LAYOUT PHOTOS

1. North end of layout before addition was built.  This is a general merchandise pier.  Wholesale grocery warehouse is on right and track "exiting" layout to fictitious main line of the Texas Coast Railroad (also fictitious) passed behind pier shed.
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 2.  West end of layout, part of new addition.  General merchandise pier is in foreground, with rail spur behind.  Building in back is Texas Gulf Cotton Co. warehouse.

3.  This is how the north end of the layout looks now, since construction of the west end addition.  There is now a smaller pier shed and the former "main line connection" is now the branch to the addition.

4.  The Gulf Harbor Terminal Railway's NW-2 on the turntable at the layout's south end.  The loco is painted to resemble an NW-2 I saw on the Heber Valley Railroad tourist line south of Park City, Utah.

5.  The south end of the layout.  The roundhouse is at left.  The track on the far right is the new "main line connection" that runs past the depot, which is modeled after the former Santa Rosa, California depot.  The business district of the town of Gulf Harbor is in the background.

6.  Looking south from the layout's mid-point.  The Gulf Harbor business district and a couple of residences are at left.  Gulf Harbor Fuel's spur heads off to the upper right, along with a spur to Southern Maritime Supply.  The track at lower right leads to the original general merchandise pier.

7.  The view, looking east, from the end of the new west end addition.  To the left is the Texas Gulf Cotton Co. warehouse and to the right, the truck and rail loading side of the new general merchandise pier.

ALL ABOARD IS REALLY BACK!!

After a two-year absence I have decided to get this blog going again.  I'm still modeling in S Scale and my layout is completed.  Well, "completed" is always a flexible term when it comes to model railroading.  The track and scenery are finished, including a six-foot extension not in the original plan.  The layout operates well and I've added some cars...now up to a total of 20, with more in the works.  Motive power is an NW-2 switcher.  I also have my 25-year-old Rex 0-6-0, but it needs a major overhaul and resides in the roundhouse until I have time to work on it.

Photos will be forthcoming...honest! 

Here's a brief synopsis of my layout.  It's a switching pike, set in the fictional Texas coastal town of Gulf Harbor, somewhere west of Galveston and east of Corpus Christi.  It's April of 1947 (the month and year of my birth). Industry sidings include two rail-served merchandise piers with warehouses, a rail-served coastal barge company dock, a cotton warehouse, lumber company, wholesale grocery warehouse, an oil dealer, maritime supply company, freight house, and team track.