Newport Railroad Update 12/30/2023

I appreciate the input @Joe K! Especially on the table top building.

Does the phone wire (ethernet cable?) work because it's a low voltage being carried? That cable is pretty compact and that makes it appealing for me because I know I'll need to power some LEDs and I assume the cable could carry that power.

I think I could come up with a few spots where I replace foam with wood to kneel (like Twister, which I was never good at it). I don't plan on needing to get on the layout anyway. I've talked to some guys with 8' deep layouts and they say they haven't been on the layout in years. I think I need to have the option but I don't expect to use it.

I use phone cable (I use the traditional 4 colour red-green-yellow-black) to carry my 5VDC occupancy signals, and for all my AC and DC accessories. You could also use ethernet cable, however I think the wire is a little smaller. The phone wire is solid copper, which I like as it is easy to strip and connect. I also use this to power my uncoupler tracks, which are never "on" for very long, so the small wire works OK.  I keep the covering on the cable from the local terminal block and run it under the table to the location for a central "hole". then I strip the 4-conducter cover off and expose the four separate coloured wires. In my case this goes between the table top and the underpad.  This allows me to feed two items, one with Red-Black and the other with Yellow-Green. (black and green are always ground). I always keep the wire pair colours the same so there are fewer wiring mistakes. If you are using foam, you will want to get all the wiring in place before you start fastening the foam to the table. With carpet underpad, I can always make changes as the underpad is flexible, The foam will not flex, so wires added later will have to go through both the table top and the foam, to the location you want.

If you label things correctly, You can run AC and DC power to local terminal blocks, using a larger wire, then distribute from there to all the local accessories and lights. This will work for both AC and DC systems. You need to label the terminal blocks properly so you do not accidentally connect an AC item to the DC power supply. I also have different voltage supply distribution systems, one for uncouplers and accessories at 12VAC, and another for activating my switches at 16VAC, There is another DC system to run my Miller Engineering signs. Lots of wiring involved in a good layout.

@Joe K posted:

Lots of wiring involved in a good layout.

Seems the case! I haven't even thought about it yet. I'll get my built before I start to sweat it. I was unaware that telephone and ethernet are different wires. Makes sense to go solid.

Astounding work Bill! I’d like to talk more on the 3D printed furnace you are working on. I 3D print stuff myself quite a bit and am quite interested in being able to print something similar for my steel mill area. Hope we can touch base sometime. Keep up the great work!

Hiya Lance! Abolsutely, I'll get a hold of you. I'm in the middle of getting the open hearth building assembled so I can start building a prototype for a crane that works. Progress has stalled on the blast furnace for the time being. But I tend to bounce back and forth between buildings.

Minor update:

I also bought some lumber (and my wallet is still sore) to finish the wall framing. That will get me to the point where I'm ready to paint the ceiling. Then, pending the cost, I can start the table finally. Unfortunately, student loans might be starting back up again by then and that might really stifle progress but whatever, we'll keep at it. At any rate, I'll have a plethora of printed buildings ready to go haha

Bill, I hear lumber prices are really up!  I hope you can get a good part of this done before you have to start paying student loans again.  

@Mark Boyce posted:

Bill, I hear lumber prices are really up!  I hope you can get a good part of this done before you have to start paying student loans again.  

Boy you aren’t kidding!  Select 2x4 8ft studs are like $7 right now at my local Lowe’s.  I think I was paying $2-3 over the summer when I got my last load for the benchwork.

Ouch!  Yes, just this past Thursday the guys at my breakfast Bible Study were talking about it.  A couple of then do odd jobs in retirement and talked about it

@Mark Boyce I sure hope so. I got a lot of other projects going on around the house but as @rplst8 said, paying twice as much for wood was not in the budget. Treated lumber is even worse and I needed some for putting a roof over my deck. That project is basically off the table now. I wanted to build an arbor too but that might still be affordable. We'll see. September is still five months away and our special leaders in DC can do all kinds of things in that amount of time

I'm feeling some serious pressure to get a table up by the time my 2-10-10-2 arrives! Otherwise I'll be setting up a loop on the ground so I can run it haha

On the upside, I have two more beams to print for the crane run way in the open hearth building. I'll post an update with pictures of that half finished model when I get it glued together.

It will take long enough to do those projects, hopefully prices will come back down by then.

It's about time for another update I suppose.

