My earlier posted video of the city bus gave a quick walk through of the small downtown I have created, but here are some clearer stills.
The town, Sn Beattadaise, is modeled after the look and feel of Trinidad, Colorado in the 1950s - my Mom's hometown and where I spend summers as a kid. Sn Beattadaise is just a bit worn and run down: true to its name, it's seen better days.
These photos show "lower Sn Beattadaise" - the current downtown is only about 1/2 or a bit less of what I plan, eventually.
This is the only Superstreets currently on the layout, a single loop of 53 lane feet: I had more but took it up. Every building in the downtown area as an interior detail (at least where there are windows).
Starting at the country end, the road loops under the mountain and exits in the other lane to head back to town. Within 6 inches of entering the tunnel the Superstreets road converts to O-27 track using Lionel transition pieces - the O-27 is cheaper and means I don't have to use up what SS road I do have, and the wider radius makes for much easier going for some of my earlier 18-wheelers, which don't really like to maintain speed on the tighter SS radii.
The country road is only about six feet before getting to the city limits.
Next is Fast Eddy's, where the locals sports-car crowd hangs out. The broken Morgan and rusting Alfa off on the left, with weeds growing up through them, attest to the speed with which Eddy and his mechanics can get parts from Europe. I particularly like the blond babe sitting on the fender of the '55 'vette.
By far the most popular store in town is Cowen's Corner Hobby . . . that's me, 55 years ago, among the kids gazing through the window.
Toys for older children are found not only at Cowens, but in the Harley Davidson store just up the street. I particularly like this picture because of the reflections in the window glass just above the main entrance, you can see the two sports cars across the street . . .
Here are the two cars in the foreground. Woodland Scenics built ups fill in the next two lots - these are really nice buildings only lightly modified (removed stuff on the sides so they butt squarely to their neighbors, etc. I added a bit of sidewalk detail, etc.: vegetable vendor, etc. Then to their right a small jewelry store I just made from some store-fronts I bought at my LHS.
Next up, Pie In The Sky, named after the the British TV series of the same name. The exterior takes liberties with the look of the restaurant in the TV show but the interior is fully modeled exactly as in the show. I added the sidewalk dining even though it was no not in the TV show because it was so much fun. I'm looking for an appropriately sized and shaped "fully figured" model to dress and paint as Chef Henry Crabbe, greeting his guests, but for now I have to pretend that he is off in his day-job as Detective Inspector Crabbe, looking for bad guys.
Next up is the store with no name. Then at the central crosswalk is a small plaza and the Two-Story Bookshop, bashed just a tad, and with an interior I added.
Then the Fine Art store a DPM model I think, with, well, fine art in the windows, the bank, and Lionel's Legacy hotel.
I love to set up scenes like in the front of the hotel. I found a plastic woman figure looking at her watch, and set up her up impatiently waiting while the doorman trys to hail a cab, with another person waiting more patiently, reading the paper. There's a cab now, but it already has a fare.
Then an alleyway (mainly so I did not have to remove the very nice fire escapes on the Legacy Hotel, and the Woodland Scenics Cobbler building (minus the sign), and the Ford dealership, which you might recognize as only two floors of an MTH six story building (the other floors will be another building eventually).
And that's all there is to lower Sn Beattadaise. We get to the tunnel and turn around, upper Sn Beattadaise will be built to the right, at the level of the tracks the road is passing under, and have a train station, more stores, etc.
At the risk of wearing upon anyone's patience, a last photo: Really, I'm NOT just about Superstreets. I have about 344 feet of Fastrack on four loops and I always set four trains running whnever I am in the workshop. But truthfully my whole layout is just an excuse for modeling and doing interesting projects and i am only happy when I have some project at hand. My next big project is revisiting the moving-boat-on-a-lake-with waterskier. You can see lake Beattadaise (8 x 3 feet) in the photo below and just make out the boat and babe just visible behind a post for the upper train track. I had the boat working well enough mid last year, using SS vehicles that ran on a oval just under the suface of the lake, with magnets on top of them that dragged magnets inside the boat. It did work, but not dependably enough, and anyway I needed the SS track (hard to get now) for my downtown road. I have a new, sure-to-be-bulletproof mechanism to build using home-made pulleys (22" diameter), a 220 inch long V-belt (they really come in that length) and a 1/4 HP motor. After than a heavily bashed Lionel Berkshire into a French Chapelon modified 242.A. Other than a few small conversions I may do, no more big SS projects until late in the year, when I will be adding a near 90 lane foot SS country road that winds the full length and back on the on the other half the layout.
