Who has taken the ceramic, e.g., Dept. 56, layouts to the next level?

Hi Paul Kallus, I have taken my layout through a similar metamorphosis. Back in  1995, when I first started looking around to see if anybody else still had their father's trains and perhaps had a layout, I discovered, not only through my local hardware/hobby store, that there were legions of model train hobbyists out there in the world, but thru the train magazines, especially OGR, and I learned how to make a layout.

At first, the only buildings I saw available were those by Dept56.

Since then, with this latest iteration of the layout (and, believe me, the absolute final version) I located most all of the  porcelain buildings into their own single neighborhood, occupying the entire third level, for a sense of unity with them as well as a way of getting that level maximum-lighted with a couple strings of holiday lights in the buildings.

The balance of the layout morphed into what I could accomplish with my sense of what might look realistic. However, some of the porcelain churches have been integrated among the realism scenes in various neighborhoods on the first and second levels.

FrankM

I am determined to find a place in my train area (train room at one end and lounge area at the other) for at least a small O gauge tinplate layout that will afford me the opportunity to make use of the remaining Dept. 56 "Snow Village" buildings that I have. I once had a large collection of Snow Village, but have sold all except the various  log-type structures since I am a big fan of log homes, even though I don't lve in one. I also am a BIG fan of tinplate, and even though I sold a whole lot of my tinplate (all of wehich were contemporary items from MTH/LCT) I kept all of the "smaller" O tinplate trains, along with a number of accessories.

I WILL come up with a way to enjoy that tinplate and that Snow Village, but have not yet really had the time to put into properly planning for something that will work and still leave ample living space in my basement empire.

Moonson posted:

Hi Paul Kallus, I have taken my layout through a similar metamorphosis. Back in  1995, when I first started looking around to see if anybody else still had their father's trains and perhaps had a layout, I discovered, not only through my local hardware/hobby store, that there were legions of model train hobbyists out there in the world, but thru the train magazines, especially OGR, and I learned how to make a layout.

At first, the only buildings I saw available were those by Dept56.

Since then, with this latest iteration of the layout (and, believe me, the absolute final version) I located most all of the  porcelain buildings into their own single neighborhood, occupying the entire third level,

I love what you did with that background - very creative use of limited space and I recognize some of those structures.

Thanks, Paul. As a further example of the change-over from porcelain to modeling, this "suburban" neighborhood ...         was once, entirely porcelain...

FrankM

P.S. On that Third Level, there is  a train of two Budd-cars making its way on a simple dog-bone of track behind and around the entire  neighborhood.

Not to scale, but my New York City Christmas village cramed into a small end of layout. 

I don't have enough room for ceramic buildings but really enjoy looking at them. I think they blend in so well with the old tinplate. Maybe someday --

Very nice NYC scene JSull.

Here's a twilight scene of the left-side of my old Victorian-era layout. I still have most of the buildings...packed away awaiting new construction, although I won't have this space to build in. If only I could retire early maybe I could get something done.

I have posted the attached previously.  This is my permanent Christmas layout with 60 Dept 56 buildings.  There are three separate areas with items from Christmas in the City, Dickens Village, and the North Pole collections.