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Layout pre-building Add the finishing touches to your layout beforeyou start it


by Gregg Condon; with photos by Dave Rickaby PHOTOS BY DAVE RICKABY


Building small scenes at your workbench before the actual layout gets started is a great way to keep up your modeling skills. This micro-scene (above) containing an outhouse, garden, and fire hose shed is built upon two layers of .060″ styrene. The bottom layer of styrene has not been painted because it will be buried in


O


kay, your planning for the new layout has progressed apace. As part of model railroad planning,


you have identified the theme and the scope. You’ve probably listed the scenes you intend to build and have a good idea about many of the structures you’ll need.


When will you start?


Often there is a lag between the time we plan a new layout and actually start construction. Maybe we know a move will be in the offing a few years hence. Or maybe we simply know that our great current layout will be replaced at some point by an even better effort. We can begin construction of a new


layout long before the first stick of benchwork goes up. More specifically, we can begin construction of elements of a new layout any time. I call it “pre- building.”


My next layout When Pat and I moved into our cur- rent home, we knew we had a four-year timeframe to play with; then we’d be off to the adventure of building our re- tirement home with its dual train rooms. We brought our current MP&N layout to 100 percent completion in nine months and are enjoying opera-


76 JULY 2013


the adjoining ground cover. The scene will be adjacent to the de- pot at Rico on the author’s future layout. Larger building scenes can also be modeled in this way. Kennedy Mine (below) is a zinc mine in southwestern Wisconsin. The base is 1″ foam board and the “poor rock” pile is additional laminates of the same material.


tions on it for the remaining time we live here. But, having a “finished” lay- out doesn’t mean that the fun of con- struction must stop. I’m already pre- building things for the new layout, and there are three good reasons why. First, it’s fun, and why postpone that?


Second, the more things that are pre- built for the new layout, the sooner that layout will be put into presentable and operable shape and third, things that are pre-built are things that later might never get done in the mad scramble to get trains running.


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