I went out and bought my 2x4s for putting up studs along the rest of the basement walls. I'll be able to move forward with painting the ceiling once they're up (they attached to the ceiling joists and will be painted). It was a rough purchase given 2x4 prices but I've delayed enough and it had to be done.

The open hearth building is coming along:

I've been sloppy with the hot glue but this is really just a test for the building anyway. It's not intended to look good. This is the building that will house the working crane so it's really about seeing how rigid the structure is and how straight I got the building. I used Plastruct angle iron to try to align the column but the angle iron isn't overly rigid. That was a little bit disappointing but I should have expected it. The cross braces and roof trusses helped a ton for rigidity. So that was good. I still might add to the trusses. I haven't decided. I got some sheets of corrugated siding from Plastruct and I suspect that will really tie everything together and stiffen the building up.

It's about time to start thinking about building the actual open hearth furnaces. These were a little tougher for me to wrap my head around for some reason so progress was going slow until the light bulb went off in my head. The museum in town has an open hearth in the front yard! So I went down there yesterday and explained what I was up to. They gave me the ok and I got to work. It took a while to get the measurements and everything since I was drawing it out on notebook paper and dimensioning the drawing. I attached some pictures of what I was working with at the bottom. One interesting thing was that this is either a metric open hearth or the rule of shrink for steel castings was ignored. Most of the dimensions came out to a half inch of 7/8 of an inch or something. That was odd to me. I usually aim for whole numbers when I build things. I have a better understanding of the open hearths now but still have a few questions. I need to find out if those torches where used for one furnace bay or if it was one torch for a block of furnaces. The book I have on steel railroading suggests it was one torch per 5 bays (each furnace door counting as a bay). We'll see. I gotta start converting my hand drawing into something that can be 3D printed. It'll be cool to give this building an interior.

That's all this time. Let's hope I come into some money or the price of wood drops so I can get a table started! I expect to post again when I get a furnace printed or get the crane rolling.

Bill, Did you have to get a loan to pay for the studs since lumber prices are so high?  😉

That is a great display that you were able to photograph and measure!  They did a nice job having steel worker statues by it!  Oh so hot.  I had two uncles who had burn scars on their arms, face, and necks from working in the mills when they were younger.

@Mark Boyce posted:

Bill, Did you have to get a loan to pay for the studs since lumber prices are so high?  😉

...  I had two uncles who had burn scars on their arms, face, and necks from working in the mills when they were younger.

I did cut into the student loan budget to be honest. I've been saving for a big payment this year but I bought over $200 in studs. I nearly gave my neighbor a cardiac event when we were talking about it.

My great uncle worked open hearth and my aunt said his skin was stiff and had no hair from it. It must have been like walking into a wall of heat in there.

Glad I'll be modelling the orange glow instead of the heat haha

Bill,

The Open Hearth looks great!!!  The book you want to borrow (or buy if you can find it) is The Making, Shaping, and Treating of Steel by US Steel.  I have the 7th edition, 2nd impression dated 1957.  It was my father's.  Chapter 15 is on the Open Hearth Process and contains fold-out diagrams.

This is my plan for a roof truss for my Open Hearth.  It is extremely rigid.

I have built one and have another underway.  I will need 9 as the building is 60" long.

George

Thanks!!

I wonder how different the 9th edition (1971) is. I found that one pretty easily.

I'm kind of cheating on my truss design because it's actually from an ingot mold foundry. I haven't dug up the Sheet & Tube drawings yet. I don't know the nuances of roof design in the mills and what the purposes of each design was. I assume it's just to allow a big spot for hot air to get out?

@BillYo414 posted:

Thanks!!

I wonder how different the 9th edition (1971) is. I found that one pretty easily.

I'm kind of cheating on my truss design because it's actually from an ingot mold foundry. I haven't dug up the Sheet & Tube drawings yet. I don't know the nuances of roof design in the mills and what the purposes of each design was. I assume it's just to allow a big spot for hot air to get out?

I don't know the nuances of roof design either.  My plan is based on plans purchased from the late Mike Rabbit.  He was a member of the Steel Mill Modelers SIG and drew and sold a number of plan types.  This one was a generic open hearth.

George

I might just go with those if I can't dig up any Sheet & Tube drawings since I am technically building a fictitious mill.

