A few CVRR pictures and some other related pictures....

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Gramly Farm Equipment Shop in Centre Co, PA

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Delightful! What a concept!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Delightful! What a concept!

Oh, I had you in mind when I snagged this card with this scene on it,

[rogruth]

Murph was also my first thought when I saw it posted.
A little bit of everything that one would expect from a building of that type in that period.
Wonderful.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Murph was also my first thought when I saw it posted.
A little bit of everything that one would expect from a building of that type in that period.
Wonderful.

Not an overly complex structure, but one that provides a great scene and detailing opportunity.

[rogruth]

What is the small longish platform on the lower building<

[Rufus T. Firefly]

What is the small longish platform on the lower building<

Walkway to the ladder to the upper roof - platforms for barrels of water, maybe. Fire prevention?

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Murph was also my first thought when I saw it posted.
A little bit of everything that one would expect from a building of that type in that period.
Wonderful.

Not an overly complex structure, but one that provides a great scene and detailing opportunity.

"A great scene and detailing opportunity," is for sure! Not only did the structure impress me, of course, as you both mentioned, but the potential for fleshing-out the whole scene with a wide variety of details is seemingly endless. I immediately imagined the place as a bit aged, though still in business as a contemporary enterprise, and populated with a variety of vehicles and equipment for farmers. Or it could have morphed into a wide variety of businesses, such as a landscaping/plant nursery/garden center-type business. And having that fence as a border is especially attractive for modeling a place that is self-contained as a lively vignette.

If you notice, a large shed (storage?) seems to be a part of that overall complex. I see the main building combined with this (see attached photos) whole ensemble I composed as a business compound dedicated to such machinery sales, used, and repairs. This 3-part vignette is long-gone, sold immediately @ York, but I include these photos of it here to demonstrate how my imagination reacted to that excellent photo.
Murph

[rogruth]

Murph,
I may have asked this before but don't remember the answer so----- when you went/go on your sojourns in the country did/do you
take many photos or just remember scenes or, as I suspect, a combination of both? These photos from Rufus I think you can look at
and see possibilities immediately. On the other hand I might look at the same thing for hours and have not a whit of an idea where to start.
Don't misunderstand my questions. I have no interest in being a competitor to you nor do I have the level of ability needed for what you do.
My guess is that some times a client will have a general or specific idea of what they want you to model and sometimes just tell you to go
to it with no restrictions. Do some scenes just "spring" into your head while others just sit and smolder awhile?
Answer if you want. I know one thing for sure. You have always had FUN.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Murph,
...when you went/go on your sojourns in the country did/do you take many photos or just remember scenes or, as I suspect, a combination of both? ...
...My guess is that some times a client will have a general or specific idea of what they want you to model and sometimes just tell you to go
to it with no restrictions. Do some scenes just "spring" into your head while others just sit and smolder awhile?...

Hi Roger, Thanks for the inquiry. It's all of the above and a bit more. Sometimes, I do take photos; other times I just remember, esp. when the scene has been very stimulating. Rarely does a client request a specific scene, although on the biggest layout I ever did, he did say he wanted a center-city area which lead into a gradually more suburban neighborhood; then, a bit of rural. Most clients give me carte blanche. However, Lionel, for their Holiday layout at F.A.O.Schwarz, NYC, required the most specificity, though even they gave me considerable freedom to reinterpret that layout and refine and re-detail it.

Usually, i just follow my impulses and creative instincts. Often, those are inspired by kits I buy from Valley Model Trains site, which has lots of vendors in one place. Once the completed building(s) stands in front of me, the remainder of the scene "appears" to me, and I follow its directions, changing most of my intentions as I go along. Jim Elster's Scenic Express has so many wonderful products that they themselves inspire further creativity out of me, providing great stimulation as well as the means to effect them at my fingertips.

Also, there are some specialty items that I do not attempt to craft myself, like large petroleum tanks, for example. For those, I go to The Tank Boss, Alan Graziano, who actually supervises the building of such structures in real life, so I went to the expert. You can see (below) some of my work utilizing his in this site I crafted. I took a lot of tanks I had from other sources to Alan; he repainted and re-branded and lighted them, according to my wishes, and I crafted them into place, including the emplacement of the RR tracks, and fleshed-out the whole site according to personal observations and his advice. He enthusiastically approved of the final results.

My forestry logging blocks were the result of my going personally into logging sites and to John Deere dealerships and learning what equipment was needed for what transpired at such sites; I memorized the details. I Googled logging blocks. Crafting such scenes was a gamble. I had no idea if they would sell at all. They all sold in the first few minutes of a couple TCA Meets @ York, PA. Then, one of those customers became a client who commissioned my doing a series of 48"x28" Insta-Ramas that depicted an entire 1890's logging block. That I had to research totally, learning such details as horses and oxen being utilized to pull such equipment as "skidders," loaded with the proper steam equipment and tools, obtained and crafted from a wide variety of sources, and modeled being dragged along temporary log roadways made from "logs" cut from shrubbery around my home. The proportions and textures of the logs I used for the contemporary and antique logging block scenes received particular approval from the experts.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Roger, You can see that largest layout I ever did developing here in these photos of several stages in its progress. Center-city was established first; then, I worked my way out into the more suburban areas, and so on. The client wanted broad expanses containing maximum scenery , loaded with details. He wasn't too interested in mountains as he wanted his children to have easy reach-in access to almost every neighborhood. The benchwork was added as I worked my way out of each site. Each building was crafted by me and/or I utilized structures he had purchased at train-shows, and each made a part of its site crafted on a base-plate (some are visible in the planning stages in-place at various spots) in the home (I had established at workshop in the client's home) or in my home workshop and transported to the layout.
Murph

[Mitch]

All very good modeling and pics, but I don't think much of that equipment was available during the time of Rufus' Cumberland Valley RR.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

All very good modeling and pics, but I don't think much of that equipment was available during the time of Rufus' Cumberland Valley RR.

All too true - that card was from the early 1900's -- looks to be a steam tractor in the scene and some other interesting equipment....

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Something from a slightly less distant past....the Eagle Hotel in Ft. Loudon, PA.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

All very good modeling and pics, but I don't think much of that equipment was available during the time of Rufus' Cumberland Valley RR.

Don't some of those older buildings get re-purposed and used anew for similar or new enterprises? That was the idea I was suggesting by showing those photos, that I imagined that building and campus being utilized in contemporary times as a place such equipment might be repaired, resold, and sold new. I guess I'm just quirky that way - my imagination takes-off when stimulated with something I hadn't seen previously.