Layout Progress as of 1/29/2009

Layout progress has slowed to a crawl as I hunker down at work to finish another major project deadline. Although I would like to have more free time to work on trains, I have to say I am very thankful to be employed given the state of the economy right now. In the little time I have had to work on the layout, I started doing some structure mockups that I will be using when I go to layout the trackplan. I purchased the N-scale Atlas Kim's Classic American Home kit (photo from Atlas website):



I then took measurements from the parts of the kit and drew a template in Microsoft Visio (this template will create two houses):



Click here to download the PDF template

I then printed the template on plain old 8.5" x 11" paper, glued the paper to poster board using 3M spray adhesive, cut out the pieces and assembled them by locking the tabs together and securing with tape. I then placed a few of the houses on the layout in the town of Emerson, GA with a few other "props" to see how things will fit together:



And finally, to have a bit of fun I digitally inserted a background from the actual Emerson area to give a better idea of how a finished scene would look:



After reading a few articles in Model Railroader highlighting the use of photo backdrops and playing around with them in digital images, I am really starting to lean in that direction. Next I plan on making some mockups of actual structures in Emerson so I can begin to layout the actual town scene.

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