Vanrouge

Apologies for the delay between updates but other things have taken priority. I haven’t however been entirely idle on the musing front and have made a number of changes to my original plans. After watching Mog/Martyn of his parrish’s interesting Greenville updates on his You Tube channel (see link below) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKcRvdN719g66eDzc2iUN1w Thanks for those Martyn I hope you don’t mind but I have followed your lead in a number of areas including using Conti board for the lighting pelmet and going old school with the baseboard tops and using cork tile instead of XPS extruded foam I also decided to put a short extension on the Ancon Transportation trackage Things really got back on track (sic) this weekend as the Seville Ave baseboards were duly constructed please see below. I have commenced tracklaying and will update shortly Cheers Nick

Thanks for posting Martin, watched your Youtube videos over the weekend, most enjoyable really liked seeing the evolution of the layout. Soldering has never been a favourite of mine and it good to se you are pleased with the results of power feed joiners and Scotchblock connectors. Link to railscenics.com was appreciated and one of their Medium power bus starter kits (218-005) has duly been ordered. I was going to top my hollow core doors with XPS but I think I am also likely be going old school and topping the boards with cork tiles. Which sky colour did you select in the end, looks good on the vids Cheers Nick

Brilliant progress Mal!

Renamed 4 Seasons General Merchandise 4 Seasons Foods as per my plan To get rid of the General Merchandise lettering I used the Colour Picker tool to sample the light grey around the text and using zoom I carefully airbrushed out the unwanted lettering. I saved this image and closed the view and re opened the file with Open as Layers. I then used the the text tool to apply an appropriate script font and played around with the positioning size and colour of font until I was happy with the result In the layer view I then used Merge Down to combine the image and resaved. I then cropped a sufficient area around the new Foods text and saved this as Foods Crop and following the same pattern as above I applied the Foods Crop to my other building blocks and then combined the three images as per the short video in my last post I hope this makes sense! Cheers Nick

Thanks for that Jack, on the subject of roads check out this excellent video on Luke Towan's Boulder Creek Railroad Youtube channel. The link for the channel is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjRkUtHQ774mTg1vrQ6uA5A For those unfamiliar with his work Luke is a really gifted modeller who's scenary work is just phenomenal check this out.... Paling in to absolute insignificance compared to the above, I finally got my building blocks sewed together to form a cohesive building frontage for 4SM I followed the guidance in this short video to finally get this to work Cheers Nick

Looking good Mal, wil defo be following Cheers Nick

Good spot Jack a scene that would be nice to model, however in this case because I have moved Pactiv to accomodate Ancon Transportation this will be an active rail crossing on my version of Seville Nice to see you checking out Seville/ Jewel in Streetview there are some nice little details I would like to incorporate into my layout. There is really nice tool in Streetview that I was kindly told about that allows us or is that US???? modellers to effectively turn back time (on computer not unfortunately on mobile) See from the above snip that Streetview has has a black control box in the top left hand corner of the screen, It shows the location and below that is a "clock face" with a drop down box symbol beside it and the displayed date that Google Streetview mapped the area. If you click on the drop down and use the contol button slider in the drop down box you can sample different dates in the viewer. Once you are happy with that date click back in to the main screen and then you can explore that sampled date in Streetview! In this case I've gone back to May 2009, check out that awesome blue sky and early summer in LA in the 00's In this case I can sample Vernon CA in: May 2009 Jan 2011 Sept 2012 Nov 2015 Dec 2016 Way cool Google , you will notice that at this time 4 Seasons still had its trackage all be without its switch It's great for not only researching different time frames but also how the different seasons look in your area of interest Cheers Nick

Trust me it will have quite a few nods to the film, party on dudes!!!

Bit more progress today (you can tell I'm on lates) Cleaned up the 4 Seasons Image above, got rid of the sign on the left of the building evened out the colours across the image and but especially around the pedestrian door and beneath the roller shutter and then cropped into a "building block" and took out much the shadow from the external wall light (?). This was done mainly by using the Rectangle Select tool in Gimp and copying and pasting over the elements to be over written (the zoom facility helped greatly with this). To finish things off I used sparingly the Colour Picker tool in combination with the Airbrush tool and a bit of the Smudge tool to blend things together. All these tools are availble from the Toolbox window available from the Tools menu and are pretty intuative, just takes a bit of experimenting, there is an undo facility for actions in Edit but for Zoom you have to use the View menu. Remember it is easier to have several working versions of a file than overwrite something you may regret ( I should know I've done it loads of times (must remember to take my own advice)) For some variation I removed the pedestrian door to form a second building block Now all I've got to work out is how to rename the building 4 Seasons Foods, learn to stitch the building blocks together, print to scale etc etc etc

