Little Steps

I had hoped for a good weekend working on the layout and it ended up being a great weekend! Friday night and late Saturday morning, I spent some time tweaking a few projects preparing for Bruce to come over and work on the train. I made signs for Camp Bruce and G.G.S. Cabinets and added people inside the factory. I installed some telephone poles along Rt 993 into Uniontown and finished making a large batch of trees for Bruce and I to work on the hills.

Uniontown Hill with campers and Camp Bruce sign

Bruce was excited about the progress I had made so far and we set about working on the two hills. I could only go so far because I have a structure I need to build and place before I put anymore trees around. Bruce did a great job on the scenery for the hill in Herminie and he decided that the tunnels needed some weathering showing years of steam engines passing through the portals - very realistic.

Work Bruce did on the hill in Herminie

We pulled down some of the buildings I have up on the shelf - most are only partially built or custom cut for the previous layout and started talking about how some of them could still be incorporated into the layout. One of the buildings, a switch tower my Dad made out of cardstock probably years before I was born received a paint job and now sits next to the East Yard in Irwin.

My dad built the switchtower out of cardstock and balsa wood strips

We did get a chance to run the trains - and they ran quite well - so I had Bruce do a couple of switching assignments and learning how to handle the car cards (waybills will come later on - I still have to set them up!) Before he left, he took a couple of photos from some new angles that look really, really good.

The track lead in Uniiontown,with G.G.S/ Cabinets to the right

Under WCC Mine No. 4

West entrance to the Irwin Yard

Looking the other way from the West Yard towards Vic's Bait & Tackle

Finally, he wanted a picture of the owner. Layout looks good...the owner so-so!