Matt?? Just so ya know… One is never done hauling dirt… hehehe… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Thanks Michael!
Lol David, Yeah, I’m wore out. I completely underestimated the amount of dirt it was going to take. Sheesh.
Andy, I believe you are correct. I’ve been eye balling the entire back yard this entire build. lol. It doesn’t help that every time Robby stops by he asks when I’m expanding. lol.
Sooooooo, Welcome back.
I’m back to work on the layout. I put the grain elevator out and have been ballasting track. There is still a lot to do to this scene, it’s still not done.
I’m not sure how detail oriented I will get, because we don’t plan on living here for more than 3 years…give or take. So, there is an official time stamp set on the railroad. I’ll plant a few trees, but I’m going to scale things back quite a bit from what I was originally thinking. I’ll use this layout as a learning experience. Our next house will be the final move, so I’ll get to do some more permanent things. 
Anyway, some pics!!
Thanks Joe and Ken!
That KW had a sleeper on it when I bought it. It didn’t look good, so off it came. I plan on getting a couple grain bins too. I still need to finish the gravel drive as well. I ran out of time yesterday…rain has set in, yet again.
Looking good, Matt…
Matt Russell said:
Thanks Joe and Ken!
That KW had a sleeper on it when I bought it.
It looked like it was missing something behind the cab. Hope the driver wasn’t too mad when you removed it…
Thanks Andy!
Lol, Ken. Driver can sleep after his grain hauling shift. lol.
Looks good Cousin Matt!
Sleep? No, you don’t make money by sleeping. You have to keep them wheels turning if you want to make money.
Small update. I picked up 4 trees and some mulch. Not sure how many trees I will end up planting, as we plan on moving in 3-5 years. But, I’d still like to enjoy the layout. So, there will be a few out there. lol. I still need to prune these. Hope to get some more work done this week. I’m off all week!
The SRB Feed and Seed will be getting a couple grain bins soon. The foreground I’m just going to mulch for the time being. I’ll probably put a few trees there too.
You could just plant them in their pots … this would curb there growth.
Plus, trees can visually take over a space very quickly if they are planted too close together. Sure, they look great now, but later …? You plan to keep them trimmed, but pretty soon the trunks will be huge and the branches teeny, and then what? Less is more.
Andrew, yes, but in 3 to 5 years when he moves, they won’t have gotten all that big.
Sorry, I guess I should have been more clear. I wanted to prune the trees to look more scale. I don’t care how close they are right now. Like David said, we will be moving in 3-5 years. and those trees won’t be that big by then.
My wife thinks somebody might want a train in the back yard, but I doubt it. Even if they did, I wouldn’t leave my buildings…maybe the track depending on money. We will wait and see what the realtor says when it comes time to sell. Right now, I am planning on taking it all down when time to sell.
I’m sure somebody will say something so…Yes, I know this is a lot of time and money spent to possibly just take it down in 3 years. I don’t care. I enjoy the building process and it’s a nice learning what to do or not do next time. I also LOVE being outside. This is also my first g scale layout…inside or out. So, I’ll chalk this up to a learning experience. I have learned some things and my next layout will be better. I’ve already started stock piling track.
Also, I did get more work done today!!! I’ll take some pics tomorrow of what I accomplished and post them. If I have time, I’ll run a train and make a short video. I have some inside chores that I HAVE to get done. ugh.
The railroad looks great Matt . Its come a long way in a short time .
Thanks Mike! I had to look back, because I thought that I had been working longer on it, but I started in March of 2014. lol. I need to find a couple pics that I can do a side by side comparison.
I got a little more work done. Mulched in front of the elevator. I’ll pick up a couple more trees for some foreground scenery there. I’ve managed to get about 3/4th of the mainline ballasted. I’m all out and need to get some more. After looking things over, I didn’t like how I couldn’t see the trains or the roadbed along the back fence. So, I took one row of blocks off. I like the look better and it unintentionally made two places to step for the switches. lol. I made a short video from today too and will post it in a few. Here’s a few pictures.
The SRB elevator. I still plan on picking up another semi and some grain bins. The foreground will have a couple trees in it.
The top layer of block was taken down along the siding. So, I curved this section in.
Which inadvertently made a nice step to reach the switch easier.
So, I the other side I did the same.
Not much done with the layout this weekend. I did manage to get to Lowe’s today. But it’s such a far drive, an hour or so one way, that it doesn’t leave much time to work when I get home. I did pickup some more stuff to work on the house and 7 trees for the layout.
Here’s a couple pictures from late this afternoon.
Your RR is looking good, Matt.