There are a few areas still left to address between backdrop and track. The first is the LVRR Maintenance facility on the north end of White Haven.
I'd spent some time thinking about recreating the LVRR storage house for the helper engines that had been used to push trains up from White Haven to Mountaintop. I believe when the C628's showed up on the LVRR roster, most of the need for helpers was eradicated and there wasn't much action for the helpers. The storage/maintenance facility ended up being meaningless after the Conrail merger, and the town of White Haven was interested in taking over the building. Not sure if it was purchased or donated, but today it is the borough's library. It's a stone building with tall windows and a sloped roof, with the tallest wall to accomodate up to 4 locomotives, and it makes sense to think that there were 4 tracks running into the building from the mainline.
I couldn't find a building that replicated the real deal, but that started my love affair with Clever Model's paper buildings, and I loved the small machine shop - figured I'd make it a LVRR maintenance facility/shop. I detailed all of this in the "Fun with Paper" blog.
Anyway, I sited the building next to the start of the scenery for Mud Run, and intentionally did not finish this building site until I got the Mud Run scenery done, because I wanted to marry the look at feel of Mud Run with White Haven proper. I decided this week was the time to get that done. My first task was to install the gravel lot and driveway, and I also decided to have a gravel path lead up to the personnel door at the front of the building. I slathered up the areas with glue and then dumped a lot of gravel on the glue (removed the extra later with a vacuum).
Got the paints out and created some rocky ground around the back slope and I also did some edits on the rocks near the tracks.
Slathered more glue on the ground areas and installed grass.
Then added some shrubs and grass clumps.
Then added foreground and detail trees.
Last but not least, I sited the building. I think I want to put a truck in the gravel lot at some point.
Well, it turns out I wasn't done with this property. Back in December of 2023 I discovered an outfit by the name of Inter Action Hobbies. I think they're up in Canada, and the tip came from a Canadian. They had a special Christmas freebie if you bought something like $30 of their kits. Bought telephone booths, Coke and Ice machines and received this special "Christmas Tree Caboose" kit. It's a caboose-style structure on skids used to sell Christmas trees in November. I decided as well as that, they'd also sell coffee the rest of the year. Built the kit and put it in the parking lot with the maintenance shop.
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