Backdrop ?

[MasonJar]

I like the idea of making the backdrop out of buildings, but we are talking at least 18 ft of buildings That's a lot of buildings.
Your idea of having the industries on one side only sounds good. Other wise I only have about 11 in on each side. Once you add the buildings, loading docks (if used) and the siding tracks, that puts the mainline pretty close to the edge of the table.

Loren

It is a lot of buildings, but once they are laid out flat, I don't think it'll take as many as you might assume. I know that I stretched Walthers Hardwood Furniture out to about 3 1/2 feet as a "semi-backdrop" building --> <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=354&p=3739">viewtopic.php?f=24&t=354&p=3739</a><!-- l -->. If it had been completely flat, it probably would have made it to 4 feet... So that's only 4 - 5 buildings required.

Plus you could get away with suggesting alleys and other spaces between the buildings - perhaps printed backdrops would fill this in ok, or even paper sheets of brick to suggest blank walls of other buildings.

Here's an idea from a friend of mine in the local round-robin operators group. Look for the October 22 and October 27, 2007 entries in his blog - <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://lyonvalleynorthern.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html">http://lyonvalleynorthern.blogspot.com/ ... chive.html</a><!-- m -->. Your track would be below the building, but parallel, no perpendicular like his. You may not need the tracks going into the industry (on his, they are just for show anyway - there's no way to operate that siding).


Andrew