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 […]

Turntable lock: Rube would be proud

It’s been a bit of a battle, but I think I finally have the turntable lock control finished. The original plan called for a flexible shaft to drive the pin into the sockets around the turntable edge. However, when push came to shove (so to speak), I found that the shaft had to flex too […]

Turntable Crank

November is always a slow month for the trains in our house. It’s getting close to Christmas, and for the past eleven years, I’ve given photobooks that summarize the past year of the kids’ lives to all our family. I spend most of the month, therefore, editing and curating photos. Anyway, this morning, while the […]

Let a decorator choose the fascia colour?

I spent yesterday painting the garage. At one point, I had a roller full of primer, and so, I went about the house looking for things that needed to be primed. The fascia has been waiting for just such a moment since Andrew and I installed it seven months ago. So, I quickly spread out […]

Last piece of fascia

One of the nice things about a small layout is that you only get to do two blog posts about many things and then they’re done. Tonight, Andrew gave me a hand with the last piece of fascia. There are, of course, only five pieces, but tonight’s piece was by far the most complicated. As I […]

A start on fascia

Andrew and I made good start on getting the finish fascia onto Pembroke this Wednesday. I had one eight-foot length of 50-year old masonite from the original basement, and this consumed almost all of it! Rather than attempt to counter-sink and fill the screws, we elected to use button-head screws and pretend they’re all part of […]