I suppose an update is worth doing since there has been progress:

• basement walls are nearly framed.
• much of the basement ceiling has been cleaned off in preparation for paint.
• much of the basement clutter has been removed.
• I added another light to the ceiling to see how I want to do the lighting (lots of shop lights? targeted light? I don't know).
• I changed my material for the from to black sand from coal slag. I still think the coal slag was better looking but it had magnetic bits in it. No good.
• I tested the grade for my high line. I think it's at 6% now. It looks ok and performs well. The final grade on the layout is expected to come in at 3.8%.
• A model of the open hearth furnaces is coming along.
• The blast furnace cast house grew some walls and a roof.
• The coal unloader for the fishbelly hoppers is coming along. It's going to need a redesign.

I'm getting closer to being ready to start the table for the layout as I get the walls framed and the ceiling painted. I see lumber futures are down quite a bit but honestly, I'm ready to just suck it up and foot the bill for the wood. I didn't come this far just to be held up over money. I think that I will end up just buying a few pieces at a time instead of all at once like I planned.

I've had my nose in an electronics book lately trying to get learned in all things electronic. I want to get LEDs to simulate the flow of molten iron during a blast furnace tap. Arduino seems to be a good choice because I can directly command the lights so I'm leaning that way. The tap hole actually faces away from the front of the layout so I have plenty of ability to hide components behind things. I don't know when I'll start looking into this part in depth but I'm hoping I can get some great results from it. I'm thinking of just hiding the LEDs under translucent plastic strips along the casting floor. From the angle viewers will stand at, it should look convincing.

I picked up some Atlas 0-36 switches for the test layout and I haven't had much luck with them. The 0-6-0T and 0-6-0 trains I run love to jump the tracks and there seems to be a dead spot. I need to find a remedy since I'm likely to be stuck with these for a few more months. Anybody got any tips?

So that's the news. It doesn't seem exciting to me but I thought I would log it here in case it looked like I fell off and quit working on the layout. I just got caught up in a surprise living room remodel and some extensive landscaping outside.

Good progress, Bill!

George

Bill , you have been quite busy!

Thanks guys. I guess I should give myself more credit!

It's an especially exciting night because I might have finally figured out a good way to convert MTH hoppers to spring loaded doors. Just gotta wait for my parts to come in on Monday! I also got my old RS3 fixed. That's probably going to for another thread though.

Converting to spring loaded doors sounds like a project.  I have 6 Atlas 2-bay hoppers with spring loaded doors if you want them.  

It has been a project @Mark Boyce. First I thought I could get the spring that Atlas uses made since I couldn't buy them from Atlas. Nope. Then I fought my coal slag because it turned out to be magnetic (I wasn't expecting that) which made it difficult to use magnets. Now I'm looking for some type of sheet metal to use to hold the doors shut. I modified a torsion spring to hold the door shut with the help of the magnets mounted outside of the hopper. The torsion spring seems to be the wrong type of spring here because of the movement (or I have the wrong bend in the spring, I'm still learning).

I'm so darn close. It's a shame these solutions come to me in the evening on weekends. Now I have to wait till tomorrow to go to the store and hope they have suitable sheets of metal or I have to wait for an online order to arrive and hope I guessed right. Tricky business but the ability to load and unload raw material to feed the blast furnaces is a long dream of mine.

With that said, I'm concerned about adding more Atlas cars to the mix before I say I'm interested in your offer. I already have a few. How much weight is too much weight for model trains? Those diecast Atlas hoppers are heavy. Put a load of coal (black sand or coal slag) in them and multiply by 10-15 cars...can modern engines handle it? Double heading postwar pullmor motors would be a sight and sound to behold haha

I was only thinking the Atlas cars would be on level track.  I wasn’t thinking about the weight of the load.  Yes they would really get heavy.  I only thought about pulling my 6 Atlas cars and several MTH cars up a 4% grade.

The bottom line is you able to figure out a solutions and have skills to make them happen.  I just buy what someone else figured out.  I made a 43 year career of that. 😄

I mean I'm genuinely asking what the upper limits of O Scale locomotives are. I double headed conventional locos as a kid when I needed more power. I also had postwar power at my disposal. A lot has changed since then (about 1997). I hope the articulated engines aren't just for show. I have to navigate a helix with them. My b6 can push 5 loaded Atlas hoppers up my grade. That's when I notice some slip if I don't come in fast enough. So hopefully an Allegheny can handle a helix.

I just love hot rodding stuff. I don't have the money to do it with my truck so I will settle with modding my model railroad stuff.

