I thought I'd take a crack at making a few scenic plots for the layout...something in the spirit of those made by Lionel before WWII:



I have a 127 station, one of the smallest Lionel made during the period. I decided I'd try to make a plot to put the station on (something Lionel did not make, although they did manufacture platforms for their larger stations). I cut one in an oval shape, eight inches by sixteen inches, but that looked too small.

Cut out a second base, eight inches by twenty-four inches, then painted it a base "almond" color to simulate concrete:



Then I masked off some sidewalks and hand-painted it a green-base color for the grass areas:



I let that cure for twenty-four hours, then applied the grass material (old-stock Life-Like Landscaping Material, which is close to the dyed saw-dust Lionel used on their plots):



One method to use is to apply the grass material to the wet green paint before it dries, but I have had varying success with that. I instead painted the green areas with a thin coat of Elmers white glue, then dusted it with the grass material, shaking off the excess after a few minutes. After that had dried thoroughly I shot the whole thing with a coat of Testors flat lacquer which should hold everything in place and provide a bit of protection.

I'm going to let this sit for a few days, then start wiring the station and a couple of lamps, maybe add a couple of small trees. We'll see how this turns out.

Paul II

Looks great, Paul. And this sort of thing would be very helpful for temporary or portable railroads.

I started a second plot while I wait for a few replacement parts for the station. This one uses a matt-board building I tried to construct in a pre-war tinplate style, although a bit larger to be closer to O-scale:



It looks a bit too primitive...need to add some shrubbery.

Paul II

Bring us a shrubbery!

Looks VERY nice. And it has an authentic look. I'm guessing your Xacto knife got a workout on those windows. - Paul

Hey, I finally tracked down some luffa:





Now I'm kinda at a loss with what to do with it. Anybody have a tutorial/description of how it's used?

Paul II

Paul, a friend who collects and restores cardboard Christmas "putz" houses wrote this article on repairing or replacing lufa trees. Most of the earlier putz houses that used lufa trees also had trunks, so you'll see that in the article, but the "how to work with lufa" part should apply to what you are doing.

- Other Paul.

http://www.cardboardchristmas.com/papateds/fixtree.html

Picked up a bunch more of the luffa...first batch was destroyed in the learning process, lol. Sent some off to a friend of mine to see what he could do with it. I'll post some pic's once I get something noteworthy.

Bought some lamps for my station plot...one of the two was DOA. I won't mention the manufacturer, but this is a chronic problem with their stuff. Each time I swear never again, but then I go crawling back and eventually get torched again. Whatever...I'll put up some pic's of that as well as soon as I get the lamp sorted.

Had my niece's three year-old daughter over to the house the other night...got in some run-time:



She's very studious...

Paul II

GREAT PHOTO with the grandkid. Starting her off right!

Thanks Paul - at three it turns out she's a bit young for operations. She liked watching them run though.

I got the station plot wired, but one of the lamps I picked up was DOA...I need to get that sorted:





Paul II

Very nice. I used to buy a Model Power set of gooseneck lamps that were very nice but they discontinued them.