Fiddling the shelf

“Sounds fiddly,” my darling wife said when she heard the plan to fill the space between turnout controls with half-inch channel. Boy, did she get that right! Despite the provision of recesses on the sides of the turnout controls allowing for 1/16″ of overlap, every single piece – there are ten so far – needed […]

Shelf mockup

My darling wife kindly pointed out that the turnout controls I installed earlier this month are ugly. Now, they should almost disappear once painted black, but in keeping with my learning about Art Nouveau, I also designed them to flow into a half-inch decorative shelf that will extend most of the length of the layout. […]

Fascia gets a makeover

inspired by the Tim Warris’s amazing Bronx Terminal layout, I tried to copy his idea of rivets on the fascia. Unfortunately, I didn’t embrace them the way he did, and so my “rivets” are too sparse and small and just look like, well, #8 Round Head Robertson screws, which of course they are. I’m about […]

Standing desk and step installed

Eleven months in gestation, the standing desk is finally installed. This project started with a doodle during the Daylight Savings Time switch last year. Within a day, Ken Rutherford had asked if it would be finished by Christmas. It is, just the following year. The whole thing is what I would call “door construction.” Two […]

Let the sunshine in

Ever since trying out my office puck lights above the layout, I’ve been on the lookout for a suitable product for the layout itself. The ultra-slim LED lights from Globe have been calling to me from their shelf at Rona for a couple of months, and this weekend I finally caved in and picked one […]

RGBW

I’ve never been happy with the wash of lights on the backdrop. Not only is the effect terminally subtle for sunrise and sunset, but when turned to bright daylight white, the colour is much too blue, especially when photographed. A short while ago, I found out that light strips are available in Red-Green-Blue and White. […]

Daylight Savings hour sketching

Coinciding as it did with Hallowe’en this year, I almost didn’t get any extra modelling done for daylight savings hour. But then, I was awoken by an incident on one of the servers at work right at the moment that clocks went back, or at least most of the clocks went back. So, while waiting […]

Minding the gaps

The common wisdom says that you should put something insulating into the electrical gaps between rails. According to model railroad folklore, without insulators, those gaps will eventually close up with all the humidity and heat-induced rail cavorting, and the resulting short will be remarkably difficult to find. Now, Pembroke’s Presbyterian rails have never been inclined […]

The Pembroke Milling Company spur

The Pembroke Milling Company was situated at the other end of the Pembroke Street bridge. Indeed, the mill was the reason for the dam that meets our side of the Muskrat behind the depot. One of the Pembroke Southern’s founders, William Moffat owned the mill, and he preferentially built a warehouse on his railway. It […]

Lighting test

With all the working from home, not to mention additional TV time in the space that Pembroke shares with other family activities, I decided I would add some lights into the sub-layout cubby that passes for an office and photo booth. I had to pick up some other items at Rona and found a set […]