I have been working to address a few 'finishing touch' detail projects lately on the Onondaga Cutoff.
While not a big-splash sort of endevour like photo backdrops or layout skirting, I find these smaller scene-by-scene detail projects to be very satisfying. Over the course of a few hours spread across several days, you can really add a lot of interest to a scene, and it will pop in a way that it did not before.
Take for example Niagara Propane. This is a location at the west end of Onondaga Yard with a spur to a small, local propane distributor. Being adjacent to railroad property, this would have been separated by a fence, but to date I hadn't taken the time to scratchbuild chain-link fence.
At ProRail 2018, Bernie Kapinski had opened his Port of Los Angeles layout for operations, and on it he used a product he made under the Alkem Models name - etched stainless steel HO scale chain-link fence. It does a beautiful job of approximating the look and even includes gates.
I installed according to the instructions and left the gates as manually operated - one more thing for the conductor on the yard job to contend with. Now this scene, one of the first that visitors see, has a nice finished touch to it. More fence coming soon to the scrapyard on the Cazenovia Industrial!
~RGDave
