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Moderator's Note: Edited photo size to fit on screen.

Bucyrus Erie 250 ton Crane

That crane is also one of my original purchases from c1966, and it survived pretty much intact with only a missing coupler and some repair work to the boom and rigging which was easily restored to working condition.  I have since kit bashed a Tichy flatcar and the 4-wheel caboose in the photo to make a crane tender, which along with all the other tenders went missing.  Only thing the crane tender needs at this point is the sideboard tool boxes and paint so the yellow caboose body doesn't look odd on the black flatcar.  But, really, isn't this what the railroads did when they built their own crane tenders?  

Howdy

I enjoyed your post and the picture. Brought back good memories of model railroading when I was a pup.

A modeler's life

Dude, I love it. That's the brilliance of this hobby, isn't it? The fact that it's come so diverse and far-reaching that you can finally see the fruition of a dream you didn't realize was building all there years. 

Great post, and looking forward to more.

Picture...

I re-sized it for you. When you post photos, you'll see a box to the left where you can change the size. I reduced this one to a width of 700. 

Randy

Thank you for the pix fix!

I had no idea anyone would actually notice and read my blog right out of the gate,,,,,I figured it would probably get read later when I commented on a forum post at some point.  I really appreciate the help with the photo and the how-to, to do it right next time.  I was confounded when I looked at it, and had spent so long writing the post that I just figured "Oh, well" and left it at that.   

I contacted the guys at BrassTrains.com and asked them what they thought about the 2-8-8-4 Yellowstone being a painted loco and unpainted tender.  I like the look of "showcase" brass, always have, always will.  The fact is the previous owner did an excellent job painting the loco.  So do I paint the tender - and go through the worry of hoping the finish matches and possibly wind up with two coats of paint on the loco, something I want to avoid, or pressure blast the loco to get the two to match as bright, raw brass which shows up the details so nicely? 

BrassTrains responded and said either way it doesn't matter, but definitely I need to make a decision and match the set one way or the other.  They said they have found it very difficult to sell an unmatched set at fair market value.   

I'm leaning toward stripping the paint from the loco, and then if I ever do want the set painted I will paint them together so they are a perfect match, finish-wise.  

Anyone have any thoughts on the matter?  I really don't want to screw it up when I soda blast it.  

History Lessons

Ya now, I kinda surprised myself with all of this.  As you can tell this was not planned, but rather a re-ignition of a forgotten, but still smoldering love interest.  Kinda like when I went to my high school reunion this summer and unexpectedly ran into (and dearly bear hugged with much pleasure and joy) my very first girlfriend.  BTW, she looks fantastic still, her green eyes lit up with fire when she saw me, and she, with her happy marriage, lives in one of those grand houses on Lakeshore Drive...  (Good thing I'm happily married, or I might have come away from that reunion in misery and envy.)  

As mentioned, I really got into reading up on the history, engineering and workings of the locos and learned so much about train stuff that I never knew before this year.  I always thought Shays etc were quaint, but never really got bit by that bug - until I found out that they originated in the Michigan logging industry, of which my grandfather and great grandfather were a part of in Port Huron.  So I decided the collection had to include a nice one that I could watch in action on my future layout.  Then I learned they were built in the Lima plant, and that  the 2-6-6-6 was too.  And that that behemoth turned out to be the highest HP steam loco by a long shot, even over the beloved Big Boy, and my all-time favorite Y6.  

I had visited the Henry Ford Museum many times growing up just 20 miles away from it, and every time I saw No. 1601 there had considered it with some condescention, thinking it was a second sister to the more numerous drivers of the N&W Y6 Chesapeakes and the UP Alco Big boys.  Now I know better, and went back to visit the 1604 again in Baltimore this summer with proper respect, as well as the 1601 in Dearborn.  I spent about 45 minutes with that latter grand lady.

