I have added some more scratchbuilt trees to the Bear Creek area since the photos taken last month. I tried to place them such that they don't interfere too much with the modest one-man operating sessions I have. I don't believe in sacrificing scenic realism for the sake of operations, but with some careful planning both can live happily together.

The two buildings along the front edge of the layout are just temporary. I keep trying different buildings in different locations to see what I like. The Woods Furniture company is in the back corner in this view. It is completely hidden from this low angle. The trees add a bit of mystery to the layout. They also make this portion of the layout seem larger than it really is.



Well, it is time to expand the layout. The Bear Creek area's track and major scenic components are finished, so it is time to move on. I need more track to expand the operations of the layout, and to add some different scenic components. After some thought, I decided to bring in two of the cabinets that I built for the "P&C Railroad" version 4 from another room into this one. After all that is what I built them for. Currently a major part of the layout is built on top of a set of bookcases I built about ten years ago. These stand at about 49 inches (124.5cm) tall. The benchwork cabinets I had built are about 46 inches (117cm) tall, so I decided to make up the height difference with a toe-kick of 3 inches tall (7.5cm). The toe-kick was made out of wood salvaged from my "Crystal Creek" Module (no need to waste perfectly good wood). It already had Masonite board glued to the plywood base, so there is no need to paint the toe-kick.



Next, I used a dolly to bring in the two cabinets that will be placed on the toe-kick. The beauty about these cabinets is that I don't need to bother about removing all of their content. It is all safe and sound as I maneuver the cabinets. The cabinets are 18 inches (45.7cm) deep and I made the toe-kick 15 inches (38.1cm) deep. That's enough space for the toes.



The next photo shows the two cabinets in their place. I bolted the two cabinets together so that they stay in place and are lined up perfectly. To the left of the cabinets are french doors to the room's closet, which is why I kept the cabinets some distance away from the wall on the left. To the right of the cabinets is a plastic cabinet that holds some of our painting, weathering, and other miscellaneous supplies we use for model building. To the right of that cabinet is the other part of the bookcase. The book case is a three-part cabinet, but the walls in this room aren't long enough to place them next to each other. However, that worked out great, because the middle part (or bottom part of the "U"-shaped layout) now rests between the bookcases on the left and right side. I want to keep the area under this middle section open for other uses of this room. This photo kind of gives you an overall view of the layout space. The Bear Creek area is right in the foreground. The layout space will go all the way around and terminate with those two cabinets I just placed. The table in the room is my workbench. It is normally not this clean!