Missouri, Kansas, & Texas Railroad along the Missouri River by Cathead - 1/87 (HO) scale - model railroad with steamboat

[Canute]

I'm with Richard's vote. The tape is quicker to lay out, but it will dry out and curl (been there). Your module looks great.

[kgstakes]

Looks like it's coming along really well.  Your turnout controls, their not tortoise switch machines, so what brand are they?  Are they servos?  Seen them but never used them.  I use Caboose Industries manual switch stand for my switching layout.  Backdrop looks great too.  Bet you can't wait to get trains running 🙂.

 

Keep up the great work and look forward to more!!

Edited yesterday at 02:06 PM by kgstakes

[Cathead]

7 hours ago, Rik Thistle said:

The electrical snippers give everthing scale....I didn't realise the scenery was smaller than I thought....very impressive.

I hadn't really thought about whether or not I was providing a sense of scale. Glad that happened by accident! The whole scene is 11 feet long if that helps people, with a depth of about 2 feet from fascia to backdrop.

Edited yesterday at 04:11 PM by Cathead

[Cathead]

3 hours ago, Canute said:

I'm with Richard's vote. The tape is quicker to lay out, but it will dry out and curl (been there). Your module looks great.

My leaning was also the painted version, both for permanence and appearance (I think the thicker lines look a little child-like and overdone). As Rik said, harder to get right in the first place but worth it in the long run. And I could always paint wider stripes but I like the thin ones.

 

2 hours ago, kgstakes said:

Looks like it's coming along really well.  Your turnout controls, their not tortoise switch machines, so what brand are they?  Are they servos?  Seen them but never used them.  I use Caboose Industries manual switch stand for my switching layout.  Backdrop looks great too.  Bet you can't wait to get trains running 🙂.

I'm using the turnout control system made by Walthers. I've used the Caboose manual throws before but I'm not a big fan of their out-of-scale appearance and I just felt they weren't entirely reliable. Plus, the fascia controls give operators a better sense of how routes are lined, potentially avoiding mistakes. Especially on something with a through-running mainline as opposed to a switching layout where the manual controls make more sense.

 

I should note that the backdrop still isn't done, I need to do some additional sky painting. But I do like how the background hills and bluffs came out.