A photo test

[Ralph]

WHOA Ralph, since when did you have a steel mill on your layout? gosh dangit i swear i see something new every time you post pictures That looks like a awesome scene

Thanks. Actually I've had this scene on my layout for a few years. At first I thought I might model the steel industry and make it a major theme of the layout and its operations. Then, the more I learned about it the more complex it seemed and it was more than I was looking for. I constructed the large structures quickly out of cardboard boxes and corrugated craft paper and they could certainly use some refinement. The blast furnace is made of shampoo bottles! The complex is more of an impression of a steel mill than a model and it was intended to fill a large space in a return loop that I was impatient to get "finished". Right now there are a couple of bare patches where I've removed structures to either improve or eliminate them.

The three track yard at the mill (which I used to view as a holding yard for various materials like coal and scrap to justify its existence) is looking more useful as an interchange yard for exchanges between the Penn Central and my KP&W freelanced road. I'm trying to decide if I should keep the steel mill area and improve it or create something else.

Here's some photos of the area:





Ralph