My Layout in the Fall of 1995

I posted pictures of my layout on my old website beginning when I started it in November 2002. I never posted these pictures on my old website, but am including them now for completion.

Here are some pictures of my layout that I took in the fall of 1995. This first group of pictures was taken in late September or perhaps early October. I mainly took these pictures to finish off a roll of film so I could get the other pictures on it developed. Some of these show some slight improvement from the last batch, but they still show that I hadn’t learned how to take model train pictures. The improvement may have come simply from having a slightly better camera with automatic focus control. But don’t get me wrong, these pictures are still terrible. They do provide a record of some of my train purchases, though.

This is an old Mantua 2-8-2. My dad had repainted it and lettered it for the “Washington Central Railroad,” It is now in his collection, relettered for his freelanced Oregon Central & Pacific. I was too close to the locomotive, especially with the flash going off. I also still had the framing problem that comes with a camera with a viewfinder that does not go through the lens.

This is an Athearn SD40-2 lettered for Montana Rail Link and an Athearn Husky-Stack car. I bought these from Rambo’s Hobbies in Longview, Washington, simply because Iiked them, and this was probably not long after that. The tunnels on my layout are too low for double-stacked containers, so this is definitely a staged photo. I was still too close to the subject for use of the flash. The Husky-Stack car is pretty much in focus though.

Here is my A.H.M. Big Boy passing the Train Miniature Alcos. The fright cars in the foreground would have been part of the Big Boy’s train, though in this staged photo they probably weren’t actually coupled to it. Though I was again too close to the trains in the foreground for the flash, the Big Boy didn’t come out too bad. Note that the Big Boy’s bell has fallen out of one side of its bracket and is crookedly dangling.

Here are my Proto 2000 E-units with a passenger train with a Spectrum GP30 in the foreground passing what was then a lumberyard. Without the GP30, which is way too close to the camera, this picture might not have been too bad.

These next pictures were taken on a different roll of film, slightly later in the fall, probably in October or perhaps very early November.

This seems to be a recreation of a picture I took in 1994, though I’m not sure if it was a conscious recreation or just a coincidence. I did get the PAs closer to the E-units, so they aren’t in the dark as they were before. I am still too close to the E-units though, especially for the flash. There was probably supposed to be more of the PAs and less of the E-units in this picture, but the framing problems of the viewfinder not going through the lens probably got me again.

This is a picture of GP7 #119 in San Miguel with the passenger train. I took a picture of it near this spot in 1994, but it was going the other way. I am again too close to the subject, and again had problems with framing.

This appears to be another recreation of a picture I attempted before, the E-unit at the Logan depot. I think I did back up a little bit more, but was still much too close to the subject. The nose of the E-unit was probably in the center of the viewfinder, but look where it ended up. I’m sure there was supposed to me more of the depot on the left, and less of the empty space on the right.