This summer I also visited the C&O 2-6-6-2 at Huntington, WV; the N&W 4-8-4 J 611 at the Spencer, NC Southern Roundhouse, along with their operational Shay et al., and visited Roanoke to commune with the N&W 2-6-6-4 A No. 1218 (which I'd seen under steam previously), and, after waiting 50 full years to see one up close and personal my cherished 2-8-8-2 Mallet, No. 2156.  They had just put the side rods back on her this past spring, and she was magnificent!   Tell you the truth:  I was leaving, had walked out to the car, then turned around and went back inside to see the Y6a again.  

I had visited a 4-8-8-4 back in 1980 during a trip to my brother's in Cheyenne, but came away feeling a bit disappointed because it was fenced off.  The fencing not only kept me away from touching the machine, it also obstructed the view horribly.  What a waste, to display such magnificence in such a brutally restricted space.

I've seen the 2-6-6-4 A under steam in Alexandria, VA in the 90's.  Guess I'll just have to make the trip out to Promontory in 2019 to take in the experience of UP's restored Big Boy under a full head of steam.  

If I had not unpacked that neglected, beat-up, tender-less, 2-8-8-2 Mallet last February, I wouldn't even know that a 2-6-6-2 was being restored to working order, and that a 4-8-8-4 is expected to be running in early 2019.

Guess it's about time. Something, or some ethereal spirit, stoked up the old, cold firebox deep inside of me at just the right time, I'd say.  

Anyone care to join me at the big party next year for the UP big steam?  See ya there - fer sher!  

Big Articulated Locomotives

Hey, GT, you gotta love those big articulated locomotives. I have a few HO articulated models, that are two 4-8-8-4 U.P. Big Boys, one 4-6-6-4 U.P. Challenger, all of which are Rivarossi models, and two 2-8-8-4 B & O EM1S that are Bachmann Spectrum models. I really enjoy watching the articulated locomotives move down the main track with their double amount of working valve gear and the swinging of the boiler and front engine in curves.

I have had the pleasure of seeing U.P 3985 run on an excursion as well as riding and excursion train behind U.P. 844, and visited the U.P steam shops as the restoration of 4014 was just getting started. The steam shops are truly a sight to see, and am also looking forward to seeing 4014 running on excursions. Keep up the good work on the collection. 

Roundhouse Module progress

I'm going to be moving in a couple 'a three years, so need to plan ahead while playing trains.  I had a piece of new 5/8 x 3 x 4 and some pretty nice, clear 1 x 3 and 2x4 so decided to install the Heljan 130' motorized turntable and get to the roundhouse on its own module.  Had a few fits and starts, but finished installing the work pits and track.  Then I set a partially finished Heljan roundhouse on it.  In the end it will be 7 stalls with an add-on rear on one stall, plus kitbash the leftovers to bump out and extend two more, while actually shortening up stall #7 so when viewed from one side it will have a three-stepped appearance.  Haven't cleaned up the stubbed ends of the cut ties, and there is junk in the pits still. 

On one pit to the far right (second photo) you can still see a where I left a few ties in place until I had a chance to finish gluing the rails in place before trimming them out.  The center pit in this photo is two pits with the ends cut off, and butted together so there are stairs at each end. These pits were...the pits when I got them.  THey were impossible to install.  The sides were not square, the tops and bottom were badly bowed, there wasn't a single goldang straight surface on a one of them.  I spent half the day on the table saw just trimming these pieces up so they could be dropped into place in a slot cut in the 5/8" plywood table, made with a sabre saw.  I would have been farther ahead to maybe just make my own from the plain old table slots to begin with!  But, I had these and they cost a small fortune so I figured I'd better put 'em to good use.   

The first pit on the far left in the first photo is one I experimented with and used a store-bought pit at the far end, then continued on to lengthen it with my own home made job with a "brick" floor and stairs.  yeah, I shudda just made my own from the get-go.  

