My train buddy, fellow VN vet, and Forum member, Chet Lichota, created this farm scene for one corner of my under-construction layout. Chet brought it to our weekly Tuesday Train Team get-together in Mercer, PA, last night, and I brought it home and placed it on the layout this morning. I think he did a first-rate job with this, including the painting/weathering touches applied to the Woodland Scenics barn, farm house, and outbuildings.
This is the first completed scene made for the top of the layout, aside from a four-foot-long removable (lift out) bridge section created by two other members of our informal group: Brian Mount and David Minarik (both familiar to regular OGR readers). We are still trying to decide how to make that bridge feature, which is a single unit complete with piers, river banks, a river, etc.) easily removable while still not having to fuss much with electrical contacts.
As is obvious in this photo, the GarGraves track is laid on roadbed (Woodland Scenics foam roadbed), but I have not yet painted the rails or ballasted the track. Those are two tasks I do not look forward to, but I will get around to doing both. For the time being, I am just enjoying running a number of trains; some of which had been boxed-up and stored for years.
The layout will have a U.S. Army logistics base general theme, hence the Army S2 switcher seen in this photo. I believe I have just about every U.S. Army locomotive made to date by MTH, Lionel, Weaver, and K-Line, with one more on preorder. Interchange will be with the Ohio Central, and I have a full roster of those locomotives (MTH and Lionel) as well.
