T-Trak New all T-Trak layout - Thurmond & Northern

[keeper]

Now with a bit of scenery...

[MK]

Only single track?

[peteski]

The scenery looks very nice, but those stone walls with stone pillars have a bit of a European flavor to me.  But of course there is the Ed's Law. 

[eja]

Great modeling !

But .... I don't understand why you chose to make a U shaped dirt road around the wall to get to the house.

To me it looks contrived. Rather, why not go straight to the house and have the wall on the other end of the lot?

But it is your railroad and Rule one is applicable. 

Just wondering    .....
 ?????

ed

[keeper]

Only single track?

Yes. In my setup all 'Northern' modules will be placed behind the Thurmond bridge and they are all single track.
If it will ever happen that these modules will be shown in a big T-Trak layout, I will have conversion modules ready for that.

[keeper]

The scenery looks very nice, but those stone walls with stone pillars have a bit of a European flavor to me.  But of course there is the Ed's Law. 

Yeah, scenery wise it might fit into a British layout... But as you said, Ed's law. 

[keeper]

Great modeling !

But .... I don't understand why you chose to make a U shaped dirt road around the wall to get to the house.

To me it looks contrived. Rather, why not go straight to the house and have the wall on the other end of the lot?

But it is your railroad and Rule one is applicable. 

Just wondering    .....
 ?????

ed

Thank you.

You are right, one can wonder why. I found it more interesting and what is going to be inside the small walled off section, was there before the house. I won't tell you what it is right now. 
And maybe there is a small lake on this side of the track. I might add it later with a bit of foam.

[wm3798]

Great modeling !

But .... I don't understand why you chose to make a U shaped dirt road around the wall to get to the house.

To me it looks contrived. Rather, why not go straight to the house and have the wall on the other end of the lot?

But it is your railroad and Rule one is applicable. 

Just wondering    .....
 ?????

ed

Could be enough of an elevation change that the "switch back" is necessary, or, you could just say there's an easement across the railroad property, so that's where the driveway has to go.  Maybe a little of both.  I like it.  Adds interest to the visual.  Add a distraction like a guy changing a tire, or a junk car off the side of the driveway, or a bear mauling a hitchhiker...  Something to draw the eye away from the geometry of the road.

No worries.

Lee

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Yes. In my setup all 'Northern' modules will be placed behind the Thurmond bridge and they are all single track.
If it will ever happen that these modules will be shown in a big T-Trak layout, I will have conversion modules ready for that.

Take a look at what I did here for how I handled the junctions: https://conrail1285.com/introducing-t-mo/

[keeper]

Planted the first trees, the dive got the first paint and the track is now powered.

[peteski]

Thomas, the structure you used would unlikely be used as a private home standing alone.  A home would have windows on the side walls. This type of building would likely be uses as a commercial structure (maybe apartment house) in a town center along with other similar buildings next to it. Standing alone it looks strange.

But as I mentioned before, it is your layout . . .

[keeper]

Thomas, the structure you used would unlikely be used as a private home standing alone.  A home would have windows on the side walls. This type of building would likely be uses as a commercial structure (maybe apartment house) in a town center along with other similar buildings next to it. Standing alone it looks strange.

But as I mentioned before, it is your layout . . .

You are absolutely right about this, it won't be a private home. See reply #14. 
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=59796.msg825650#msg825650

 

[peteski]

You are absolutely right about this, it won't be a private home. See reply #14. 
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=59796.msg825650#msg825650

 

Well ok, but my point was also that a building of this type of architecture like this would unlikely to be a standalone structure in isolated setting. It would be somewhere on a Main Street of a small town.  Of course, this location could have been Main Street in the past, but all the other buildings were torn down and the street ripped up.  To me it just doesn't fit the location.

Even the type of business you have in that isolated setting would still be a residential looking house or a mansion.  In colloquial use, "dive" often refers to a shabby or disreputable bar or nightclub, where patrons might "dive" in to avoid being seen. This usage highlights the establishment's informal and sometimes questionable reputation (definition from https://fizzcorp.com/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-dive-bar/).

But it is your layout.   

[keeper]

The first drunk appeared, but was never seen again...



Meanwhile at the grave yard...

[wm3798]

Hmmm.  As much as it pains me, I'm with @peteski on the building.

When I was growing up, there was a dive bar very much like this, which occupied what was once the club house of the old golf course on which my neighborhood was built.  The house itself had been the main house of a large farm, which back in the day, was a full on antebellum plantation... (I grew up in Maryland, which never joined the Confederacy, but was quite southern in many other respects.) 

The country club used the old slave quarters as the bath house for its swimming pool... later operated by the Kiwanis after the golf course closed (I took swim lessons there... the old stone building was, in a word... creepy!)  Anyway, the old house became a tavern of questionable reputation, and one day burned to the ground.  In junior high, some friends and I went in to explore the ruin... the ancient stone foundation, the charred remains of what was once a grand home... but we only found a veritable mountain of vintage beer cans, not the alleged tunnel through which the slaves were supposed to have kidnapped and murdered the mistress of the house....read all about it https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-phantoms-of-dixie-hans-holzer/1000510677  But I digress...

The scenic elements surrounding your scene remind me very much of that storyline, but the building does seem a bit out of place.  I believe your locale would preclude the same sort of antebellum history, but the shuttered country club concept could serve as a guide for identifying a more appropriate structure for the tavern.  I'm seeing something more akin to a large home laboring under the march of time, maybe a porch enclosed to house a Men's Room, peeling paint, missing shingles, tattered shutters... that sort of thing.  And of course, a huge pile of beer cans out in the woods where the patrons might have assembled after the lights came up and the barmaid hollered out "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here!"

Maybe something like this:  https://www.hobbylinc.com/faller-villa-kit-n-scale-model-railroad-builing-232298?source=froogle&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17190367094&gbraid=0AAAAAD_tmOTaQoYSH0qcefbGAD90zDJmR&gclid=Cj0KCQjww4TGBhCKARIsAFLXndQkNdIZJibmPEVRiOHi7xXHisXTScWYb_B5sinuHTaGe_ElAMFNKCMaAuO1EALw_wcB

or this
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/gQcAAeSwg3Bog9fJ/s-l650.jpg

Or perhaps a bit more austere, but not out of place on a parcel such as you've modeled, the old Life Like general store kit.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/QpIAAOSwrLlnQPEl/s-l650.png

Something you can really rough up, add appropriate signage, and really give the impression that the building has declined from whatever it's original use was.  Your building just reads as a more robust building that might demand a higher rent than the bar keep might be willing to part with.

Lee