After struggling with the first two sets of rails - what a struggle to get them to align to the factory set "track 1" and "2"  until I realized the I had to < RESET> before < CALIBRATING> the thing (DOH!) - I made a track jig out of an old yellow yardstick and a 1/2" drive x 5/8" socket which fit very snugly in the bridge hole.  Wow, what a breeze it was to lay out the lines after that, the yardstick is exactly the same width as the track!  Just gotta be careful not to push the socket into the hole too deep and hit the delicate brass contact brushes.  Then just swing it into position where you want a track and draw, pardner!  Giddyup.  

Well, with all the sawdust and dirty work done, now I can unscrew the legs and bring this section in the house to kickoff the new layout  

    .    

strip or paint?

If the engine has a satisfactory paint job I think it would be a lot easier to paint a tender to match than to strip and repaint a steam engine....DaveB

The Roundhouse

Cleaned up the tie cuts, evened everything out and removed the melted globs of plastic left by the cutting wheel.  I used a 40 tooth carbide blade on  the table saw and cut thin (~.080" x ~1/2" ) strips of maple to cover the ties to give an appearance to the rails of being embedded in concrete.  Very little sanding required, the cut on the board side always came out super smooth.  

I started out slitting grooves in 1/4" birch plywood, then dropping Code 100 rail in them.  REALLY nice looking in the end, but Code 83 - required for use with the turntable - doesn't work nearly as well, it's too small to fit the 1/16" wide veneer blade cuts on the table saw.  I decided it was better to go with Code 83 for this module and not wrestle with transitions, and drop in woods strips instead to mock up concrete-embedded rail.  Not nearly as satisfying a result, but it should be OK once the remaining ties, tie stubs, plastic foundations and wood are all painted the same shade of gray/taupe.     For a moment I'd considered pouring plaster floors around the tracks but then thought better of it and decided this method using wood strips would be far less mess to deal with.  I will still try to pour plaster floors between the black plastic foundations seen here, and then paint it along with the rest of the flooring the same natural shade of concrete when finished. 

Roundhouse extension

Now even the Big Boy and tender will fit inside with the stall doors closed to keep the heat inside during the coming winter months.  I used the brick wall left overs for the bump out to the rear, and modeled it directly from a combination of my boyhood Plymouth, MI Pere Marquette 15 stall roundhouse (the stepped building wall design), and a Virginia (?) C&O roundhouse I got photos of from the web last month for the way the roof pokes up in the front of the addition.  Since I don't have matching roofing sheet yet I went with 220 grit black emery paper for the time being.  Hey, whatever ya got on hand, heh?  Next step will be the interior floors.  I really hate the Heljan framework floor, it is way too high and will result in a totally unrealistic stepped floor.  No way would a shop have multiple layers, too dangerous for tripping hazard and too much trouble to roll stuff around the shop.  Oh, well.  Had I raised the tracks so everything could be on the same level, the 2-6-6-6 Allegheny would never have cleared the top of the entrance doorways.  Just a stupid modeling design for the building floor from the get-go that I have to live with.       

Roundhouse update 12-9-2018

The round house floors are installed!  I did use the maple strips cut on the table saw for between the rails, but decided it was going to be way too much work to use the combination of balsa and maple for the main flooring.  I shopped around and discovered the best deal was to buy two, thick card, "Project Board"s at Office Depot, and a sheet of the much thinner, plain old poster board.  Two layers of the rough-cut project board, topped with precision cut poster board, glued with Elmer's, worked perfectly and is a really nice fit so that the poster board layer tucks up perfectly under the Code 83 rail head, giving it a truly flush look and texture.  (Maybe I'll post some close up photos of that.) 

After testing a few paints, settled on plain old gray primer spray paint out of the can, and touched up with flat black for dirt, grease, coal dust, and general aging.  Might buy some tan and add a little of that.  The building is not fixed onto the board, and never will be, so wouldn't be difficult.  I'll experiment on some scraps first, of course, see what works.  It's no masterpiece by a long shot, but the initial look is good for starters.  The work pits really pop now, even with the roof on and viewing through the engine doors over the turntable.  The one pit I made from scratch looks every bit as good as the expensive ones pre-fabbed and purchased by the previous builder, Roy Stanley,  who started this project as a 5-stall building.  On all but the shortest pit at the far left, I cut one end off two each fabbed pits, and installed them end-to-end to make very long pits, keeping the steps at both ends. 

