Here are new pictures of my n scale 2x4-foot SD&AE layout! First up is my favorite: SD&AE 104 rounding the curve out of Titus: Next up is 104 hauling the eastbound train out of Jacumba: (the backdrop is removeable, so I staged it behind the camera in some shots) Here's 104 again, this time running light and making a water stop: And the overall view of Jacumba, with a hotel, gas station, and cafe still waiting to be built behind those Phoenix palms. More pictures are on the way!! Here are some older ones: http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=124108&highlight=SD%26AE
As I said in my comment in your album, up close it looks a lot bigger than what it is. I have a HCD that I have an oval of track on and a few turnouts. After a few months of the layout sitting without any progress, I've realized that I'm trying to do too much in the space I have. Your layout has shown me that I can do something simple and still be proud of it! Great job!
Exceptional scenery; very well sets the scene - color, depth, texture all just wonderful. I see you're using the same kind of 'overpass exit' I am - desert modelers are always searching to exit scenes without trees and tunnels!
FANTASTIC picture! I can just feel the wide open spaces, and the loneliness of the trek across them. Wonderful lighting and setting. Great layout photos.
I'll have to formulate a better compliment later, after my jaw returns from the floor! Simply outstanding! :thumbs_up::thumbs_up:
Thanks to everyone who has complimented my layout! I've found using real Campo and Jacumba dirt (collected from a drive out into the area for a photo op.) really help to give the overall feel of east county and make color-matching simplified! BTW, about the highway-overpasses-hiding-both-backdrop-seams scenario, it was just out of coincidence. It's ironic that for a railroad with 21 tunnels (17 in just an 11-mile stretch) and dozens of bridges, neither a single bridge nor tunnel are on the layout. That's just because on this stretch in the real world, there were none! There were, however, overpass bridges north (I-8) and south(Old Hwy. 80) of Jacumba, hence my use of them to hide the seams. As far as operations on the layout go, the passing track was extended around to behind the backdrop to run longer trains (with double-heading in the future once my tenwheeler is finished!) and Jacumba serviced MOW (evident by grounded wooden passenger cars) and a Standard Oil spur in the steam days. Plus a freight shed (also scratchbuilt like my depot) to spot a boxcar. I'm not sure whether to model 1948 (with all-steam and daily freight AND passenger trains each way) or 1951 (with steam helping a pair of baldwin as-616's on the daily mixed each way). If someone comes out with an as-616 in SP livery in n scale, and if wheels of time harriman cars remain a bit hard to come by, I'll gravitate to the later era. Smoother-running Diesel reliability (while still running lots of steam for helpers and extras) + 2 harriman SD&AE combines rather than an entire fleet of harriman cars = easier on my part!
Here are more pictures (I can only put 4 in at a time) SD&AE MW 1003 fire truck in front of old SD&AE passenger cars converted into MW living quarters, Old Hwy 80 bridge in the background: Another view of the depot and freight shed (I only recently became aware of the shed's existence when I saw it in vintage footage, at sdrm.org's videography page, of a reefer drag, from the 1931 movie The Steel Highway rolling through Jacumba!) Closeup of the I-8 bridge; The black sign @ left is the Jacumba yard limit, the white rectangular sign (sorry, it's out of focus) is milepost 93. Any sign, fence, oil pipe, tank, grounded car, or anything other than dirt that I see along the right of way I model accurately; these add interest and are items commonly forgotten on model railroads. And YES, I do model pole lines, with invisible string, painted black so they're NOT invisible. :0) And finally, the layout in it's entirety. The little red dot about 6" to the left of the harriman car (which tailed at the end of mixed trains on the SD&AE) is my little Jacumba fire truck.
Tom, I've been out all day and this was a nice set of photos to come back to see. I think the what to do at the edges thing is something that all of us module and small layout modelers end up facing. You've handled it very well here. Keep up the good work! Adam
I love this layout and I was going to start doing something similar and now I know i will be starting an small layout this week.
If you had stopped and asked me how big your layout was after the first few low angle pictures you posted I would have guessed it was much bigger than this. It just goes to show you can do a lot in a small space. I really like that you've contructed a scene that is really balanced in terms of scenery vs track. Great work.
There's just a whole lot to love there. Over on the track design board there's been a number of plans shown on how to take a simple 2x4 oval and use a backdrop at the back for offstage. Looks good on paper, but nobody seems to believe it. Either that or split the table two-sided with two backdrops. This is one of the best examples of ever seen of execution of the concept. And some real supreme execution, little stuff like the dirt road. As a small layout believer myself, and watching all the threads on how a 2x4 layout (or smaller) isn't really practical in N, I just love it.
Outstanding modelling! I've been out there in real life numerous times, and you've nailed it. Love the 104 and the fire truck. Overall a big WOW , great job
Thanks again for your compliments, guys! I had no idea my modeling would be revered like this! Well, Real railroads are mostly single track and "wide open spaces", but those are some of my favorite parts! In my opinion, a good-sized layout (like what I'll build in my own garage someday) should be 3 or 4 accurate towns, modeled with as little compression as possible, with accurate track arrangements and decent stretches of open track, fed by ample staging. This will be most rewarding in terms of viewing AND operation. Model railroading should simply be real railroading scaled down, including the stretches of mainline that most modelers omit for more operation (or that's how I see it, anyway!)
