End of layout hillside

A while back I built an L shaped extension to my layout in the next room, reached by a tunnel trough the wall.  I have been building structures for this extension and it is filling up.  I am currently designing another factory building to go against the wall and I have realized I am running out of room and approaching the end of the layout extension.  Beyond this is a series of cabinets and shelves where I store my modeling materials.  Since I do not want to move those things (I really have no convenient place to move them to) I will next put an extension out into the room creating a C shaped extension).  So since that end of the layout has no wall I decided to build a tall hillside as a view block.

For the purpose of this photo I placed a sky and cloud block to hide the shelving behind it.  The tree line to the left is a photo cropped from the internet.  The hillside is  built with a wood frame, plaster castings and scenic material.  Most of the scenic material is by Silflor and Heki.  There are a few bits of super trees embedded in it.  The tree line will likely have an industry in front of it eventually.

The photo above shows the end of the layout and the start of the wood frame for the hill side.

I am currently designing the next factory model.

HO Monthly magazine

I used to subscribe to almost every model railroad magazine and had most issues dating back to the 1930s or 1940s,  I finally sold them off and have very few left, and I do not subscribe to any model railroad magazine any longer.  There is an abundance of information available on the Internet.  One magazine I kept was volume 1, issue one of HO Monthly magazine, later called HO Model Trains.  I had every issue of this magazine up until they were bought by Model Railroader and folded into their publication.

Above is issue #1 - may 1948.  It includes a history of HO gauge by Eric Lanal (the pen name of Allan Lake Rice).  It also includes a list of the HO scale manufacturers of the time.  The list includes Mantua, Varney, Silver Streak, Ideal, Ulrich, Megow, Parks, A-C, Athearn, Manor, M. Dale Newton (Redball), Walthers, Lehigh and Sterling.  A few of them I am not familiar with.  Most are no longer in business.  It is fascinating to read about the history of our hobby.

Want to buy a locomotive?

The ad above was listed in 1911.