The photo on the upper left is the earliest photo I have of the new layout. Track has already been fastened, wired, and only about half has been ballasted. No grass, streets, or town. It is still just painted styrofoam at this point. The general location of the factory area was set as well as the coal factory. The passenger station was originally another building at this point. Lighting has been incorporated for a few buildings only.

The next shot is an overview of the layout after ballasting was completed. Roads, industrial sections, town sections, and lighting have been added.

The photo on the right is a May 2003 shot after dirts, grasses, and some foliage have been added.

The September 2003 shot (from Gallery 3) is after completing all foliage (including the hills). It appeared on the Nov/Dec 2003 cover of N-Scale Magazine.

The March 2004 shot (from Gallery 6) is after road signs, poles, and trees were added.

Changes and additions incorporated into the new layout required adding 11 new switch controls and replacing or rewiring others in the push button switching matrix. I also added a control switch for the separate power block. The original layout had minimal wires running underneath the styrofoam board to the control panel and the styrofoam board just sat flat on the wires. By the time I added all the new wiring for switches and lighting things got pretty 'thick' underneath the styrofoam board so I couldn't just lay it flat on the wires. I ended up using 1/2" risers placed all around the base to raise the styrofoam board up allowing proper clearance. Digitrax DT-100IR controller is on the right of the photo, left of it is the switching matrix control. A red button opens a switch (or pair of switches) and the green button closes it.

Photo on the left is a mid 2002 photo of the industrial area. I started with the painted, sanded and sealed cork as roads. Next I built 3 sub assemblies: (1) The paint factory (2) The meat factory, trucking depot, and parking lot (3) Vulcan Manufacturing, parking lot, and rear cement work area. Each section was pre glued down onto a plastic sheet base. I added parking lot lighting and sidewalks to the sheets and painted each sections' components before fastening them to the layout. I also painted all interior buildings flat back to help keep lights from shining through the thin plastic. By pre wiring sections of buildings and lights I needed to drill less holes also.

As with the industrial area above the town area (right photo) started with the painted, sanded and sealed cork as roads. I built 6 more sub assemblies: (1) Housing section with backyards, driveways, sidewalks, and street lights (2) Bank, parking lot, and school (3) Business row buildings including the water tower and sidewalks (4) Church, sidewalk, street light, and parking lot (5) street lights and sidewalks on main street (6) Passenger station and parking lot. I painted and wired each section before attaching it. Other buildings were attached directly to cork or the base itself.

Here are a couple more shots of the town area from mid 2002 showing the sub sections.

After completion of the above sections I trimmed more of the middle hill area down and created the pond sections. Eventually I bought some dull dark green paint (clearance stuff from Home Depot) and used it to apply the grass. I also got some dull brown (more Home Depot clearance stuff) to apply dirt colors. My dirt was actually sifted and sorted dirt samples from around the area.