Virginia Midland & Virginia Central motive power

Since the scenery is coming along on my layout, this makes me want to take more photos using the scenery for the background.  I have also added a few sound decoders into my locomotives.  Now on with the power show:

VC GP35-2 with a Soundtraxx Tsunami installed.  #3 crosses Industrial Drive going back to the yard.

VM GP11 #200 with a Tsunami 567 installed waits in the VM yard for her next assignment.

Nicknamed the "Red Baron" VM CF7 #256 is and unpowered locomotive used mainly for transfer runs and switching.

VM GP40 #299 is one of the original locomotives for the VM.  She sports the original company's paint scheme.

VM U23B #289 is another original locomotive.  I have installed a Tsunami into this locomotive.  She is in the original VM paint.

RF&P GP40-2 #142 also has sound.  The RF&P brings in cars for the VM and VC to switch to their specific industries.  They also take a cut of cars with them.

VM MP15DC #284 and SW1500B #278 begin switching industries on the VM.

A friend of mine, Kevin Olson has recently painted a VM U23B #288 in the their 3rd paint scheme.  She's  leading VM U23B #289, with a small train, west towards Orange, VA. 

Scenic ridge complete!

During my Christmas break, I was able to get my scenic ridge done.  This ridge is a divider between the good sized Virginia Midland yard and the small Virginia Central.  On my layout, the VC is in the foreground and serves a few industries and the VM is in the background and serves several industries.  The lines cross at the left of the layout and interchange on the right.  I wanted to "separate them" towards the interchange, so this is where the scenic ridge or divider comes in to play.

The ridge is pink foam pieces overlapped with plaster cloth and Sculptamold:

Looks like a snow mound!  After that had dried for a day, I painted it with a flat tan paint.  I wanted to add some rock outcroppings, so I had to make a trip to Michael's  for some plaster of Paris (their coupons for 40%-50% off) are great.   Used some of my rock molds I had and some I picked at a trip to Mainline Hobbies.  I also decided to paint the rest of my track with the airbrush.  Now this is pretty easy, but the cleaning of the rails after wards took some shift work.(very tiring).  

Here are some views from the Virginia Central side:  

After the rock molds were placed on to the layout and painted, I worked on the scenery.  Did not know how to approach this but it turned out better than expected.  

  The Virginia Midland side of the ridge would be out of view by the casual observer, but I still added scenery and rocks.  

Greenburg Show in Richmond this weekend SAT & SUN 10-4

Greenberg will have their annual train show this weekend at the Richmond Raceway
complex. It will be both Saturday and Sunday from 10-4 each day.

http://www.greenbergshows.com/shows/2010/2010-12-18.html

Last years show was a complete disaster with the Pre-Christmas Blizzard. They
still had the show, but was barely attended. I could not make it with 20+
inches in my backyard. I will be there selling my excess HO models this weekend
so stop by and say hello! Lots of good layouts including Richmond's own On30
James River module group.

See you this weekend!

Done scenery on the VM&VC layout

This past weekend I completed a corner of my layout with the finishing touches.  The scenery and ballast was done, but it was time to add figures, trees, and the like.  The above scene is the loading dock at Specialized Beverage.  They unload beer from Mexico and it is distributed in the area.

Here an overview of my completed corner area.  Specialized Beverage is the background and Mid-Atlantic Feeds is main complex in this picture.

The view down Industrial Drive.  Industrial Drive leads to Mid-Atlantic Feeds.

A website finally!

Been wanting to have a website for a few years now but never could I figure out how to do one.  Who has time to sit down and create one?  So, I checked out this, since few people I knew had one.  I'm not the smartest person when it comes to computer stuff and I'm no novice but I guess I will figure out this Blogger site.  Give me about a week and I should have site the way I want it.