Wondering about the odd-looking pit placement?  Wondering why they don't all line up symmetrically?  I varied the pit placing on purpose, and built one bay with no pit.  Most roundhouses used removable wood panels - walkways placed over unused portions of pits - and movable steel stairs, and instead of making the removeable wood walkers I just variegated the pit placement. The natural maple  used between the rails here has a different texture and look to it than the cardboard flooring, and gives the excellent impression of being those removeable floor pieces.   

I removed those awful plastic footing frameworks from the model  completely to get rid of the terrible height problems they would have caused with the floor.    

Next I'll add square balsa footings under all the vertical supports.  I am going to have to rob Peter to pay Paul on the windows that Roy Stanley never got around to finishing on his share of the project before passing away.  I have enough to do all but 3 of the small ones seen missing on the right.  Since I took these pix, I have installed the 6 remaining windows I have from the second Heljan kit I got on ebay, and started cutting what's left of the leftover side brick wall stock to fill in windows on the large, rear bldg extension to free frames up to use on the right wall.  It will be done and look just like a prototype building window later bricked up.  I was going to do a 3D print of  the windows, as with the missing bay doors, but we'll see what happens.  I have finished the CAD drawings to print some exact copies out at the local university, where they will accept my drawings from my wife who is a PhD fellow there and charge me only 19 cents a gram to print the stuff out for me.  Such a deal, eh?  After searching photos of roundhouses, I see that most do not have vent stacks both front and rear, but rather only at the rear.  So the "AWOL" stacks at the front will never be replaced, and installed on my model, but left as is since this is more actually much more accurate w/o them.      

Oh, one last thing:  I decided to play around with live scenery stuff, and added it to this module as my experiment.  Photos coming next.  

Bass Ackwards?

Most folks probably start out with w bit of rolling stock, lay some track and get started.  It makes me wonder, how many folks do it like this, as happened to me?  

1. Discover an old box, get nostalgic, and try to fix up a broken boyhood model for display
2. Try to find parts to fix it on ebay, then replace said model with another loco altogether
3. realize the shear volume and diversity of rare, out-of-production stuff readily available for very reasonable prices on ebay, and continue shopping.
4. become addicted to the fun of bidding and collecting on ebay
5. become addicted to the fun of receiving those online purchases in the mail
6. buy way too many locos in an effort to acquire a display of historical progression of big steam evolution
7. decide the locos need a roundhouse
8. Decide the roundhouse needs a layout, and begin work on a movable, modular layout to be designed and built around that roundhouse.

It takes all kinds.    

Decided to use some mosses

Decided to use some mosses and lichens, weeds and sticks found around the yard here in West Columbia, SC, and do a small area on the turntable module as an experiment for using live stuff as well as traditional & dried landscaping materials on the layout.  So far so good, everything is still alive and no bugs or issues.  I think doing this when the bugs are all hiding from winter is a good idea.  Everyone is familiar with the popular lichens sold everywhere in bags for a few bucks each.  When I moved to NW Georgia in 2007 I discovered the stuff growing in abundance all around the area, everywhere I looked.  I harvested several giant plastic storage tubs (like you buy at the big box stores) full, and made a lichen garden in my backyard with a pump-operated flowing stream and goldfish pond.  The birds loved it, I counted 36 species coming to enjoy the flowing crik and numerous collection ponds during the first year.

Now, doing this train thing, after I added this moss bed I noticed a dead stick had fallen from one of the ornamental trees in our front yard, and attached to it was this little lichen that looked perfect for modeling!  I looked for more, but found nothing else.  I looked it up on the web and discovered it is widespread across North America, and although it is common it is usually well-dispersed and does not group together like the ground lichens we love to use does.  It is sun-loving (unlike common modeling lichen), grows only on bark and old wood - sometimes dead.  The clusters are small, only an inch or 2 across.  Like all lichens, it is often very slow growing, but perhaps it may grow it's entire size in a single year when conditions are just right.  I imagine that means lots of sun, heat, humidity, proper air quality and mist.  