Thanks to all you guys for your feedback I had considered modelling the track @ Dapper but given the space constraints I'm facing I figured this could be a case of less is more? It's really interesting that Shortliner asked the above questions about structures as that pretty much was going to be the subject of my next update. I intend to use low relief structures but want to try out the photo laminated wall paper technique - see January 2012 Model Railroad Hobbyist article by Lance Mindheim http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/magazine/mrh-2012-01-jan or check out his website http://lancemindheim.com/ I (along with a whole load of you I’m sure) think the guy does really great work). Lance uses Photoshop but GIMP 2.8 is a very powerful tool and is free to download, with loads of online tutorials​ in print and on You Tube (my preference) I have been struggling with using GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Programme) to correct the perspective on Google Streetview images for a while now and had all but given up however I think I cracked it today. The first glimmer of light in my befuddled brain was brought from the following article thanks to a search on RM Web and someone’s kind post http://www.templot.com/martweb/info_files/gimp_example.htm It got me part of the way there but the following You Tube video brought all the parts together for me (not rail related but really well explained) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vvKu36Vg8 To sample straight from Streetview you can select hit the print screen button and then select - paste as new in the edit menu of GIMP Then crop to a manageable size and follow the guidance from the video Here is my initial unmodfied crop from Streetview You will notice that the top of the building is far from square but inserting guidelines as illustrated in the video was invaluable in dealing with this (takes out an awful lot of guess work) the bottom of the building also required work but to a lesser degree (closer to the camera I guess). I manipulated the image using the perspective tool and then used transform, I did this several times over until I was happy with the result and then voila A learning point for me was not to immediately use the bottom of the building as a reference for the guideline (uneven ground) but rather to use the transition line between the grey paint at the bottom of the building and the white further up (that was much easier). To be honest once you get the hang of this it's a really easy and quick method I then had a quick go with Dapper but that building took much less to square up (further away from the camera?), Did some test prints of both 4 Seasons and Dapper just on plain paper and I am pretty peased with the initial results (it was only then I spotted the Streetview move left icon on Dapper.... Doh!!! more care needed in future) Still loads more to learn and do to finalise the images for use on the layout but encouraging signs at least Cheers Nick

Thanks for that, yep Gensets are pretty cool in my book speaking of which I found the following 3 books from Lance Mindheim really useful when putting the layout concept together, they are now printed in the UK by Amazon so are very easily available. They are the best model railroad books I own, short on pages but full of really useful insights and concepts (hope this helps) How to Design a Small Switching Layout How to Build a Switching Layout How to Operate a Modern Era Switching Layout Cheers Nick

Having had some time away from the hobby following a family bereavement, my thoughts have gradually turned back to modelling and examining what I was trying to achieve. My first full on layout was to have been in O scale & called San Dimas, based in Southern California in 80’s/ 90’s, this project will still be ongoing but progress is likely to be gradual. The reason for this change in direction is to develop my modelling skills in a relatively low risk (read lower cost!!!) environment The new project will be a small HO scale layout that will allow me to try out new and unfamiliar techniques to be put to good use going forward. It is a development of older ideas and will include some themes to be used (scaled up) on my O scale layout The area modelled is based on the Seville Avenue area between E37 St and East Vernon Ave in Vernon CA. It will use mainly elements of this UP lead but will be able operated as either LAJ (Los Angeles Junction Railway) or UP (Union Pacific). The fact that I already have a LAJ CF7 and a UPY Genset is entirely coincidental……. See below image from Google Maps for an idea of the area to be modelled Interestingly enough Google Street view shows this to be Jewel Ave, however the postal addresses for Dapper Tire and Pactiv are still listed as Seville Ave, so Seville Ave it will remain! Industries to be modelled 4 Seasons Merchandise repurposed to 4 seasons Foods (top left) Pactiv (top right) The building top middle used to be rail served and will be substituted with a Team Track inspired by Ancon Transportation facility which is at the other end of Seville on Fruitland Ave The building middle/bottom left Dapper Tire (sic) will be modelled but no longer rail served There will also be another industry off layout (on Jewel Ave a continuation of Seville Ave) that was I think was a Cargill Foods facility. See the excellent Snuffy’s Cat Production link location below The distance between E37 St and E. Vernon Ave is approx. 370m (1214ft) which would equate to 4.25m in HO (13.9ft) given the space I have available is 2.29m (7.5ft) a fair degree of selective compression is required!!! The below table illustrates quite literally the scale of the task With the above in mind this is the track plan I have come up with As you can see I have made significant changes to the real track layout to best utilise the space available. Pactiv has been moved to be opposite 4SM (Now 4 seasons Foods) The Ancon Transportation Team Track has remarkably moved from the other end of Seville Avenue and come to rest where Pactiv used to be. In reality the Ancon facility is massive and I want to use the space from Pactiv to the end board (inclusive) to convey some sense of that Seville Ave turns left rather than heading straight on to E47 St and Jewel Ave and the railroad follows suit (somebody must have moved the LA river closer)! The Cargil foods sight is now accessed via the “Dapper Runaround” Dapper Tyres is no longer rail served and the track has been "lifted" Comments and ideas would be welcome Cheers Nick

Looks great Jack, awesome progress Cheers! Nick

Brilliant work as always Ray Kind regards Nick

Looking good Jordan at least your making progress. I was hoping to have my baseboards up by now. Unfortunately although my boards are made, the timber for the legs did not turn up so I'm not sure if they will be finished until the new year. Season greetings to everyone Regards Nick

Great skills Jack, really enjoying this one Cheers Nick

I look forward to seeing the layout again at the convention this weekend it has been a (very) long time since I saw it last. Unless I am mistaken it was at a show in Colchester or was it Chatham???? Cheers Nick

Like the plan Jack, look forward to following this one.

Really enjoyed this thread, read it form top to bottom yesterday, great ideas, great modelling, fun dialogue, a cracking layout. Many thanks for sharing Cheers (quite literally) Nick

Hi Nick, saw your pike at Nottingham last month, absolutely loved it. Unfortunately I had limited time so I was not able to spend as much time train watching as I would have liked. However those big trains made quite an impression and so I made my first O scale purchase this week - 53 foot Evans double door in UP colours. Was disappointed not to see Midland Ohio on the roster for TVNAM this year, no chance of a rethink:) Cheers Nick