This layout never ceases to amaze me. The level of detail that George Sellios puts into the F&SM is incredible. You can look at a photograph of an F&SM scene several times and always find something new. His scenes are actually alive with activity.

I was surprised to read in a recent (perhaps a year or so ago – recent is relative to memory) Model Railroader that Mr Sellios is reducing the level of detail on the layout. I can only hope to achieve a portion of what has been done with the F&SM.

I have provided a few links, one to George Sellios’ Fine Scale Miniatures site and other sites with photos and video of the Franklin & South Manchester.

Fine Scale Miniatures

TrevinoCircle F&SM Photos

F&SM Photos on HORailRoading.com

Mark Fielder’s PhotoBook

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Ihm3G1MsI&rel=1]

Enjoy!

Scott

This week’s Inspiration comes from Harol Minkwitz’s the Pacific Coast Air Line Railway web site. Harold’s site is full of scenery tips that I have “stolen” ideas from. The mountain section at the entrance to the Wholinthall Tunnel uses a technique for grass that I got from this site.

Harold includes step by step procedures with lots of photos to illustrate his methods. It is very easy to follow along and do what he does. Well, almost. There is still an art to some of these things, but practice does make perfect (or close to it).

His layout is O scale, but a lot of his techniques can be adapted to other scales.

So, visit the Pacific Coast Air Line Railway for some inspiration and prepare to be amazed!

Scott

I thought I’d share with you some web sites that have proven inspirational to me. There have been several over the years that I have been involved in model railroading. Here are two of many. I’ll post others later.

The first is TrevinoCircle - The Home of the Wiscassest, Trevino & Western (click on the “Placement of Stuff” link in the sidebar). James is obviously a fan of George Sellios’ Franklin and South Manchester (so am I). John Allen is probably another one of his influences.

The thing I like about James’ site the most is that he doesn’t just show photos of his scenery and detail. His are almost step by step (before, during, and after) photos of the scene as it develops. The unfortunate part is that he doesn’t go into great detail with descriptive text about how he does some things. Still, his tenements (scroll down on this page or view the Tenement Back Lots) provided the inspiration for my own tenement. I continue to refer to James site off and on for ideas.

The second is Twofoot Bill’s site. He has some amazing pictures and some great how-to’s for doing scenery. These are the two pictures from his site that I’ve used as wallpaper for both my monitors for several years. They are views of the same scene from opposite directions. Now that the BS&T is getting some scenery (and my photo skills are improving) my wallpaper may change.

Yes, it’s O scale but you can apply a lot of his techniques in smaller scales to get very good results. I use Selkirk Scenery leaves for my deciduous trees and have had great comments about them.

Have fun! Perhaps you could share some of your sources of inspiration in the comments section.

Scott