Since it is small, grows pretty high up in the trees, and is not found in groups together, it is pretty hard to find.  I spent quite a while examining my trees further, and finally found half-dozen clusters, high up in the branches where they could get lots of sun above the leaves during summer.  Now that the leaves have fallen, this is the best time to find this "plant".  I was very lucky to have even found one that is in bloom!  I am going to collect the spores and try my hand at cultivating it.  There is much info on the web about how this can be done with just a little effort.  

I imagine this would also make a great substrate for attaching various leaf-making (leafing) materials to produce some awesome trees and bushes.   

I left them anchored to their natural twigs and put the fine lichens in a layer of florist's foam so I can transport these gems into the bright sunlight to keep 'em happy and experiment with cultivation.  It's just temporarily sitting on a section of rail here for the photo so you can get an idea how well it will model with some HO scale equipment close by.  It's scientific name is Usnea strigosa, and it has medical applications for losing weight ( I'll need that, but won't be raiding this stash for that vain purpose just yet), pain relief, fever control, wound healing, and loosening up phlegm.  It can be applied directly for mouth sores and sore throat!  Amazing stuff, eh?  I found that out on WebMD.com. 

Instead of a garden railroad, maybe more like a hybrid terrarium railroad, eh?  I know there must be a lot of challenges and upkeep, but I really like the idea of fresh-looking plants, at least here and there.  The colors really pop when you spritz em a bit.  

I'm going back to my home in Georgia soon to winterize it, and plan to harvest a bin of the traditional modeler's (ground-growing) lichens while there.  

Anyrail design

Hey guys, I'm getting anxious to run my locos and trains and got serious about designing my modular (moving in the near future) layout.  Paid the license fee to upgrade Anyrail freeware design program to get all their whistles and bells, really happy with it.  Here's how the roundhouse and turntable module fits into the middle of the big picture.  Oh, and here's a new photo of some trees I painted up from dried weeds around the area and stuck into florist's foam blocks to set around the Plymouth module and see how they look.  4 lbs of ballast arriving this week.

The Pere Marquette & Chesapeake RR

Decided on a name for my fictitious road and renamed this blog with it.  The names shown on the layout are real places where I grew up in Michigan, and double as locales and module names, numbered in roughly the order which they will be constructed.  The original name of the mainline that ran next to us when I was 5 was the Flint & Pere Marquette, later just the Pere Marquette, which was swallowed up by C&O in the late '40's.  The flip down "trap door"  access doubles as a large water feature, and the PM RR is most famous for operating the world's largest train ferry routes = three across Lake Michigan.  The ships are still in service as auto & passenger ferries.  I will add a train ferry feature at some point.  

Will begin work on Stage II this week or next, hope to start laying track by the end of the month.  Devised a way to get up and running very quickly with building this module (Ann Arbor) by just adding a simple, temporary annex where the bay will go to complete a loop for continuous running.  I only just realized I could do this yesterday while getting these photos ready to post up. Ha!  Waddyaknowabouthat? 

Here is an overview of the whole she-bang with landscaping and terrain, bldgs n stuff.  I have purchased all but a few of the odds and ends of the rail, turnouts, buildings, and rolling stock for the completed layout.  All that's left to do is to build it.  Yeah, right, that's all, lol. In it's finished state it will DCC, but for this quickie loop shown above I am running DC using a couple of transformers I have left from the old days.

Please comment, so at the very least I know if anyone is paying attention.  Your input and suggestions are all greatly appreciated!   

PM Ferry

Here is the PM ferry boat feature that I have added to the plan, it will fit perfectly in the upper left  corner. 

Looking Good!

I noticed that there are not many comments, but it is obviously a popular thread with over 2700 views! Was wondering if you have any pictures of the hinged plexiglass lake if it has been done yet? It is an interesting concept!

THANK YOU BUD!

