PCR SIG weekend - Evening tours

For the evening layout tours we started off with Robert Hoffman's ATSF Hereford Division layout, a modern double-deck layout with large scenes. Grain elevators are common in agricultural regions of the US, though rarely are they modeled in scale, so that they tower over the rail cars as they do in reality. I often take inspiration from layouts seen on tours and incorporate ideas into my own work. E.g. I spent quite some time taking a close look at how Robert's helix is built.

Other layouts have more of a Wow-effect, like Steve Redeker's Hetch Hetchy Railroad, which is modeled in the same gray scale tones as the photos the scenes are based on. This was truly impressive.

We finished the evening at the Sacramento Model Railroad Historical Society. Their large layouts, one in standard gauge, one in narrow gauge, depict scenes from the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific in California.

Note how the telegraph wires transition into the backdrop and into the hills in the scene below. Very well done.