The Oakland Industrial: A Street running layout.

[Miles]

Inspired by the street running scenes on the Embarcadero (SP) & 3rd Street (WP) in Oakland, Calif. I decided to make a trio of modules to reflect this area. I'm paying particular attention to the unique details found on the streets of Oakland, and since I don't live too far away from there, I can go out and take reference photos rather easily, in addition to going to the archives at the OPL.

 I (over)built the modules from 3/4" birch ply and held to the wall with sturdy brackets.

The structures you see on the layout aren't going to be the ones on the final layout, with the exception of the brick car repair place and the "Packard" building.





Here's an aerial view of the first two modules. They're 26" wide and 4 feet long. A third is just off the right edge of the photo and will make the first phase of the layout 26" X 12'. Future modules will continue into the 9X12' space dedicated to the layout as time and funds permit. I'm kind of doing the "David Barrow" Domino approach to layout building, since that fits my needs and keeps the railroad from getting out of hand!


A lot of the equipment I own is from the 1930's-1958, but I seem to feel that this layout should have a mid 60's through 1989 feel. We'll see as construction progresses what era I settle at.

I'm always open to suggestions to improve the layout. Don't hesitate to point out anything that looks "wrong" or unrealistic, since it will give me inspiration to work on it some more.

[Baronjutter]

I love street running, will be watching this one!

[Philip H]

So, HO or N? 

[LIRR]

nice work, that's a great close-up shot.

[Baronjutter]

I'm guessing this is HO from the niceness of the track-in-road (small flange gaps) and the pencils.

[Miles]

Definitely HO. Here's my two kodachrome units for scale. (SD40T-2 & GP20 respectively.)



Here's one of the two buildings that'll be on the final build of the layout, a nice machine shop. There's still a lot of detailing to be done including period signage and a full, lit interior.

[Baronjutter]

The one thing I think HO does better than N is flangeways in embedded rails.  They have to be wayyy too wide in N and sometimes I wake up wit inconsolable sobbing fits in the middle of the night due to this fact.  I'm not even actually sure why, just smaller scale but not smaller tolerances?

[PEIR]

The streets and building have a nice gritty look to them.

[Miles]

Playing around with Lighting effects.

[eric220]

Playing around with Lighting effects.

That is a beautiful shot. Nicely done!

[peteski]

HO is so much easier than N for modeling realistic scenes. I live the nighttime photo!  I especially like the realistic look of the glass blocks over the doors.  At least, that is what those look like to me. Awesome!

[wm3798]

Easier, yes.  But not always better...


N-vious of your street trackage, too though...

Lee

[Miles]

Lee,

I think the narrative depth of a scene can be portrayed better with HO, and larger scales. (O scale is a sweet spot, but suffers from a lack of good figures). N scale is probably good for most modelers because you can get a general feel of a much larger scene. (For instance an ENTIRE downtown, Steel Mill, Port or large scene.) but it falls apart for the most part when it comes to the scalibility of details and figures, where the strength of the material in most cases is too fine to be durable.

A good example was on the "Bona Vista" layout by Gerry Leone, where he made a bakery counter with HO Scale chocolate dipped donuts! I do think you can run away with detail, but few people can afford the time or funds to do so and so many modeled scenes seem too sparse. Perhaps we should be aiming for the "Edward Hopper Painting" level of detail. Enough to satisfy, but not enough to overwhelm. I heard that George Selios is actually removing detail from his layout because the scenes are too cluttered!

Many guys on this forum do an absolutely stunning job in both N & Z, and are pushing boundaries of detail and care in construction, which always excites me to see. Your highway scene there with the beautifully scratchbuilt depot is a good illustration of what you can achieve in N.



I'm playing around with more building placements as my shortlines' VO1000 clatters down the street with a cut of cars.

[eric220]

Easier, yes.  But not always better...

Blobs not included.

[GaryHinshaw]

Nice work Miles.  As a Bay Area native, I'm especially fond of the setting.

I think the narrative depth of a scene can be portrayed better with HO,

What does narrative depth mean?