Bill, I setup a train with 2 Premier PS2 H9 Consolidations double heading and one Premier PS2 H9 Consolidation in front of the caboose.  I had all 6 Atlas cars right behind the head end engines, then filled out the train with 4 MTH hoppers and a caboose.  When I had two engines on the train, I could keep it from slipping uphill if I had a nice running start.  By that I mean about 15 scale mph.  With 3 engines, it is no problem.  My initial intention was to make up a train with 3 engines just because I have always thought that was cool.

I agree, I have no idea what the Allegheny will do.

@Mark Boyce posted:

just because I have always thought that was cool.

I agree, I have no idea what the Allegheny will do.

Three trains is always cooler than two trains!!

I'll see if I can dig anything up in the search function and then maybe I'll make a topic if I come up empty handed. 

It's summer and everybody I know is having a wedding. Consequently, work has been nonexistent. But I did catch a cold that made me sit on the couch! And so I finished changing the roof on the blast furnace cast house. I saw this style roof on a building behind NLMK in Farrell, PA (former Sharon Steel, I think). I like the way it looks much better than a plain peak. It also looks awesome when the smoke comes out of it. The sheets you see on the building are just there as stand in parts. I will either glue corrugated sheets over it or replace it with corrugated sheets. The sheets on there have small nubs that mate to the underlying beams. It makes it easier to assemble and this has me leaning towards gluing the corrugated sheets to the existing sheets you see in the video.

Not shown are my open hearth furnace models. I got the basic structure done. Now I need to add chains and valve handles and whatnot that were on the real thing. I definitely want to add flickering lights to them too. I'll try to remember to post a picture when I get home.

Besides that, I got the studs nice and straight on the walls. Next step is to clean the ceiling up and paint it. Then add my backdrop and we're off to getting the table started. That will probably be 2 or 3 months from now.

Bentley barked at your steam whistle.  He settled down as soon as the video was over.  Looks great, Bill!

@Mark Boyce posted:

Bentley barked at your steam whistle.  He settled down as soon as the video was over.  Looks great, Bill!

Glad he enjoyed it haha and thanks! Seeing a model that needs a full railroad is definitely motivating. Now I need life to calm down a bit.

When you're asking about how much weight a model engine (or multiple engines) can pull or push, a number of factors come into play.  Among them are traction and grade, curvature of track, and strength of the knuckles on your couplers.  To my mind, putting real loads into diecast cars will fast approach the point where knuckles will open or break, even if your engines have enough traction to begin the pulling process.  This, I believe, is why so many modelers use "dummy" loads tucked in to the top of hopper cars because they want to run "longer" trains.

Have you weighed a diecast hopper with a load that will satisfy your desires?  Have you tried to pull a couple of fully loaded diecast hoppers in the track scenarios you envision?  You might want to try before you attempt to convert other hoppers to an "operating" format because finding out after the conversions that it takes 2 engines to pull 3 fully loaded cars up even a slight grade (assuming the knuckles hold) could lead to massive frustration.

Chuck

@PRR1950 the coal loads with the die-cast hoppers do get very heavy.

I have not actually weighed the cars. I have mostly done testing. The grade I have on my test layout is almost 5%. Currently, I can push 5 fully loaded die-cast hoppers up that grade with a b6. The planned grade on the layout is about 2.8%. So I feel good about my grade selections. The coal drags would face a helix but an articulated locomotive would be pulling the drag, not just an 0-6-0. The die-cast cars finding their way to the back of a coal drag has been my biggest fear. That would be a messy derailment. Popping couplers didn't cross my mind. I'll have to search the forum and see if anybody has tested how much they can hold. It would be great data to have in general. I guess I didn't question coupler strength to be honest. I'll need to take a look at it.

I'm having a bad time building an unloader that makes use of the bottom doors. I had an original design.  It failed. I'm on the fourth iteration now and reliability has been the biggest issue. I think I'm going to have to come up with a new design that uses a different mechanism but that has taken a bit of a back seat to just getting a table and big loop installed. I know that the back up plan is a rotary dumper. I would like to avoid it for space reasons but it might be the best way. It would be a bit disappointing to have dummy loads for me but I recognize the benefits. That is still on the table but I hope to avoid it! Time will tell.

I appreciate the thought provoking response! I'm having some doubts and concerns now but I prefer to have them before the time is spent building this stuff.

Fabulous video and great analysis taking place Bill!  You are going about this very thoughtfully. 

