Weekend Update 7/26/15

[OldEastRR]

I've been toying with the idea of putting a store across from the coal mine.  Felt the area needed more visual interest and remembered seeing pictures of stores in the same vicinity or not to far away from coal mines.  Found a Blair Line General Store kit I thought fit the bill and started on it yesterday. 

The placement looks pretty prototypical, on a road next to the track. Might even figure it was a whistle stop, and there's some planking along the track for passengers to get on or off -- a decaying remnant from the steam era.
Try sticking a single old-time gas pump in front of the store, these out of the way places usually were one-stop-shopping businesses. And signs! Need lots of signs of all vintages plastered along the sides and in the front. Blair Line has a great assortment of such signs available on a sheet, or you may have gotten a slew of them with your kit.
Then weather the whole thing and give it a coating of coal dust, and you'd think you were in Appalacia.

[davefoxx]

Major milestone on the UPRR Geneva Sub

Daryl,

The work you have accomplished since the move is impressive.  I'm glad to see your layout running again.  But, how in the world has it been thirteen months since you moved?  Where did the time go?

DFF

[nkalanaga]

A store across the road from the mine would be quite common.  Most mines, until today's mechanized ones, were surrounded by worker housing and services, because everyone walked to work.  The only place to build was along the creek, so you'd have a one-road town stretched out for a mile or so.  The mine bosses would often build their houses on the side of the holler, to avoid floods, sometimes with a second street, sometimes with stairs.  The owners usually lived in some city and seldom saw their mines.

Grandt Line's Reese Street Row Houses would make good company houses if you want to build a small community.  Yards are optional, as the company wouldn't have wasted space on frivolous stuff like that.