Layout Progress

While I was at Carl's yesterday Dennis was telling Scott about a meeting he had with Stefanie.  We have developed a relationship where Dennis is the MGRS coordinator working in partnership with Stefanie who is the Maine Mall coordinator.  Right now the emphasis  is on the Thomas & Lionel Christmas Tree/Fireplace Set as they call it.  A lot of effort is going into this as ideas continue to evolve.  Scott is planning to build the actual fireplace.  It will appear to be made of brick with and arched opening!  It will sparkle from the orange glow reminiscent of the 1950's old fashioned electric style fireplace logs!  Of course the Lionel train will circle the Christmas tree in front of the fireplace with stockings hung with care.    They have a lot more planned and still in the early stages of discussion, but I am sure this will turn out great and become the focal point of the layout.

As I started to say, while I was at Carl's I also took measurements of some of Carl's favorite building and drew them in scale on  our work diagram below.  Carl also has several other very nice smaller buildings like the Maple Sugar Shack  and  The Fire Tower plus others that will easily fit in addition to the ones shown.  (North Conway Station, Gorham Station, Church, the Mall, the Signal Tower and my favorite I call the Castle. )    Plus we have all those great looking trees that Dennis got last year.  We have tunnels, bridges and I am attempting to bring back a working waterfall with a straight drop of 30 inches.  So far the testing is going well.

We will be building some new trestle bents as well and Norm's Circus also has lots room to expand.   I expect we will be running some of those new PICO engines with terrific sound and I bet we attract a lot of people this year.  It should be new, different and we hope lots of fun for all of us that can be there. We want to return our Interactive displays and we will have a total of 8 operating trains on 4 different levels, plus what should be our best Control Area arrangement to work out of with easy access and lots of work space.

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