Now, we add, the all purpose plaster.

I bought a bucket of sheet rock plaster from Home Depot for just over $11. That should give me plenty to do whatever I need to do. After I paper mache the mountain so that the plaster doesn't leak through the wire mesh, (a lesson I learned from my tunnel and wasted a lot) I put on a rather thick coat of plaster.

Work on the mountains.

This time, the mountain is much bigger, and better. I'm also adding a small hill where the houses are going to be. I get the basic shape with some wire mesh over wooden blocks for support to start.

As you can see, I took out one of my roads, becuase I wanted another hill there.

The first mountain.

It's not a pretty sight, I'll admit to that, but it is a starting point. This will be the first mountain with a tunnel that the train will travel through. I used some old wire mesh that my father gave me.
As you can see, I've cut a hole in my layout, this will act as a road that travels down, and eventually under the train tracks.

Let's get started with the larger layout!

The first step, is to draw out your basic track plan in pencil on the plywood. Then we tack down some cork roadbed and some track, following our sketched out drawn up plan. However, as with most things in model railroad, this is subject to change as we go along.

The start of the new beginning.

So here is how it all begins. A 4x8 piece of plywood drilled down to an old weathered table that my father gave me. Looks pretty boring right now, but wait until we add some creativity, time, money, and magic to it.

And there you have it!

Of course, with any HO scale model train layout, no one is ever completely "finished". There are always things that need to be touched up and details to be added. But I think I am at the point where I am going to start a new layout and move to the next level. This was a fun, small, starter layout to give me an idea. Now it's time, to try something LARGER! :)

Painting the house.

As a new model railroader, it's a process that I learn as I go. Unfortunately, sometimes I learn from my mistakes. And today I learned, the hard way, to paint my buildings before assembling them and mounting them into my layout. This one, I painted after it was assembled and mounted into my layout, and my goodness was it a pain. I always thought I could do it later, and yes, that is a possibility, but I wouldn't recommend it, nor will I do it again. It was just too difficult to paint those little details with the tree in the way and the awkward positions that were needed to get to areas I couldn't see, or hardly reach. You can see from the photo where I need to touch up and fix my mistakes. It turned out fairly well however. It's all good thought. I'll know better next time.