Building FSM Tribute Kit #1 by Bar Mills Pt.1

I am going through the backlog of the builds. I am trying clean the house so to speak before the end of the year. One is supposed to do that before Christmas, but I am late already. The best I can do is to clean it before the end of 2020.
Next up is Bar Mills FSM Tribute kit #1. I was asked to build T.J.Reiley's only, but since I didn't have it separately I built the one that came as part of the larger release consisting of three structures. In true Bar Mills fashion the kit contains minimal amount of the stripwood. Anything that can be laser cut is. That speeds up the build quite a bit. The only part that I built board by board was the water tank. The departure from earlier kits was the way the rafters are done. The kits from 5-10 years ago used to have them precut in a comb shape. Building T.J.Reiley's I had to cut the rafters by hand. The walls still had the slots cut in them so the length was not critical. The only requirement was not to make them too short. The slots also
helped keeping the rafters straight. Other than that, it was pretty much standard Bar Mills build. One building down, two more to go.

Building Bailey's Produce by FSM Pt.2

The other day I saw on eBay a built model of a small station. The siding was clapboard and the builder cut into the boards in several places to simulate the board ends. I use that technique almost on every model I build. The station, however, was very small. Perhaps 16 feet on the long side with the windows in the middle. That left not much space to have the board ends so the builder made few boards maybe 6 inch long. That is wrong on the engineering level as well the aesthetical. I keep my boards in the 8-16 feet long range when possible. 4 feet is the shortest I've ever done intentionally (I am human, I do make mistakes). Shorter than that just doesn't look right.
The main feature of the today's post is the FSM G.Beiley's Produce kit. Per request I split it into 3 separate dioramas. The limited remaining space on the layout being the reason. I skipped the track and turned the area that should have been occupied by it into the truck access dirt road. I didn't mind doing that. I don't like the ballasting. The main reason being the Woodland Scenics ballast I have is made of the ground nut shells and it floats. No matter how carefully I am applying it and making sure I have no ballast on the ties I still end up having plenty of the ballast on them or stuck to the track itself. I'll invest in the real rock ballast when time comes. As for now, I'll keep making roads.