When I left for California in June, there was a scene on the railroad that included a couple picnicking and a boY flying a kite
When I came back from California, the picnickers were mysteriously gone. I looked around pretty thoroughly, and couldn’t find it. So I had to make a replacement.
The shininess is from the UV resistant coating. I’ll spray with some matte clear later to make it look less plasticy.
Looks like Strelsau got a few feet of snow
The castle in Ruritania/Graustark is home to members of the royal family, but it’s also open for tours. Here you see the ticket stand where a member of the castle staff is directing tourists.
Once the groundcover has grown up around the bases, it will look better, but it’s pretty good as it is.
This Hauptstraße (Main Street) building was in need of some work. I’d never put the sign on the front, and some of the other signs were fading. In addition, the “foundation” was made of cast material that didn’t stand up to the weather as well as I’d hoped.
It looks a lot better now. The sign is using a new preservative technique that I first tried on my castle sign… I thoroughly coated it with UV Resist, then once it was dry encased it in resin, then resprayed with UV resist. We’ll see how it holds up, but I’m hopeful.
This is cumulative from the last four days…
Here’s the gatehouse
Progress on fitting the roof curve ot the turret 
A different view
The arcade
Progress on the main building
Arcade windows and door
I’m adding a castle (probably the final building) to the layout this spring. I’ve started working on the overall plan/layout and checking the size to ensure it won’t overwhelm the layout…
Here’s an elevation of the front… 
First snow, post mountain.
Here’s my latest idea: HO scale houses on the mountain to help force the perspective of distance
Click for giant versions
What do you do if a train gets stuck inside your mountain?
This access door is about 12″ high and 36″ long, allowing me to easily “help” a train that has problems inside the tunnel. It’s formed from insulating foam, cut to shape and painted for UV protection.
This somewhat fuzzy picture (sorry) shows the “snow” I added using latex paint and crushed glass for sparkles. The glitter is too hard to photograph, but it looks nice.
Here are some images of the “almost done” mountains.
Here’s a distance shot.
Here is the completed shell
Here’s the first step: all framed in pencil rod and covered with chicken wire (I know they don’t call it that anymore–but I do)
I’ve finished up the first of two planned logging wagons. This one just needs a figure guiding the horses and it will be ready to go out next to the lumber mill and tree stumps I currently have on the layout.
I’m going to build another one of these later, assuming there turns out to be enough room on the layout for two once I’ve added the mountain.
I’ve thought for a while now about adding a mountain (and tunnel) to my layout. The problem is, this is Germany (or Ruritania, or Graustark) in the 1930s, so a southwestern U.S.-style mountain won’t do. I need an alp.
My current idea is to make a frame of rebar, cover it with wire mesh, and then use concrete-impregnated burlap to cover it in a sort of concrete version of paper mache.
Thanks to Alan (fyrekop) over on mylargescale.com I now have a better idea for building the “Alps” on my layout
Started working on drawings for the logging wagons. Here’s the front axle setup, including the harness attachment points.
Here are some of the images I’ll be using to create my horse-drawn logging wagons
Bought these last week.
I’m planning to make some wagons out of these…
