The Beaufield building boom

March 2nd seems like such a long time ago, but that was the date of my last blog entry. Summertime is rough for me, as it is for a lot of model railroaders, but here I am again. The old stirrings have been going on for a few weeks now, and a couple of weeks ago I opened the door to the layout room and timidly entered. After vacuuming out the cobwebs, and going over the layout, removing whatever flotsam and jetsam it collected over the summer, I had a minor epiphany. For now, I have enough track laid to get me out of the city, and since I prefer "sceniking" to some other aspects of the hobby, I decided to concentrate on city streets and city lights for a while. Immediately I hit a brick wall...so to speak. The original concept was for there to be a freight yard, and all around it, a city. But once I looked at the way I chose to lay out the track, I saw that that would be impossible. So now I am changing it to include an industrialized neighborhood with the rail yard serving those industries. My modern city...the "new" section of Beaufield will be relegated to the far corner of the layout and will consist mostly of painted backdrop. Fine with me.

I have a few small buildings that will do nicely as a starting point and I have some ideas that will keep this layout different from some others. For example, I plan to make my main passenger terminal with three walls, leaving the fourth wall open so that we may see inside to the waiting room, ticket counter, baggage claim etc. I also purchased a key ring that enables me to load a dozen or so snapshots and have them cycle through. I plan to create a series of .jpegs with arrival and departure times on them, and incorporate the keyring into a bulletin board so passengers will be able to see at a glance when their train is to leave.

Since this is the "railroad"end of town, I think there should be a few bars and a cheap hotel down there as well.

So my work is cut out for me. Should keep me busy till my next epiphany.