More track for Dolores

It took a while but I installed five more turnouts on the layout. This allowed me to complete the track work on the north side of Dolores - in back of the two tracks that run pas the station. Now I need to clean the rail heads of the weathering material, and wire it all up. This wiring is much easier now that I use the wire nuts and suitcase connectors I boringly showed last blip.

The buildings, other than the small cabin, are not permanent additions. They are made quickly with foam-core. I purchased scale drawings of several buildings in Sn3 scale. I then transferred those to my CAD system so that I had a printable version. The CAD system allows me to assign colors to various parts so I matched the colors as close as I could to photos of the actual buildings. That document was taken into Photoshop to add some weathering so they did not look so stark. Then I cut out the paper and glued it to a foam-core base, and cut out the parts. Glued up the pieces and I had a realistic building to see how everything looked and fit. Eventually I will scratch build all of these structures as there are no kits available.

One note - the station is actually the one that stood at Mancos, CO (on my old layout) - it was the only station drawing I had as I have a building kit to build that structure.

The piece of color print behind the buildings at the left was a test of a digital photo I took at Dolores. I plan on doing a very long (18 feet) print of the photo and mount it on thin foam-core. This will go behind the buildings and serve as my backdrop. Once I match the colors with the earth and plant materials, it sort of melds into the layout and the vertical joint is harder to see.

Just for fun - the buildings left to right are the Dolores Feed Mill (actually gone by 1950 but it is my world and I liked the building), and the Montezuma Fruit and Nut Company (red). Then next at the back is the goose barn. The RGS ran what were called galloping geese to deliver passengers and mail. They were made from old Pierce Arrow cars with freight box rears. Funny looking creatures that sort of waddled down the track - thus the name. I have three of the 7 that ran and this will house at least on of them. The Station (Mancos but where the Dolores station will be), and then warehouse at the bottom.

The tan depression with track is where they would back in a locomotive and shovel coal into it from the track just above it (not installed as yet). Man power was cheaper than buildings then.

Unfortunately I ran out of track so there are two more turnouts to go at the front edge and about 12 feet of track. Then we can have the golden spike ceremony.