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With the first half "finished enough", moving on to the second half. This area will be much more densely populated with people, buildings and vehicles, although it's a very rural town. I'm calling it Ophir, Colorado (pronounced oh-FEAR), because that's what the depot building is a model of. While the town will capture the feel of Ophir and many other towns like it from the late 1930's, it is not at all laid out like the real town of Ophir. So there.
Most recent work has been on the bench, building the 6 structures that will be used next. Figuring out what buildings go where is most easily done for me with the structures built. I have a plan in my head beforehand, then find and buy kits that best match what's in my head, and then build them.
I've disconnected the 2 halves of the RR again, and re-arranged them in the room to more easily work on the area that would be hard to get to when in its final position.
In the view from above, I've outlined in red the area I'll be working on, covering the loop of track at the top in a tunnel, and building the terrain that will connect the upper area at the left to the lower area. In green I'm showing roughly where some roads will be. The larger building at about left-center is the Ophir depot. The plywood base it is on is 3 inches (about 22 feet scale) above the lower plywood to the right, so the road has to do a hairpin turn down a steep hill to reach the lower level. Inside that hairpin, shown in white, is where the church structure will be. I envision the setting for the church to be much like St Paul's in Ellicott City.
Here's the church, still under construction:
Here are views from the front and back, with 5 new buildings in place: the depot and freight house in the foreground, and an assay office, saloon, and hotel in the background. Those 3 in the background were modified to fit the area, and are only about 1/3 of their original depth. You can see from the back, there really is no back - they will be up against the wall. You can see they actually hang over the back edge.
The scenery base plaster around these buildings will be done so that the buildings can be plucked out of the scene, and replaced once the RR is back against the wall, to avoid damage.
