Yeah I know, we're actually now seven, but it's hard to imagine celebrating another year of running trains when there was... no running of trains. Yes we did manage to get 2 shows in before the lock downs started, and we were on a major roll with all the new buildings, locos and rolling stock. We were so looking forward to making this the best display year yet, then the fit hit the shan, so to speak.
Determined not to remain idle, John and I got together in July on my back deck (safely, of course) and worked on the triple pizza centerpiece, revising our Bilt-E-Z buildings to maximize the effect we could achieve with the limited space we had. We managed to get our buildings taller and still leave room for some other smaller structures yet to come. The work continues.
Since then, John has acquired more of the Bilt-E-Z sets and also reworked some of the buildings themselves, hopefully mindful of the footprints we determined in July. I can't wait to see how these will look on the pizza.
I have been busy adding to my building collection as well, exploring all the different variations that can be achieved with a wider variety of building toys. Below is a view of my current collection.
In addition to the earlier Bilt-E-Z buildings and Uberstix towers (CN Tower and Empire State), I've reworked the Elgo American Skyline stuff and added some Girder and Panel structures (Kenner and others) as well as a clock tower made from Trix (a Meccano-like toy from Germany and UK). Though not all of these will make it to our next show, many of them will, and the effect will be a much more urban-oriented layout than ever before. We hope you'll get even a fraction of as much joy out of seeing them as we had making them.
We also have made some amazing additions to our locomotive lineup and rolling stock, so all-in-all this hasn't been such a terrible year. Being six has been awesome, and we promise to keep getting better and better.
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