2. A Little Cheating

I consciously made one deviation from the rule of using period materials: I installed a custom-built solid-state throttle and power supply for the sake of energy efficiency and improved performance.

I also cheated a little with the trees, using somewhat more modern prefabs for the foreground areas, but for the balance I utilized good old lichen mounted on toothpicks. Overall, I applied considerably more greenery than the layout had originally, in order to match the look of the backdrop paintings.

The Heljan grain elevator took a couple of months to track down, and I wound up finishing the rest of the layout around a space I'd left for it. Detailing included lots of older Model Power lighting and accessories, early Wiking vehicles, and original-issue Atlas/Preiser figures. I even added a pair of clunky old signals, using old Atlas slide switches to manually control them.

It was a ton of fun refurbishing the layout. It was especially relaxing to model "casually," in the manner of a bygone era.

At some point I'll be putting the layout up for sale, as I'd never intended to keep it. I think someone will get a nice little layout.

After this little diversion, I was ready to get back to work on a new layout of my own.

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