This was the latest track and scenery design that I was trying to build in this area. The double mainline continues through this area, as well as an exchange track that leads to other PRR properties. The upper left corner shows Penn Hills, but the area is dominated by Gloverstown. The town's main street and several side streets are shown. The main street was to have a downtown setting that included retail, office, and residential buildings. The double spurs were to enter the warehouse which was to be scratchbuilt. The parking lot on the right-hand side of the diagram was to be either a passenger station, a freight depot, or an industrial area.

This was very early on in the construction. I had just finished the benchwork. The track in this area was the first to be built. These were just pieces of the subroadbed I had cut and was playing around with their positioning.

The first track completed on this layout was the outside mainline. The track was operational on April 1, 2001. I was already building the subroadbed for the inside mainline. A spur into the area was also already prepared.

Things are moving along quite nicely. Two Micro Engineering turnouts were installed to gain access to the spurs. They were already being controlled by Tortoise switch machines. I weathered the flextrack and turnouts next.

The area behind the track to the backdrop was going be just rolling hills, so I could go ahead and install the cardboard webbing for the scenery base.

The next step was to apply a layer of plaster cloth. I put masking tape over the track.

When that dried, I applied Scultamold to the plaster cloth layer, and a few days later I could apply the ground foam for the basic scenery base. Note the holes for the tunnel portal into the Allegheny mountain on the right.

I could now start to focus on the front part of the area. The idea was to build a switching area. I had originally planned a Diamond Scale turntable in this area, but gave up on that idea when I concluded the turntable's construction was beyond my modeling skills at the time. I cut a piece of ½" birch plywood to serve as the base of the industrial area. The board is the full 8 feet long and cut to the shape I wanted for the front fascia.

I printed the CAD design of this area full-scale, and then placed it on the base. This helped me mark off where the track was to go. Note how the benchwork was incorporated into the design so that I could account for the location of the Tortoise switch machines under the turnouts.

I wanted to add some vertical relief into the rather flat layout, so after transferring the design, I used a jig saw to cut the board into various sections, which were then installed at different vertical elevations.

Before starting to fill in the gaps, I installed the front fascia board. Note also that I had started to apply commercial photo backdrops that I cut out and glued to the backdrop.

I filled in the gaps by carefully applying a layer of plaster cloth.

Next, was a layer of Sculptamold.

A paint job and some ground foam makes the area look much better.

Here I was testing some structures for the area. These were the first structures (other than bridges) that I was seriously considering adding to the layout.

It was finally time for some track in the industrial area. After putting down the AMI Roadbed, I cut and installed some Kappler Lumber Mills' ties. This was going to be my first attempt at handlaying some track. Note that I also used some PC ties to solder the rail to. As it turned out, I never got around to handlaying the rails in this section, because the layout was torn down before that.