George

@G3750 posted:

Fabulous video and great analysis taking place Bill!  You are going about this very thoughtfully. 

George

Thanks! Life dictated that I wouldn't make much progress this summer. I figured it was worth overthinking in the mean time!

I also can remember the reasons my first layout didn't hold my attention as a kid. Having live loads was a major one. I loved the animation I saw at the Carnegie layout and always wanted to emulate that. Throw in a 3D printer, Arduino, and an internet...the possibilities are endless!

Progress is rolling along. I'll be glad when there is actual scenery and what I perceive as exciting things to share.

I rearranged the entire corner of the basement. I built shelves there before I decided to get back into model railroading. They had to go if the Norgeville Iron Works is going to graduate from a merchant iron company to a steel company. The open hearth will go in that in end of the layout. This was tedious. It involved emptying the shelf, battling two wolf spiders while moving the shelf, discovering water damage, and fixing the water damage. I went through the stuff on the shelf since it was from college. I cut 5 boxes down to 1. So this was a good thing overall. I now need to put up the last 8 studs along the wall for the backdrop, and then I'm ready to paint the ceiling.

I am very nervous about painting the ceiling. I have a spray gun to paint it black but I just have zero confidence that I'll get the ceiling clean enough to cover everything. I hope I'm wrong and it's much easier but I just thought this is going to be a very tricky project. My current plan is to use compressed air to dislodge the dust (vacuum in hand so I don't relocate the dust). Then wipe with water. Let dry three days with the dehumidifier running.

I also inventoried all the track I've been purchasing as I go along. If I find a good deal, I scoop it up. The top level (steel area) is supposed to be roughly 590' total. I feel like that's cheating a bit because most of that is yard and siding. The mainline is a double loop stretching 37'. It's funny to think I originally hated that my basement was L shaped when I bought the place. Now it has been a huge advantage. So hopefully Santa can bypass the ports and bring some track this winter.

In addition to track, I've been working on operations. I came up with a spreadsheet with a lot of items I think will need moved around the layout. They're mostly general: coal, iron ore, liquid iron, liquid steel, waste, goods, ingots, etc. A mill needs gloves and uniforms but that would fall under goods. So with that, I've been working out how many units of those items are needed and how many a car represents. That way I can start working out a rough schedule for trains to give them purpose.

I'm starting to think harder about my bench work. My aim is to make the layout able to be moved with reasonable ease. Currently, I have the bench work designed in 2'x4' sections made from plywood of undermined thickness and 1"x3" boards. I'm not planning to climb on the layout because the top level is 48" off the ground and I don't have very high ceilings. It's going to be a top side creeper and access holes if I need to grab anything far off the layout. I'm just not sure how well the design will work bolting together multiple 2'x4' panels. I might have some longer pieces where needed. We'll see. I need to start reading on this. Particularly because I never messed with a two level layout and I better be finding a way to support that top level. This is part of the reason I put studs up. Hopefully I can use them to hold parts of the layout up.

So that's been about it. Not overly exciting but I want to make sure I do some kind of documenting in this thread. I haven't done much high dollar stuff because the bank account is light this time of year and the car needed unexpected attention. It's mostly been planning and figuring since that doesn't cost anything. I already had the studs. I already have the spray gun. I'll need to buy paint next but I'll find some money for that. Hopefully in the next post I can show a picture of a black ceiling!

Bill, you are doing your homework and good planning.  All that is necessary for success.  It is good you found the water damage and fixed that up.  As to the ceiling, I have no experience, but your thoughts of using the compressed air to go over it to dislodge dust, etc sounds good.  I considered how to move my layout when building.  I built one small layout of two modules that I bolted together.  I moved it once, and it worked out okay.  A larger layout, is much more complicated.  This layout, I built modules that I sat on top of a frame of joists on brackets bolted to the studs.  I decided that I would only ever move it once, so I didn't worry about being able to unplug wiring, I'll just cut wires and rewire if I move it.  As time goes on, I think I would only save certain sections I like and build the rest new if we move.  We plan to, but not until my mother-in-law either passes or has to move to a care facility.  She's only 85 and healthy, so we will probably be here for a while.  Keep us posted.  I know how life gets in the way, and I'm retired so I have no employer to blame. 

@Mark Boyce posted:

  As time goes on, I think I would only save certain sections I like and build the rest new if we move. 

