Once in a while something appears on the internet and you think to yourself. "Ooh. That's imteresting. I'll look into that." One such thing happened the other day, when reading James Hilton's always interesting blog.  In this particular post he was describing a scheme for a small layout inspired by Wrexham Central/ Wrecsam Canolog station in North Wales. Straight off this appealed to me. I lived in Wrexham for two years when I was an Art Student. I knew the old, run down Central Station quite well. I would take the train up to Bidston and into Liverpool. Once to the National Ga ..read more

Recently, a couple of locomotives that I was interested in appeared on that well known auction site. A Weaver GP38-2 and a Red Caboose GP9. Both were reasonably priced and I agonized for a while over which should grace my collection. The Red Caboose GP9 looked a bit the worse for wear, whereas the GP38 seemed well looked after in the pictures. So I went with the Weaver model. There were other reasons too. I’ll divulge those momentarily. The model arrived yesterday and looks as good in the flesh as in the images.  Posed in front of my warehouse backdrop model, it looks really ..read more

After my rash promise in a previous post to get the trains running after all my structure woes. I realized that there were other things that needed doing first. Like make the sector plate. It makes sense that it would be easier to make the sector plate, lay the track on that and line the track on the baseboard up with it. Rather than the other way around. So I needed to source some 3/16” ply, the same as is used on the layout baseboards. Whilst I was doing that I was asked about how I went about rebuilding the structure. How did I make sure it was square, flat and level this time.  ..read more

I know I said I was going to lay the track and run trains. But the structure drew me in and I needed to do more work to it. Here it is. Pretty much done. A few tiny details to add and then a trip to the paint shop. A big building There’s one particular detail that I’m looking to fit in. It’s the protective gate across the warehouse doors. I may model one door open, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of the interior. Mind you, it will have be very tantalizing with a depth to the building of only one inch to work with. But one door will be closed with a gate across it. Any suggestions as t ..read more

After a good long think, some work in another scale, and words of encouragement from the creator of Chicago Fork Prof. Klyzlr. I tentatively looked at the warehouse again. I had managed to salvage everything undamaged, so that made me feel good as I looked at it again. I went through my stock of Foam core board, and actually found a sheet of Fome-Cor Pro in black that was flat and level. I was planning on using it for the extension to my 16mm scale layout. But needs must when the devil drives, so it was pressed into use for the warehouse. The element of the building that I regretted not fittin ..read more

Things look black, like Fome-Cor Pro board It’s no secret. Having to rip up the shell for the warehouse building really kicked me in the teeth. To be honest, I can’t be arsed to do anything with the layout. Yes, I managed to save the cladding for the walls, but there was still a lot of effort involved in working everything out, and trying, (unsuccessfully) to straighten it out. Yes, I know that there will always be setbacks with projects, just like there are also big leaps forwards when things go well. (and it’s certainly not the worst set back I’ve ever had). Some setbacks hit you ha ..read more

 Today I took the serious step of tearing up the building I started this week. It was a decision not taken lightly. But after reviewing the state of the warping of the foam core board substructure. I decided that it would be nigh on impossible to add enough bracing to pull the structure flat.  These two photographs show how much the substructure was warped. This is most definitely a huge step back. Luckily I managed to salvage the materials that I clad the substructure with, so that will be able to be re-used. I feel better about that. There was a lot of work involved in th ..read more

 I imagine that after a week of daily posts, followed by a week of silence. Some of you are thinking that the project has been consigned to the dustbin and I’ve moved onto something else. Not so. By necessity things have moved somewhat slowly this week. So here’s how far I’ve got with a model of my favourite warehouse wall. Firstly there were problems with the material. I am a confirmed user of Elmers foam core board for my buildings, (and some baseboards). However, of late it seems to have disappeared off the shelves of some of my favourite hobby stores, to be replaced by an inferior pro ..read more

Given my unfamiliarity with the bulk of US outline O scale, see the previous post. I decided that I should spend some time digging deeper in the fit of things. Prof. Klyzlr got everything to fit in his Chicago Fork, but I’d made some subtle changes and was fitting everything to an existing baseboard that I’d already added to. I needed to check it would all fit in the allotted area. Testing clearances between sidings  The front warehouse will have to be no more than 2” (50mm) deep At the rear the low relief structure will be no more than 1” (25mm) in depth I wa ..read more

I’m willing to bet there are those of you out there that are doubtful that this layout will ever get built. I don’t blame you. In fact you could still be right. I don’t have a particularly good track record in floating concepts for micro layouts and completing them. Take the Eagle Street concept I was researching, that I  outlined in the Spring Issue of The Micro Model Railway Dispatch. I even started a blog for it with my own intentions of building a layout based on it. But a reader of The Dispatch saw the article, and is inspired enough to build their own take on it. As the editor of th ..read more