It has been a while since I have posted about our progress on the Munoz Lines. Much has been done in the last two weeks and it is the first opportunity I have had to work on the railroad since last May. So much has happened and Ginny and I are so fortunate to have survived the storm with no major damage. Our hearts go out to all of those who are still struggling.
From time to time, as I work on the layout, I come back to focusing on individual scenes and how much I enjoy the locomotives working their way through those scenes with their respective trains. I think back to my boyhood and how much I enjoyed putting my head close to the track to enjoy the locomotives and cars blasting through. Now that I am building a railroad that is so much bigger and intricately detailed, I find myself running huge trains and watching from a distance as if I was up on some hillside enjoying the entire panorama. It has been only recently that I have thought about running much smaller locomotives and what the layout would look like if it was not designed with curves large enough for Big Boys and such.
I have been working on a scene with a newly scratchbashed engine house from David Duhamel of Crescent Locomotive Works. David builds the most amazingly beautiful structures out of laser cut wood and provides wonderful interior detail, builds a fully lit structure (my two stall engine house is 36" long and has about 24 lamps with LED's), and it arrived at my house already built for a price under $200. Why folks are not beating down his door is the mystery of the day. In any case, the scene includes a 24" scratchbuilt wooden trestle that locos have to traverse before they arrive at the engine house and some rockwork on a hillside that has come out very well. As a matter of fact, I plan to ask the Forum to let me know if I have graduated from "rock school." That is another story. Sigh . . .
Over the past week or so, I have so enjoyed watching my little Atlas 0-6-0 go back and forth over that trestle and towards the engine house. I am beginning to think "Small" thoughts like how much more scenery my layout would allow me to have if I ran smaller locos. It seems to me the layout would be even more realistic because the largest locos still look pretty cramped even on the larger curves. I really am enjoying the small trains, too. There is something very appealing about a small loco with three or four cars simply puffing along like the little engine that could.
My small thoughts even have me thinking of the next layout before this one is built. I became enamored with the steam giants and, of course, I still love them. I think, perhaps, it is time to get smaller. And I'm not talking about Dunkin Donuts which I should certainly avoid more. I think the next layout will likely be smaller and feature smaller locos and trains and a lot more scenery.
I have not done anything work on the engine house other than to prepare the tracks, wire them up and wire up the house. Please excuse the shaky video. I was trying to place the video camera at an angle where you could view the truss detail. You'll see out of focus work ladders and lights that are askew. All of that will be repaired. There are no added details yet in the house, all of that is to come. The entire scene will be one of my favorites when it is completed.
Scrappy
