Rainbows in the Lehigh Valley Gorge

[TMo]

Well, I have to say the contest was fun and it inspired me to try to get on my high horse in a portion of the calendar that I normally don't devote much time to model railroading.

If you were following what ended up as two contest entries (both devoted to the layout addition I'd planned for Hazleton), I spent most of my three months fabricating buildings for Hazleton from cardstock kits from Clever Models.  They included what I decided will be a coal storage silo:

   

"The Coal Dealer" (minus the portable loading elevator that I started and abandoned):

   

Lucky's Lunch Counter

   

and a kitbashed warehouse complex I'm calling the Duplan Silk Mill (after what once was the largest Silk Mill in the world located in Hazleton):

   

as you can see in that last photo, I also generated an extension to the backdrop behind the warehouse, and I also built a slide-in module for the back right corner of the Hazleton section that slips behind the breaker:

   

That's all old news if you've been following the challenge.  While waiting for some parts for a locomotive that I'm working on, I also dug into a couple of "Freebies" that I'd collected from Clever Models.  Back in their heyday (at least up until 2023), as kits were bought there was a counter that counted down to zero.  Once it hit, there was a new Free kit on their website to download.  New freebies have been promised, but no new ones have appeared recently.  One that struck my fancy (and is still available for anyone to download for FREE) was a little two-story metal sheathed shed (The  O Scale Silver City Tool House Kit) that shares a lot of components with the Silver City Factory flat which I'd like to incorporate somewhere in the Hazleton scene.   And here it is without any of the roof details finished.

        

The current plan is to finish the roof and then there's another freebie that I may build called the O-scale Haunted House before I move on to building a multi-section industrial building of theirs called The Cream City Tool Works that I plan to purchase in the coming weeks.  I believe once all of those builds are finished that I'll have enough buildings for Hazleton, and I can start to arrange them in the space (including elevation).  I'll then generate the terrain to include roadways and then add scenic details.  To think that I believed I could have completed all of that in 3 months!  Sheer folly!