WOOHOO! Good weather = time to build

[Tom]

When I get the stink eye, I used to ignore it, but I got tired of sleeping on the couch with a severly overweight cat. I'm too old for that crap anymore. Besides, San Kinison said it best when he did his bit about the power a woman has thanks to her ------. Us guys don't have them but need them to survive, so I weigh "ignoring the look" accordingly.

[faraway]

...
   

That is a nice place. I see why you take the burden of traveling between the buildings.

[P5se Camelback]

... I've been at this so long, I get "the look" from women I don't even know - I'm never homesick.
Wayne

Oh, doctorwayne, you made me laugh out loud with a big belly laugh with that one!!! I am no longer married but I have a long memory ... "The Look" is not something you ever forget! But to get it from women you don't even know ... now that's priceless! I'll still be laughing tomorrow!!!

[P5se Camelback]

Nice workspace, Gary! It looks comfy ... and everything you need is there!

[I assume it's not too far from the kitchen!]

[tetters]

Nice workspace, Gary! It looks comfy ... and everything you need is there!

[I assume it's not too far from the kitchen!]

It's too clean and organized. Makes me think that Gary has actually hired a small army of layout gnomes to do all that bridge work on his layout.

[mountaingoatgreg]

It HAS to be gnomes....

[Gary S]

To be honest, the room was somewhat of a mess until this morning. I wanted to work on the pilings during the Texans' game, so I did a quick "put everything in its appropriate place" and then talked the lady ofthe house into vacuuming the room. Then coincidentally the subject of workrooms came up... and the photo!

[Charlie B]

To be honest, the room was somewhat of a mess until this morning. I wanted to work on the pilings during the Texans' game, so I did a quick "put everything in its appropriate place" and then talked the lady ofthe house into vacuuming the room. Then coincidentally the subject of workrooms came up... and the photo!

Gary, you just didn't have to tell us this, now you have lowered yourself to my level.
Charlie

[doctorwayne]

:hey: Lowered?? Nobody vacuums my stuff but me.

The fact that I might occasionally vacuum or dust other stuff is totally immaterial.

Wayne

[Gary S]

Thought I would revive this thread for a moment....

I've been thinking about what to do around the South Wayside bridge. There are no spurs in the area, so I figure I will put in the buildings that are actually around the bridge on the prototype. I'll have to do a bit of compression on the aisle side of the tracks, but the rear will be fairly close to scale.

Bing Bird's Eye with the red lines being the approximate extent of the layout shelving.

   

And the shelving with scale size buildings added. The two buildings in front will have to be adjusted for position. Also, the building at the front right will need some selective compression.

   

[BR60103]

Are those buildings really as small as your mockups?
The top left parking lot looks like it would go right off your layout. Would you consider a bit of modeller's license and model the white building a bit closer so that you can build the whole of it? You could shrink that bit of the parking lot. Or rotate it and bring it closer to the tracks with parking behind? (Is there a more interesting side that would be better to model?)

[Gary S]

I'll definitely be taking some liberties with the parking lots! The one to the upper left will be drastically scaled down. The paper building footprints are accurate, unless something went horribly wrong when transferring measurements from google earth.

I think the Bing's Bird's Eye view cause some distortion. I actually use the straight down google earth view to take measurements. When I was looking at the bing view above, the white building looks to be proportioned differently than the paper I laid out to represent the building. I took all the measurements off of google earth.

Here's an overhead view. The distance between the added lines are approximately 25 feet, so the buildings can be roughly scaled from that. The layout shelving is 30 inches wide right there, or 217.5 HO feet.

Between the white building and the tracks, there is a cmu outbuilding and an air conditioner.

   

I'll go ahead and model the scene as is, trying to get the overall feel, not necessarily "exactly" what is there. So, the parking lots may be scaled down a bit, the buildings might get scaled down (mostly the one in the lower rght). The buildings on the aisle side will have to be moved closer to the tracks.

[ocalicreek]

Unless you've got some particular affinity for this location, and/or parking lots, you may get more bang for your buck to shift things around into a more advantageous arrangement. Consider how the buildings will intersect with the backdrop as well. We've talked about this before, but I like to model the more interesting bits and reduce the ordinary stretches as much as possible. Then again, I've only got a small space to work in vs. a big 'ole building, so my approach is going to be different. Even so, given the larger space I'd still try to work in the more eye-catching structures vs. the plain jane ones unless that's what the scene needs.

Galen

[Gary S]

Galen, I appreciate the comments and thoughts.

Here's my thinking:

I've decided that since I have so much room, and since I am doing the proto bridges, I may as well expand my goals to include the stuff around the bridges where I can. I could modify the backs of those buildings to make them more interesting, or even use different and more exciting buildings and arrangements all together, but then they would distract the viewer from the bridges. Also, these are non-railroad related buildings, so I want the focus to be on the trains at this spot. Another thought is that with all the detailing I want to do on the industry buildings, these plain brick structures will be easy to build in comparison.

Since it makes sense that the "interesting" fronts of these buildings would be facing away from the tracks, that leaves the "uninteresting" backs toward the track. The two buildings on the aisle side of the track are a donut shop and a fish market, and the fronts will be toward the aisle, so those should be interesting in their own right.

I think modeling it close to the prototype will also be interesting for visitors, especially when I show them a few photos of the area. It may be quite unique to have large areas of the layout modeled after a real place. And, with all the space I have to populate, I probably do need some "mundane" stuff to balance the "exciting" stuff!

I may take some liberties at the backdrop, maybe adding an extra tree here or there, a planter box in the parking lot, something to hide the backdrop-layout junction.

Of course, I'm always open to considering suggestions, so fire away!

[SP1]

Of course, I'm always open to considering suggestions, so fire away!

Gary,
I suggest swapping positions of the structures behind the rail. So the larger one could be used to conceal the edge of the background and is still close to the bridge.