Mike's layout :)

[michael_balcos]

Here's my first post in this forum. I'm crawling a bit on using the new bulletin board software, but I'll learn how to use this.

The following pictures are taken from my layout. I must concede they are not well made in the photographic sense because I couldn't seem to work well with the interface of the camera I used. But I really want to show you guys how a hell-bent model railroader in the Philippines could do. There is presently no model railroad shop here in the Philippines, so I had to find some way to get the trains and the tracks. My present collection of model railroad equipment took more than 10 years to acquire. Most of my structures are paper models that I could easily buy and download in the internet. I got some trees and rose bushes from architecture supplies stores locally. The 7-Up trucks I used claimed to be 1:87, and most of the other vehicles are at 1:72(which is close enough to me). The grass on my layout is basically green felt paper that looked like golf course grass. I'm planning to make my own ground grass out of saw dust in the future to improve the look of my layout.

My original plan for my HO layout is a fictitious 1950's era railroad in New England, but acquiring the right items had been a problem for me. So there are many anachronisms in my layout, but I hope to fix those in the future.

Here are the pictures.

   

   

   

[Charlie B]

Hello Mike,
We are glad you made it here. The pictures are quite OK. Wonderful looking layout.
It must be a real pain to be so far from everything, but despite that you have managed to capture the flare of a working class 1 railroad.
Charlie

[Bigsteel]

nice pics mike ,are all those houses in the background of the last pic card? if so they look great!--josh

[michael_balcos]

Thanks for the encouraging words. Yup, the line of houses in the last picture are made of card stock. They are from the New England collection of fiddlersgreen.net . However, many of the paper models from that collection had obvious fitting problems that required a little hacking.

Oh, I apologize for that hanging roof of the small passenger station in the second picture. I only noticed it after posting this message. I've just got that fixed.

[Dan85]

Welcome Mike!

You layout looks good - those paper structures came out very well!

That's got to be tough railroading without a hobby shop! Have you found any that are willing to ship to you?

- Dan

[Trucklover]

nice pics mike ,are all those houses in the background of the last pic card? if so they look great!--josh

Ill agree with Josh Mike, those are great looking houses!!

to the "Big Blue" Forums, glad you could join us over here

[LynnB]

Very nice , your cardstock building look right at home.

[eightyeightfan1]

Those are cardstock?
I had to look three of four times. They sure look good.

[Ralph]

Hi Mike! Glad you joined us! I like those cardstock buildings too, especially the Flour building.

Ralph

[jim currie]

looking good Mike . nothing wrong with card stock most of the buildings i started out with were card stock.
Jim

[Lester Perry]

I am very impressed. I have never seen card stock buildings that weren't destroyed by age or kids. They look great
Les

[michael_balcos]

Thanks, everyone. I'm now able to order thru ebay for model railroad equipment. The internet is a wonderful place: it even let me get parts that are quite challenging to acquire thru model railroad shops. As for paper models getting damaged, they are pretty cheap to replace since I can print them out again. I'm planning to get that factory warehouse from scalescenes.com , and rescale it to HO. I'll be putting it in a two track siding.

[LynnB]

Have you ever tried modifying the paper structures to add strip wood for the exterior wood look?

[michael_balcos]

Hi, Lynn. I haven't tried adding some stripped wood yet. I haven't considered that yet since I don't know of any local source for stripped wood. And I'm currently content with how the paper structures look right now. My present interest is centered in adding some paper structures. Specifically, I currently plan to get that factory warehouse from scalescenes.com .