Lately I had been sort of dissatisfied with my layout. I was really into the classic Lionel industrial look when I built it but over the years I have developed more of an interest in realistic settings and towns. Seeing all the custom scenery accents and structures at York was the final straw, and I ripped all the accessories off the layout to start fresh. The idea was to add more scenery and realism to the outer Gargraves portion of the layout, and incorporate my late mother's huge Department 56 Village collection into the inner tubular portion. The advantages of using the Department 56 buildings were I didn't have to buy anything, they create the town setting I like more, and at the same time they're not too permanent; they can be taken right back up when the time comes to move out of the big house in a year or two. And of course, they bring back cherished memories of mom setting up the Snow Village every Christmas on that little snow-covered table next to the tree. Her collection was big enough that it seemed like the same building was never used twice each year. My layout is large enough to fit them all now.
The completed "toy" layout:
Where I started after "demolition":
Fast forward about two weeks:
Still a few things left to be done and spaces left to be filled with structures in the switch yard, but the revamp is more or less completed. I am far more happy with this than the previous setup. I didn't mind too much before, but now I definitely dread the day where this all has to come back down.
