jwb Wrote:Bay City like in The Big Sleep.

That's the original, I take it.

You had me worried that it was Bay City, as in "Rollers", and I don't mean British slang for an expensive ride.

Wayne

Here is the next shot just to the right of the last shot above. This is the nitty-grittiest area I have to deal with, where a European style main line comes within a few inches of a US style main line. There is a highway crossing in the immediate foreground, which will make a hard left to turn into the street that runs trackside in the photos just previous.
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There are parts of California that look very European, so that helps.
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It is all so wonderful. Nothing else on Earth looks like California, the Golden State.

In the spirit of a couple of other recent posts on passenger service, here's an overhead view down the main line at my Zenith Amtrak passenger station.
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The Amtrak station, on the right, is the Walthers model, recently revived (but this one is from the 1990s), a model of the Rochester, NY station. (Here's a shot of the prototype, early one very cold morning):
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This is one of the areas I've been returning to. The model roof is off as I go back to installing lighting. I need to add more paving to the area around the station. Yesterday I added the short platform to the right with the traffic cones at the end. On the to-do list will be to add Wheels of Time yellow rubber platform edge decals to this short platform, as well as another platform elsewhere on the layout.

The white stuff on the center track is from a friend who was "helping" me with scenery, who spilled a rubber mold filled with not-quite-hardened plaster all over the area. This is the rest of what I need to clean up, but the end is in sight, just a lot of work with an old toothbrush. Then finishing ballast in the area and other incidental details, like more figures, platform lights, BLMA relay boxes, etc.

The Zenith Amtrak depot had a lot of pieces fall off over the years, so I re-cemented a lot of components.
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I also finished installing lights:
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I'm happy to see that you can see the lighting when the roof is on:
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Now I think I may get one of those Miller Engineering flashing Amtrak billboards to go on the roof. I'd be just as happy with the sort of lighted signs that are on the prototype, but they don't seem to make those.

That is a nice depot. Especially the roof boarder is very attractive.

I like it a lot too!

I've referred earlier to the ovaloid route on my bigger peninsula that will represent either the Northeast Corridor or an electrified European (primarily German, Austrian, or Swiss) main line. I hate the wiring work I'm having to do here, but I'm making progress. The outer track of the double-track oval is now fully wired. There are crossover connections at the area illustrated with my normal US CTC-style main line, and a small engine terminal for a switcher in this area, called variously Bay City or Jaques on the timetable. Now that it's got minimal wiring, I've set up a train that takes US style freight cars onto the outer European oval and treats it, for the time being, as staging.

Here's a GP38-2 going to pick up its cars off the interchange track:
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It picks up the two cars and seesaws onto the "Northeast Corridor", or maybe it's the "Geislinger Steige":
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And then disappears into a tunnel, which for the time being is the staging track, although eventually it will normally operate as a separate ovaloid from the main line.
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The point of these photos, again, is not to show finished parts of the layout, but to induce me to make more progress! I still need to do final leveling and ballast of the track, wire some more of the switch machines, finish wiring the inner oval and some other tracks (including a motor storage that I've mentioned in previous posts), and finally install Sommerfeldt catenary. You can see a post in the bottom photo.

It is very unusual how you integrate US and Europe on one layout. Do I see some German train in red and cream color in the background? Looks like some TEE/IC passenger cars.

It's the Kato DR/DDR TEE -- I forget the designation.

It's worth pointing out that the Pennsylvania Railroad in particular emulated a lot of European practices, especially in architecture, although in the 19th and early 20th centuries, many mechanical people were ethnic Germans (Altoona, PA was named for Altona in Germany; the "oo" was meant to be pronounced as the German single 'o', and I believe locals pronounce it the German way) -- the two most prominent motive power heads were named Axel Vogt and William Kiesel; I believe Kiesel studied at Kiel. The K4 was Kiesel's.

But it's only the one area of my layout that I try to directly combine European and US practice. However, the old Pola platform you see in the background of some shots, while very European looking, is also very typical of PRR practice.

Here's a view of the one area where European and US stuff comes together on the layout. In the lower right is the end of the Amtrak platform at Bay City, CA. To the left is a German-style signal cabin and farther beyond is the station platform that could be either Northeast Corridor or someplace in Europe. The connecting tracks between Europe and the US are in the center of the photo. They layout is designed so that US equipment can move over European track to reach one industry and staging, but I don't intend to run European equipment on US track, as part of the US style main line is code 70 track, which doesn't work with European non-RP25 wheels.
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Here is the end unit for the East German TEE-IC train you saw in the post above. I think it is a class 675, Epoche III-IV.
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Here's an East German coach I found in a US store c 1972 or so:
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jwb Wrote:...
Here is the end unit for the East German TEE-IC train you saw in the post above. I think it is a class 675, Epoche III-IV.

Here is the German Wiki-site http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-Baureihe_VT_18.16
of this VT 18.16 aka class 175 (early and later East-Germany rr. class notation) or class 675 (Germany's united railway - Deutsche Bahn).
I would like to write a few info if there should be a bit more interest about this diesel train.

Yes, please do. I'm wondering now if the Kato version is a preserved unit, since the set of lettering on the solebar calls it a 675, while Epoche III lettering is on the red band. I was confused when I looked closely at the thing.

Maybe a little like GG1 4935 repainted by Amtrak.

The former East German railroad's ("Deutsche Reichsbahn") train was a diesel-hydraulic four car train with two hood units, powered by two 900 PS (prototype) and 1000 PS (series) diesel engines.
One prototype train was built in 1963, seven serie trains in 1965 - 1968. Additional were built eight center cars and two hood units.
The standard train was a four car train however a few trains was lengthened to five and one to a six car train.
The four car unit has a length of 322 1/2'. The maximum speed for the four car unit was 100 mph however in 70ties there did not exist tracks ready for this speed in East Germany or in other "red states".
These trains were built as fast trains for international service to Austria (Vienna - called "The Vindobona") and Sweden (Stockholm) representing the socialist East Germany as great technologic developed country. At end of services it runs to Czech (Karlovy Vary - as "Karlex") but the train was most known as Vindobona - also today yet.
Prototype train was removed and destroyed in 1977, most other units gone out of service in 80ties.
The trains have had first the classification VT 18.16 and with eintroduction of electronical registering the classification it changed to class 175. 1990 with reunion of Germany only one train was in usable condition and only this unit has got the class 675 after united German railroad classification system. This last train was retired 2003 and is now part of the German railroad museum. A second not run-capable train is used by a railroad social project - both trains are standing in Berlin. A third not running train exists for an youth project in Chemnitz (former Karl-Marx-Stadt) in Saxony.
One of best pictures can you find her Passenger train of GDR. You can find many more pictures in web with search terms "VT 175" or "VT 18.16".

I've made some more progress on the Department of Docks area at the far end of Manhattan Transfer. (Department of Docks is a limited Fos Scale kit from 2006 that I've been working on in fits and starts). The main building is now almost done:
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A number of guys on various forums have been working on metals recyclers. I decided it might be a good scenery item to take up the rest of the space near the Department of Docks. Here are two views:
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I have a Bar Mills Bull's Salvage kit on order, along with some more Walthers junk yard items. I also want to add another King Mill building flat to back up the area.