Just got done with my station last week. I wanted something that was iconic to southern California and eventually found an old Taurus Products Capistrano Depot kit on ebay. Then I rode the bike down to Capistrano and took a bunch of photos of the actual structure -which is now an Italian eatery- to try and capture the look and feel of the place. A little on-line research turned up several pictures of the depot as it had looked at various times, and I used those to figure out what the surrounding vegitation would have looked like in an ideal world.
After the usual kit-bashing, selective compression, and scratching (including the trees) this is how she came out.
Puerto Depot basks in the afternoon sunlight between trains.
I've also been constructing vignettes to keep myself entertained between serious projects. It's fun to watch non model railroaders discover them, and some vignettes make the trip down to Sandy Eggo for temporary use on the big museum layout, where they cause a number of double-takes. (It's remarkable how many HO gauge sized things one can find in a toy store.)
Note: Those of you who may feel that model railroading should not include visual humor should probably skip these...)
Calamari on the hoof.
~Pete