It is so great to check back in and find a comment!  The hinged plexi lake is not started yet, I'll post it later. 

I bought two shaker bottles, 2# ea, of Woodlands Scenic Ballast, one fine & one medium to experiment with to see which works for me.  The fine is easier to work with on the code 83, but I am using a lot of Code 100 to accommodate the older engines in the roster and fine just looks wrong with it - way too small. I mic'ed the granules and found that fine is only 1-1.5" in HO scale, and medium is 2-3" scale.  That makes the fine stuff driveway gravel, not RR ballast.  The C&O in Michigan that I grew up with has a beautiful white ballast that is 1.5-4" on the trunk, so no way the fine will work on this layout for anything but the sidings, yards, and turntable array. 

Needing reading glasses at this stage in life I can't see the definition of the fine with glasses on, let alone with them off, from 18" away.  Even on the turntable tracks I believe that the fine needs to be mixed up with medium to look right.  The only way I can see where it might make sense is if I am getting really anal about taking ultra-realistic macro photo shots, and I don't really plan on getting into that level of detail on this layout over-all, though I may get keen on some sections much later on.   

Check out this photo of the Southern RR roundhouse at Spencer, NC.  First off, notice there are no doors.  Unlike roundhouses in the north, doors were not necessary.

Smoke collectors at the entrance end of the interior tracks are not in evidence, they only have collectors at the back wall area.  Locos were never backed in.  They were always driven in, smoke box facing the back wall, and collectors at the building entrances weren't a consideration. 

Now notice what else is missing from view:  ties.  You can't see a single sleeper in the entire array of turntable tracks, anywhere (and not just this section in the photo shown).  Then there's the ballast itself.

It is two different grades, dumped in sections over time.  You have what would be HO "fine" in the background, and "medium" in the foreground. 

The entrance thresholds appear level to the rail in some places, some slope slightly.  They were clearly constructed after the main floor was poured.   

First ballast - I am no longer a ballast virgin

So here's how my first attempt ever at ballasting tracks turned out. After looking at the photo above again of the SR roundhouse, I want to do a second layer of ballast at some point and cover the ties.  I think it looks cool, just rails showing.  I will need to place some styrene strips against the insides of the rails to keep clearance for the wheel flanges, and take care that no ballast builds up too high between rails.  This I will use the fine ballast for it.  I am pleased with how the two variations of ballast play out in comparison to the prototype photo, so will use the same technique between track pairs to keep the look and feel achieved in the first trial.  Here's some other photos just for fun.  I am missing three sets of doors, BTW.  I am working on 3D printing the rest, at my wife's workplace at the local university.  I only have four sets of doors.  The building is completely removable from the table top, I pried up the little footings between the doors with a small screwdriver, cut away just a tiny sliver of wood from the thresholds, and she slipped right back into place for the photo   It would have a been a lot easier and faster to just start out with three, new, roundhouse kits instead of cobbling together someone else's 5-stall, semi-finished building and then added a single, new kit to that. But I saved well over $100 doing it this way.  

Fox Tail - Wild Asparagus

I came across this stuff, the two "pine" trees in the foreground, in a planter in front of a store, looked it up on the web and found out it is commonly known as Fax Tail, widely available.  I bought a packet of what was touted as ten seeds from an Amazon vendor, when I got the packet it was more like forty.  The plants grow to about 2-3 ft diameter, with LOTS of branches like these two here, so if all of these seeds sprout...OMG.  It is an invasion non-native species that gets out of hand very rapidly, so they warn you to keep it contained in planters or grow it indoors, and not let it go to seed and spread.  Pack of seeds a  alike $3.00.   

You can see it in the other photos on this blog, it makes a great filler pine for forestation and I imagine with some creative additions like Woodland Scenics "Leaves" it could look very attractive even in obvious and foreground placements.  This is the natural, dried presentation and coloration, nothing added at all.  I've come to realize that next fall I will be very busy gathering the other weeds I found in South Carolina this last Christmas that look very good (at least to me and my guests) with just a few squirts of spray paints of various colors.  Layering gray first and then a couple of different greens I can come up with a true-to life color set so close to the real thing that when I hold it up against the neighbor's trees in a background I can't tell the difference in shade, hue, saturation or density. 

