Manhattan Transfer Updates

Over the years, I've collected and saved hundreds of photos of George Sellios's Franklin & South Manchester layout on the web. His models are always an inspiration, but one thing I've found in reviewing all the photos I've found is that he takes interesting shortcuts that I've been applying to my own building models. One is that many of his buildings are three-sided or sometimes just flats. Another is that he moves them around. In addition, his techniques have changed over the years.

I think I discovered King Mill building flats a little before he did, but a lot of his more recent work uses them. His own ideas are inspiring the ongoing work on my Manhattan Transfer terminal headhouse:

In the photo above, I found a faded Coca-Cola ghost sign, resized it to fit the precise measurement on the building side, and glued it to the basic King Mill building. This is pure Sellios. Another thing he does is use small castings to give texture to building flats. I've added air conditioners, vents, stacks, and fans here, and I'll keep doing it as ideas come to me.

Another thing Sellios does is make concrete foundations and retaining walls. Below I've added a foundation to the bottom of the headhouse building:

You can also see behind the Penn Central geep that I added a lighted news stand.

One thing I notice about Sellios's work is that he'll take interesting signs and construct a building around them, often a three-sided one or a flat. On this site I've found copes of a number of signs that he's used for buildings on his layout. I made a two-sided building corner using some of those signs to fill an empty spot in the Manhattan Transfer yard:

This was a test using foamcore for the basic shape, and I think it turned out very well. The clapboards are part of the sign image, simply printed onto ordinary copy paper and glued to the foamcore. At any distance, it looks like clapboard siding. The faded image is also just part of the print. It took me a couple of hours to do the whole project. I'll add more vent and stack castings to this as time goes on and also blend it into the scene a little more with vegetation.

Finally, a Just Plug LED installed in a Fos building flat: