After shoveling 24" of snow, I headed straight for the workbench today. About a year ago I had acquired one of Stella Scale Models' Martin's Creek Station kit. I'd been meaning to build it since then and finally got to it and what a great kit it is. It's a resin cast kit; the roof is one single piece, as is the foundation and four walls. The fit of these parts is perfect and I had a great time building it. I modeled mine as a BNSF yard office; just added some signs. For my needs it works just fine; as I'm not adhering strictly to prototype.
If you haven't checked out this kit, or anything else by Jim Harr's Stella Scale Models, visit his site:
After several attempts at painting a simple horizon line; I give up. While I could be satisfied with a few layers of distant background trees, it's proving to be too much of a chore to paint after the scenery is in place....even though when I started this layout I swore up and down I'd do the background first, I didn't....anyhow I played around with some laser prints of photos I'd taken from a recent train trip. i'm happy with the results , and it's easy to blend the scenery with the bottom edge of the photo (applied with transfer tape). You can compare these photos with the June 2 blog entry:
