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Before the demise of his HO scale Bona Vista Rwy., MRVP Contributing Editor Gerry Leone couldn’t help but to launch into one final layout project. Follow along with Gerry’s effort to turn a vacant space into a town location he’s named Eagle Lake. In this mini-series you’ll discover Gerry’s clever insights into urban planning and helpful tips you can use for building a community on your own model railroad!
Gerry
How many spaces to places did you do?
Looking back I can only find 1 through 6.?
Bill Shepard
thank you for great detail video start planning on small town
Jeffery — I bought it 8 or 9 years ago at a place called Industrial Custom Products, 1635 Terrace Drive, Roseville. My note here says “talk to the City Desk.” I got a 4×8 sheet of .080″ styrene for $31. Hopefully they’re still in business! Hope that helps.
Hey Gerry, great hints as always. I’m hoping you can help me with the source for the sheet styrene you used as the base for Eagle Lake. I know you’re from around the Twin Cities, as am I. I’ve not had much luck googling local sources for larger sheets of styrene, so if you’d care to share where you bought yours…?
Thanks for comments, everyone! Yes that layout, and now that house, is just a memory to us as we move to a new town and get ready to move into a new house. Looking forward to getting started on a new layout sometime soon!
Gerry, Thank You, was an excellent presentation and I learned alot. But as Donald below states did you not take all of this out of the old house? I am looking forward (with anticiapation) the the video’s of the construction of the new layout in the new house
Great episode Gerry, I especially liked the game of chess you played with the buildings on the site. Good approach, but generally speaking roads usually go in first and buildings align themselves with the roadway edges. I like the layout, shame it’s being relocated.
OK Gerry be honest, was the new house selected based upon the requirements of the new railroad layout or other criteria…….we understand 🙂
Thank you! I have been having trouble trying to figure out how to build a town/city. At least you have left over buildings/homes to arrange, I will probably use paper mock ups, after we move.
Bob Neill
Gerry
So I’m not the only one to move a town around. Problem is, my town has not yet found the same spaces each time its been displayed.
Thanks for the ideas. Need to work on a backdrop to hide a window AC unit.
Gerry, I have used styrene as a base and found that over time it had a tendency to warp if not braced. I didn’t use 0.08 styrene so maybe thinner plastic warps more but I was curious about what you did to make sure the base stayed flat.
Gerry,
Isn’t this the layout you destroyed in another video during your move?
Nicely done Gerry, it’s much easier to get the town perfect when you have all your buildings to place them in the scene. It gives it that really final look, sure beats using paper foot prints. I’m a huge fan of wood structures, in fact so far all of my structures are wood. I’m in On30 with an O scale interchange. A lot of my structures are scratch built from plans. I’m looking forward to seeing part 2 of the out on the town. I’m also looking forward to seeing the new BV layout, well once the train room has the house built over it.
Well, Gerry, you’ve gone the next step beyond Imagineering the space. Plotting it out in 3-D is nice, but it don’t feel the same a looking at it in “real” life.
Thanks Gerry for an interesting and informative video. Your advice gives me the incentive to try your ideas on my N scale model RR. So sad to hear about the Bona Vista RR being no more.
Perhaps you can lead us through the new layout when and if you can.
Outstanding, very helpful. I’m adding a town myself so really looking forward to seeing all your episodes leading up to your new (old) town Eagle Lake, also thanks for all the trips very good on how you explain everything Mr.Gerry. Again looking forward with the wooden building and gas building coming all together. Once I have finished my little town, will send you some pictures.
Again great job!
I remember going through a similar process of arranging and re-arranging buildings for an urban downtown on an earlier layout of mine.Nothing beats 3D planning.
Jerry:
Many thanks for solving a small trouble on my layout. Watching you moving the building around Eagle Lake gave me an idea how to fix several spots on my layout, and bingo after the 0-5-0 switcher moving three houses and two industries and much better situation. Looking forward to your new BV coming to video soon.
That was interesting to see how you kept moving buildings around to get the right feel for the town.
I find this very helpful I would like to know more about the Jubala Milling building to the left of Eagle Lake