PVC couplings and a lot of plastic straws. Although not even close to things Tom has in his layout (can you believe the detail and workmanship) it won a spot in my little railroad.

Bob Miller”

And lastly, Tom has been back in touch after all your comments on his layout:

” Thanks to all the readers that responded with great comments. I will try and send a few more photos soon. I can tell you that this On3 layout has been in Narrow gauge Gazette along with my Gn15 diorama, other bits and pieces of my work can be seen in S scale magazine, MRC and soon in MR.

The bad news if you think of it this was is that I’m tearing down what you saw in the photos, selling it off and going to indoor G scale…..WHY I need to get more detail into things, while I had interiors in most of the foreground buildings I just wanted to do more with the background and O scale is just not big enough.

There was a partial DVD made by Lou Sassai for Model RR magazine a few months ago if you subscribe to it you can watch it on their web site.

I from time to time do a lecture for model RR clubs, called ” Making it look Real”
and sub titled “and doing it cheap”

I will share a few of my basic thought’s but let me describe a bit about why I did some of the things and how it was built.

The room itself is about 24 x 28 feet not a whole lot of room for O scale with in this space I needed a fairly good size work area, storage (lots of storage you understand how we MRR’s collect things)

What to do; well one thing that has always bothered me was going to view a layout and looking down on roofs and being able to view in many cases the entire layout all at one time. Not to mention trying to make electrical repairs on your back on a cold concrete floor.

The very simple solution raise it up to eye level, I’m a little over 6’1″ so my is right about shoulder lever, whats the advantages, one you can work under the layout without breaking you back. This also gives you lots of space for storage and endless work space I found that using Kitchen cabinets raised up on a 2 x 6 makes a perfect height. Second the perspective if so much better you looking into a scene not down on it and let explain that my layout is at the deepest point just a little over 3′ in depth…..surprised, most folks are but at that height you can force perspective to the endth degree. I have in on corner a port scent which looks like it goes on forever by placing building at certain angles you can’t see directly at anything and with in that scene I have gone from O to S to HO and finally down to TT and N scale. I works try it some time.

The actual Narragansett RR ran only 8 1/2 miles and as most RR’s rain point to point not in a circle, perfect for me a turntable at each end.

Here is one other point that I would like to make and its something that most of us for get about, when you work in scale thats less the 1 to 1 which of course the real thing. That you should tone down or subdue your colors I’ve seen in many magazines photo’s of great work only to be spoiled ( in my opinion only) Grass that is of such a color that it belongs in a cartoon on TV. NOTHING IS ONE SOLID COLOR
even if you paint a room in your house the light that comes in the window will change the color from one area to another. Same thing in nature.

Before I really get off on a tangent one last thing keep in mind that around the area that I live in NY, power poles area min. of 44 feet tall, I know there are shorter pole that run along the RR tracks thats fine. But city and rural poles are much taller, same thing go’s for trees those trees have been around for many many years and in most cases we build them maybe 20′ high, take advantage of their height and fullness they can hide a lot of sins.

Thats all for now, please email me if you have an questions. Next time I’ll try and talk about using live, free stuff to make scenery.

DON’T FORGET THAT EVERYTHING IS FOR SALE

Tom Pres. CEO & mostly janitor…Narragansett RR On3, Gn15 and soon to G scale”

Wow!

I shall post the link to Tom’s ebay listing as soon as he lists them.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide is here if you want to jump back in to this fine hobby.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.