I was thinking about exactly this last night talking to a friend about it. Her words of wisdom were something to the extent of "if you make it so you can take this exact layout with you, where ever you go, you'll never built a better layout". Pretty smart in my opinion. I'm inclined to agree with her and your point about taking the sections you really like makes a lot of sense to me. I was already wanting to make it so one or two people could remove the buildings from the layout so I could work on them off the layout. I saw @Norm Charbonneau do this with one of his buildings on his Youtube channel and I think it's the way to go. I remember crawling across my 8x8 layout as a kid trying to work on models. It wasn't great. But if I built the structures on their own bases, I could take the with me!

It would also be much easier to build the layout in bigger sheets of plywood. So I think I'm going to do that. Now to paint that darn ceiling!

@BillYo414  Just a thought about prep for the ceiling.  In my experience, the blast of air from a compressor powered nozzle will disburse dust in a cloud faster and wider than even the most powerful shop vac with a clean filter can absorb.  My suggestion is if you want to minimize the dust getting everywhere (especially on the existing layout) would be: cover everything in plastic or canvas.

Start with the vacuum by itself in two passes.  First pass with a 8-10" wide floor attachment.  Second pass with a brush attachment.

If you still want to use compressed air at this point, wear a N95 or better Dust Mask.

For painting, an HVLP sprayer would be optimal.  Consider applying a black tinted primer before paint even if the paint contains primer.

Sorry if any of this is stating the obvious, just trying to be thorough and helpful.

I got good news @SteveH! The current layout is a 4'x8' sheet with a loop and two sidings. I can either cover it with a sheet of plastic or tear it down. I'm probably going to tear it down because I intend to start the full layout once the ceiling is painted.

I'm no expert on cleaning. Most of the dust I have encountered in my life is silica, mill scale, and saw dust. All three vacuum easily. The dust I'm getting from the ceiling vacuums off but leaves a layer behind that doesn't seem to lift. I will try it with a brush attachment. That's probably what I need. I was going to run a regulator and turn the air pressure down to 20-30PSI but I'll go for the brush attachment instead.

I have a dual cartridge respirator since I have done a lot of drywall work in small spaces elsewhere in the house. I was just going to use that during the dust collection and painting.

I bought the Harbor Freight electric paint sprayer. I don't care if it turns out to be a dud. It wasn't expensive. Searching online revealed this to be a decent gun for the first time you use it. I'll go rent a proper gun if it flops. I'll see about getting a primer. I was always confused how they got the primer in the paint haha

I appreciate the input! I planned to post for help after I use the search function. I know I'm not the only to paint the basement in an older house. Somebody has surely posted what the did.

The Illusion.

It is my understanding that open hearth buildings were enormous. Hundreds of feet long, or longer. So playing in the world of O scale, I need over 15 feet for a full size open hearth. That's just not going to happen for me.

But I got to thinking and I think I can cheat! Exhibit A:

Building 14 is currently set to be the open hearth building. Originally, the open hearth building ended in front of the brown hill side. The double track mainline is largely hidden in that brown hillside at both ends of the layout. This helps cut down on the obvious loop. Conveniently, if you stood at the Campbell works down here in Struthers/Campbell, the hills on both sides rise a hundred or so feet. Perfect! It fits the model and serves to hide the loop.

In the photo above, I extended building 14 all the way to the layout edge, which is a concrete wall where the back drop will go. Assume the trains to be running counter clockwise in this photo, for this example.

Here's what I'm thinking: I could bring the hill down to ground level right there towards the top of the photo, as if the building is going through a gap in the valley. I could have the train comes through the hill (you couldn't see this because the building would hide it), through the open hearth, and back into the hill where the bend is on the left side of the above photo. But it wouldn't look like the train is passing through the open hearth at all because I can cover the windows in filth, just like I assume the real thing was. The dirty windows would hide the cardboard tunnel I would put in the building to contain the smoke and muffle the sound a little bit. The crown jewel of this effort will be painting the open hearth onto the backdrop with added perspective, so the building appears full size, like it just keeps going off the layout. I think this will be enough to accomplish the illusion and create some extra space on the layout in people's minds.

I have only seen this sort of thing done once in a Youtube video on an HO Layout I watched a week or two ago. I'm trying to find the video to see how they did it but I'm coming up empty handed. I would love to see some example of this if anybody has them and as always, please shoot some holes into this idea. I'm excited so there's a good chance I overlooked something.