TRAIN THEME THURSDAY : close up shots around the layout......

Happy Thanksgiving Thursday!!  " End of the line for turkeys" & " Peacock counts his blessings " 

                                                            ' tis the season...

Be careful what you ask for.

Worst layout photos EVER! I ran across them just this week.

I took these, late 1950's (note my new Burro crane). Kodak box camera, flash (ya' think?). Got all the background in focus - the desk, part of the dining and living rooms - but not the desired subject. Too bad I didn't try again - I had a pretty nice permanent 027 layout: buildings, 4 switches for 2 spur tracks, and one passing siding for the combination passenger station/freight house.

One nice thing:  all the equipment you see (2055 Hudson, Burro, rolling stock, buildings) I still have, on shelves.

Ready? This would have been around 1958. I was 10.

There was, ah, "scenery". The house beyond the crane was scratch built by my father, and is a compressed model of the house in which the layout sits. Yes, I still have it.

Moonson posted:

Thank you, Gandy! Always good to hear your perspective.

One of the houses, a gift to me, in that neighborhood is of our home (tall house, white-n-gray, angular, in the middle of the back row). It was crafted by an architect upon the commission of a dear friend.

Also  present is a model I had crafted of my wife's childhood home (little girl in a red coat on the front porch, reaching for the doorknob).

The whole neighborhood is the result of pure imagination (that sound like a tune I heard somewhere.)

Happy Thanksgiving, indeed!

FrankM

Imagination....that's what it's all about. The church on my layout is a Christmas decoration in near scale that plays Silent Night! Lol!

gandydancer1950 posted:

Moonson posted:

Thank you, Gandy! Always good to hear your perspective.

One of the houses, a gift to me, in that neighborhood is of our home (tall house, white-n-gray, angular, in the middle of the back row). It was crafted by an architect upon the commission of a dear friend.

Also  present is a model I had crafted of my wife's childhood home (little girl in a red coat on the front porch, reaching for the doorknob).

The whole neighborhood is the result of pure imagination (that sound like a tune I heard somewhere.)

Happy Thanksgiving, indeed!

FrankM

Imagination....that's what it's all about. The church on my layout is a Christmas decoration in near scale that plays Silent Night! Lol!

I have a few porcelain Dept56-type churches tucked in here-n-there on the layout, too.You can spot some of them in these photos. One is tucked-in as part of a Catholic School vignette, on the other side of that stand of trees on church property.

The others are on their own level, the 3rd Level, among an entire community dedicated to the porcelain buildings phenomenon in our hobby.

My wife had given all that you see here of them as a Christmas gift, decades ago, because, back in 1995 when I first stepped into this hobby, we were not aware of many people making buildings by-hand or commercially, at the time of our initial immersion into this hobby. Of course, they are all lighted, up there, by a couple strings of traditional Christmas-type colored lights, no less, inserted in them.

We decided when I re-did the entire layout, this last time, that a dramatic presentation of all of them was fitting, since they held a meaningful place in the creation of our layout for us , too. They are a bright, cheerful presence, aren't they.

FrankM

Ok, this thread inspired me to go take some newer pictures, this is a very good day to be Thankful  for all our blessings....

 .,..close-ups of part of one small town neighborhood...

(It must be early morning, because few pedestrians are about...)

FrankM

Close look at the cab of an Atlas O B28.

Here's my MTH RailKing Hudson with orginal PS from around 1999.   Works perfect - smoke , whistle, bell, chuff sounds, brake squeals, remote uncoupler, yard sounds.

Moonson posted:

 .,..close-ups of part of one small town neighborhood...

(It must be early morning, because few pedestrians are about...)

FrankM

Exceptional photos Frank!

a few scenes from the Cuyahoga Valley........

Very, very nice, Gandydancer. Wouldn't change a single thing!FrankM.

I have a few close up images, but mine may look more like a Post-Apocalyptic World with the cars and locomotives looking brand new, with no people aside from the one's in the Locomotives and Passenger Cars. With that being said, it is still very much a work in progress. I have not being doing much because I have a few bigger things I need to get, as well as the backdrop put up. 

A busy station.

Signal Crew at work.

                                        do they need any more bulbs...

briansilvermustang posted:

                                        do they need any more bulbs...

Nope all good here. They were waiting for the local power company to run the secondary circuit to power the signals. As soon as the lineman could fold his old body into a pretzel to get under the table the job was completed.

The Northern Pacific on the S&Y RR

Here's some for this fine Thursday!

Well, ya comin’?

closed-ups, here-n-there..

Playing with the camera effects on team Track # 2

BNSF underway, B&O pulling out and some 'conversation over a coke'

Zeke posted:

very nice photos!

Moonson posted:

closed-ups, here-n-there..

Moonson, your work continues to amaze me....well done!

Bob, that’s a cool effect.  That in your camera editing or software?

A picture of a American Flyer Penn Salt tank car taken back in the 70's.

 

 

I have a theory. Our affection for trains becomes a creative adventure, an intellectual joyride to create a miniature world that gives the trains purpose, a place to be and a place to go, and places from which to return, beyond our nostalgic love for trains and for times gone by.

 That's my personal theory.

What a beautiful way to sum it all up!