I wanted a picture showing most of the industries located just this side of the tall buildings in Hillton City, the largest town on the Yardley and Hillton RR. The photographer was standing on a step ladder in the operation pit. This is a tough place to have believable scenery. We are overlooking a cliff with a bit of mainline trackage below. From the left we see the east end of the Hillton Big Bridge practically atop the Yardley roundhouse. There is a few businesses in the foreground and toward the right are the old street car re-purposed as a diner (a plaster casting of years ago) the railroad YMCA for overnight lodging of a train crew, the Ramswell Bulldozer Factory, the Y&H Head Office, the WREX facility, the homemade Crest Mount Travel Trailer factory and the always interesting Scrap Yard. Our single stall engine house is to the right of the “Y” tail track. (top right below).
This photo which could have been taken by a modern day Quadra-copter drone is unusual because there are only two freight cars visible in town, both at the scrap yard. The intent is to show the tracks and the interesting way they inter-act with the industries. I like how the one serving the bulldozer factory cuts straight across the wye toward the wall and mirror behind the building! (Better shown on the next page). The background buildings are Walthers ‘back streets’ paper flats, the blue sky is home painted plywood. The paved street with the white RXR warning in advance of the railroad crossings is printed on heavy paper with the home computer.
From this angle we can see more of the town with a bit of the mainline, a couple tunnel entrances and the broken ceiling tile ‘rocks’ in the foreground. This provides for nearly vertical scenery which saves table space on a small layout. In the back is a glimpse of the bull dozer factory with mirrors multiplying production. The top foreground shows a favorite diesel switcher which is an old cast metal cover by Varney (1950) painted and decaled with individual letters on top of a modern plastic drive (by Life-Like) and one of my chopped cabooses. 11-20-16.
Final chapter Notes
I must finish my writings. This is a final summary of all 3 of my HO scale layouts. All were named Yardley and Hillton. The two photos below this paragraph are among the only surviving images of the first Yardley and Hillton.
The earliest one built in about 1981 was based on an enhancement of Chuck Yungkurth’s Gum Stump and Snow Shoe. Mine included a runaround track on the lower level so one loco could serve the whole railroad. It measured 1 x 7 ½ ft.
My room sized Yardley and Hillton is where most of my photos and stories are based. The layout measured 8×11 feet, was built against 3 walls, with a duck under access hole in the middle, partially double decked. It featured all the operational tricks important to a peddler freight theme.
Most of this writing was done before 2017; when we moved to a retirement home.
Best overall views of the Yardley and Hillton room-sized HO scale model railroad by Ray Lora.
After finishing my illustrated stories about activities on my peddler freight layout and having fun on the cheap I realized that there were no pictures that showed the whole railroad. Here is my attempt to show as much of the 8 x11 foot layout as possible (from 3 different points of view) by using both sides of a single sheet of paper. This westward view below is from overhead the spectator’s entrance upon entering the train room.
This shows the operation pit, freight classification yard, hand painted sky board back drop, home-made tethered throttles, aluminum baking pan control panel, car forwarding cards, scratch built roundhouse and remote controlled turntable, home-made computer printed flat paper buildings, broken ceiling tile rocks, printed paper street with sharp yellow lines.
The next photo is the Yardmaster’s view from above the roundhouse at the Wherezatgo Tunnel.
Last picture has the camera looking east from above the Hillton engine house at the top right of this view.
Model Railroading on the Cheap 
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