Inspiration

[steinjr]

Stein, I just followed your links. The Bing map just showed a birds eye view, but the Google map was a street view with the ability to turn around and see 360 degrees at street level. COOL!!

They are pretty neat complements to each other. Bing's bird eye view allows you to view the scene from four directions, zoom in a little and drag the aerial photos around - gives a pretty good 45 degree down view of how the tracks run, and an overview of how the industries are laid out.

Google's street view allows you to go down some streets, see facades of buildings etc. But only from the road side, not from the backside, where the railroad tracks usually are. Pretty neat to place yourself at a RR crossing and look up and down the track, though.

But photos taken from an observer on the ground, who can walk into parking lots and take ground level pictures of the back side of buildings is a third thing - everything combined gives you a superb modeling goal.

Anyways - sorry about more or less hijacking Reinhard's thread. Let's get back to see some more pictures of his beautiful layout !

Smile,
Stein