Town planning

I am reusing the buildings from the original layout. Before I got too much further with the ground cover, I wanted to decide more or less which buildings were going to feature in which of the two towns. I tried different combinations of buildings on the module and then set up the other buildings on a piece of foam with the same dimensions as a module as a mock-up of the other town module that is yet to be built. I made sure I placed a piece of track on the mock-up to get an idea of how the train would run through that scene. 

I had a few criteria when arranging the buildings:

• The side of the buildings with the most windows or detailing should face the edge of the layout. This will help when I add lights and interiors later.
• There were several buildings I liked better than others and so I wanted those closer to the viewer. For example, the saloon, the bakery, the bank/land office, the Gunsmith/Lawyer and the Four Sisters Hotel. 
• In general, I had a preference for taller buildings nearer the edge of the layout and smaller ones further in, to help create a slight forced-perspective effect.
• I did not want the street to be perpendicular to the layout edge. 

In the end, I settled on the building arrangements in the following photos:

Clockwise from top right, Assayers, Dry Goods, Columba Hotel, Bank/Land Office,
Bakery, Hay & Grain, Shoe shop. 

I avoided placing buildings or boardwalks over the join between two modules.

A mock-up of the yet-to-be-built town. Clockwise from bottom left: Saloon, Stove & Tin Shop, Doctors rooms, building under construction, Sheriff's office, Rooming house, Livery stable, Four Sisters Hotel, Gunsmith & Lawyer

A street view of the mockup. I am of a mind to adjust the rooming house footprint to make it better fit the space available. But I'll build the module first to see how it looks.