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Welcome to 2022! Let's start the New Year out with a structure build. J&M Automotive is an independent car mechanic located on East 1st Street in Iowa City alongside the industrial spur. The simple concrete block garage is probably the smallest single structure planned for The Hills Line. However, its small size allows me to … Continue reading Starting 2022
With the completion of the Surroundings Interiors warehouse, I can finally get to work on one of the biggest visual concerns on The Hills Line, the Hill Track. On the prototype, the Hill Track connects the Iowa Interstate's yard in Iowa City with the Maiden Lane interchange on the industrial spur. On the layout, it … Continue reading Now You See It…
As I've previously mentioned, a majority of the structures on The Hills Line are not rail served. Including them on the layout remains necessary, since they're essential to setting both era and locale for the layout. The goal then becomes developing methods to construct these buildings in a way that's both efficient and effective. For … Continue reading Surroundings Interiors
There seems to be three schools of thought of how to handle buildings that extend beyond the benchwork: Compress them to fit Eliminate them all together Cut them off at the world's edge Option #1 is never a good idea. In practice it often crosses the line from selective compression towards cartoonish replication... a practice … Continue reading Fascia Extensions
The Hills Line 