Fox Tail - Wild Asparagus

Oh, I had a couple of other shots I just came across with better lighting on the Fox Tail.

When I was model railroading

When I was model railroading as a pre-teen, I thought lichen was the most amazing scenery addition I could get my hands on.  But ( I had to pay for everything out of my lawn mowing money) it was so expensive! 

When I moved to Georgia to work in Atlanta as a telecom project manager in 2007, and found the hill behind my new home COVERED with the stuff, I gathered up garbage bags full of it and made a lichen garden around my patio, with pea-gravel paths complete with my son's abandoned (he had grown up) Tonka road grader, gold fish pond, and an extensive little stream powered by a pump system that circulated into the pond from up around the patio.  It was very cool. I will one day dig up photos and show you what I mean.  

The migratory birds LOVED it, and I counted 36 species out my office window the first year there.  Gots tons of excellent shots of them delightfully bathing in the clear, running water - many types I'd never seen before in my life.  My favorite were the Wax Wings, they were stunning. 

I rented the place out when we moved from west of Atlanta to Savanna, to some stupid, single, self-absorbed, bolt-on boobied, bottle blonde, red-neck broad who drove a black chevy pickup with a lift kit who upon moving in promptly  hired a local kid to take out the fish pond, dig up all the miniature concrete castle style terrace walls, all traces of the flowing river, and throw away all the lichen - just to cover up the huge area around my patio with pine straw!!!  God, some people are sooooo stupid!  She ditched out on the lease w/o notice, and I only discovered the damage after I found out she had skipped out on the rent due just after New Year's. 

I am farming my own lichen again at this place we are renting temporarily while my wife finishes her degree at Univ of South Carolina, and when the time comes I will dry and treat it with glycerin and dyes to use on my new layout.  I just harvested this batch while traveling between Atlanta and Columbia yesterday, and spread it out over the leaf mulch I've set around the big tree out back that sucks up the nutrients and water from the soil - preventing any grass from growing there.  Hard to believe this stuff costs four or five bucks for a tiny little itty bitty bag, when now I can gather up enough to fill an 80 gallon trash bag in ten minutes on the south side of most any east-west highway between here and there in the Carolinas and Georgia.  Luck o the draw, I guess. 

Lichen doesn't seem to show up in as many layout photos as it used to back when I first started railroading, but I don't care.  I still think it is cool, and still has a place.  And where you don't need tree trunks in filler areas all ya gotta do is drop it in place and voila.    Nothing looks as natural as nature, eh?  I think I will experiment with WS "Leaves" on some of the frontal placements.  

These next flowering examples are too coarse for HO work, but I gathered them just for fun - they look so cool I couldn't resist. 

I have been having great success farming living mosses on the roundhouse module (foreground, right front corner, previous turntable photos), and am continuing to pursue using live plantings on this layout.  Here are some species I have come up with in the area in the last couple of days with very little effort to speak of.   

The very strange, mysterious, black mushroom was picked at the same time I gathered these mosses with my 15-yr-old step daughter this afternoon after picking her up at school.  This next photo show gives you a great size comparison next to a dime, a second mushroom the same size that had already opened which I then split completely apart to have a look inside.  Another photo  shows the 'shroom naturally opened, before I split it. 

I am farming this batch of miniature plants on a plastic tray (I get for free from a surgical clinic), with a sand base to hold moisture while at the same time providing proper drainage so molds won't take hold and cause rot.  On a large scale, none of this makes practical sense.  But on a limited scale, say for some interesting photos of a certain scene, there are some real possibilities for use with HO modeling.  For one thing, you simply cannot get such vivid colors any other way.  Many of the tiny mosses here are in full bloom now, which may not best for modeling purposes.  But after they are done flowering and return to their typical form they will look very nice in HO scale.