Old Line Corridor Progress Report, March 2017

It's been a while since I've posted progress shots of the Old Line Corridor. Have been away on a lot of business travel this spring, but I've been very disciplined about making progress on the OLC on my weekends at home. In this wide shot, the masonite fascia and  progress on scenery and roughed-in roads and structures is evident.

A hundred or so trees make up that treeline and view block. Most were made using SuperTrees, but there's also a substantial number of Woodland Scenics plastic armature trees and 'cheap Ebay trees' in the background. Don't forget the fun and fanciful train running: an Allegheny Midland unit train meets Amtrak Regional service. That ACS-64 is reaching its pantograph up proudly; one day soon it will look right at home under a picket of Shapeways/DesignDyne NEC catenary towers.

It's that 70s show over on the other side of the layout. In the upper right of the photo, there are a failed road experiment and two blank tan places for more structures. Another tall-ish curtain-walled factory will go into the spot next to the tracks, further blocking the view down the road to the other side of the layout. The spot across the road, currently occupied by a plastic cup, will be one of those mysterious dilapidated trackside businesses with dozens of abandoned containers, trucks, and construction machines. The new ESU ECoS 2 command station and a repurposed iPhone controller is visible on the bottom left; the shelf is a clamp-on keyboard drawer that is just deep enough to accommodate the ECoS 2.

The in-progress highway bridge is kitbashed from Rix components and Evergreen styrene strip stock, and temporarily pinned to the foamboard with T-pins. This is one of my favorite features of foam benchwork, though I'm not sure I'll use foam as extensively for future layout construction. 

Trains run through it. Even though the scene is incomplete pending installation of catenary towers. more trees on that cut on the left, and right-of-way details, this photo shows that you really can do big-time railroading in a modest space in N scale. I find myself spending significant time just running trains, something I never do on my HO scale Dunes Junction.