Fun at the Office

[wm3798]

I've started picking up some work for the spring, so I'm crashing out some of the stuff I need to do for the layout before it gets really busy.

Well, I had a real productive day at work today...


I laid out the plans for the truncated Elkins round house that I'll be building for the  Engine Terminal.  The prototype has 15 stalls, but I only have real estate for 5.  Gotta love the 3-D generator.  I had the most fun creating the 3-D railroad track!  But as you can see, it needs to be ballasted...

I better get to work paying for all this crap!
Lee

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Can you use that thing to "flatten" it so you can print it out and use it as a stand-in until you finish the real thing?

(Or doesn't it matter because you work so damn fast?)

[wm3798]

I'm on the way to the copy shop now to have the scale elevations photocopied onto acetate.  I'll build the walls around the windows!  ;D The brick structure in the back will be an old Bachmann whistle warehouse I have laying around, and I have a smokestack rolling around somewhere...

Never throw anything away!!

Lee

[keystonecrossings]

Lee, some of the best roundhouses I have seen only have a couple of full stalls, but they give the impression of a much larger facility by cutting off the structure at the backdrop. Unless you need a track to go behind the roundhouse -- perhaps you do -- go ahead and make it more stalls. Then put some extra tenders in some of the doorways and nobody will really focus on the fakeness of it!

[wm3798]

In the current arrangement, a track passes behind the 5th stall.  In the permanent arrangement, the aisle does.

I only have one tender in service at the moment, and it's in the wreck train (I model late 60's) 

When I build the Hagerstown roundhouse, which was 22 stalls, I will be employing some stage trickery.

Lee

[Iain]

In the current arrangement, a track passes behind the 5th stall.  In the permanent arrangement, the aisle does.

I only have one tender in service at the moment, and it's in the wreck train (I model late 60's) 

When I build the Hagerstown roundhouse, which was 22 stalls, I will be employing some stage trickery.

Lee

Then leave the side open and detail the mess out of the inside!

[Zox]

Lee, some of the best roundhouses I have seen only have a couple of full stalls, but they give the impression of a much larger facility by cutting off the structure at the backdrop.

Probably not one of the "best" you mention, but I used that technique on my loop module:



You'd be surprised at how easy it is to not notice the truncated back wall.

[wm3798]

Okay, so here's a comparison of where we are here on 2-6-07,


and the overall plan I'm working toward...


I'm going to go ahead an fudge in some scenery, just because blue foam makes me crazy to look at.  I'm still working on about a 5 year plan to get the whole thing framed up.

This morning I finished wiring the engine terminal, and I'm starting to plan some rudimentary scenery just so it looks a little more polished.  I'll probably go ahead and ballast it in, and add some servicing details to the ready track. 

Last night when I was putting Andy to bed, I turned off the lights and realized I hadn't shut down the layout when I saw all those locomotive headlights on the other side of the room...  I'll need to be adding some structure and exterior lighting, because that's where the magic is for me...


Lee

[Mark5]

Lee

Great pic! ;D

(well, except for the "glowing" walls - but I meant the compliment just the same)