For more than a month now I’ve greatly switched gears in my OO gauge work, as the redefining of eras in my equipment (described here – aiming for 1940, 1960, and 1980) inspired me to improve the overall look of the layout.

My first goal era is to work out 1960 well in the scenery, then work out what I need to alter to shift things to 1980 and 1940. I believe 1980 will be the easier shift, so as of now I’ll likely do it second.

Two overall views first

My basic scenery won’t need heavy modification thankfully, and the scenes below are how I have things set now to visualize the effect. The areas of plain paper, for example, will be paved or gravel.

The left side (above) is set up pretty differently than before. In particular I had for many years a single farm scene, and now that is divided into two house lots. The right side (below) does not have much visible change (I tried many options, believe me), but not very visible behind the front engine I’ll be developing an oilfield supply place.

Mostly HO buildings in the background area

The general layout of the scene on the layout has a back left corner that is the edge of a downtown. In that main area the buildings are mostly unmodified HO buildings, with several modified somewhat with OO details closer to the front. The cars, trucks, etc. near the HO buildings are or will be HO. My hope is this tactic creates a subtle forced perspective. The VW near the DQ is HO, but the one at front is full size for OO.

Focusing in on a couple of these buildings on the workbench, the DQ is a Walthers HO kit built pretty much stock, and the white business building is a heavy kitbash of what was a two story western town building purchased at a train show. This one is close to OO with the modifications. Both I feel came out well.

There are also two houses in the foreground seen in an earlier photo. They are only lightly modified for OO, but I think the eye accepts them, they are not a focus of the scene. They represent the types of houses found on the edge of town, with a highway across the scene as well. This one is newly built (a Rix kit), selected because it resembles strongly the house my grandparents lived in.

Several signature buildings are OO

Pretty much at the center of everything are the depot and a gas station. The two below are new to the layout.

As of right now there are two depots I can use on the layout, one is ATSF and the other is Orient. They will be on the layout one at a time, depending on what trains I’m operating, and I hope to build another depot for MQS operations too. Both depots are vintage Suydam kits with OO doors. The ATSF depot I know I built in high school, and I was never really happy with it. I decided to update it with new windows modified from windows on hand (using the 6 over 8 pane design seen on some ATSF depots), and I painted it for 1960. This depot resonates with me, the design is similar to the Olpe, KS depot that I know I rode by literally hundreds of times with my parents.

The other main foreground signature building is the gas station. This is a heavy kitbash using two venerable Plasticville buildings, modified to primarily imitate the design of a Sinclair station I found a photo of online. I raised the roof on the portion with the work bays, and made the building deep enough for actually working on cars and having restrooms and such. It came out pretty accurately scaled for OO and I think a pretty significant improvement over the original model(s). I plan to add a nice interior — I have plenty of stuff to do it on hand, and it is so visible too.

The other signature buildings next to the tracks have mostly been on the layout for a while, the warehouse and grain elevator are modified Suydam kits (with OO doors!) and the cattle pens are modified HO plastic.

A new building not by me

The most notable new building not yet described, on the layout next to the tracks in the rear, is the oilfield supply. I did not build it — it is a building that if I remember correctly was built by Michael Ross as an OO building. It was mounted on a base, and I did have to rebuild it slightly.

The heft it has looks right (and is needed) right next to the trains that roll by. The scene is still not defined fully, but will recall supplies of oil pipes and such seen on the other side of the tracks.

Roads and such

Besides working on the signs on the buildings, I’m also going to rework our update the roads, grass, etc where needed, to improve the overall scene. I would like to get it all up to the level that it might be seen worthy of an article in one of the magazines, but that will probably take me a year or more of slow progress.

Big picture, I see myself as more of a blacksmith than an artist when it comes to buildings and scenery, but I’m certainly finding it interesting. I’m also thankful that the choices I made years ago for roads and such, as they continue to work out for representing the area of east central Kansas I’m from. Stay tuned, the layout will be looking more complete soon.