Day 7

Day seven. Technically that’s one week since the project started. From the outset, I doubted that I could build a 16mm scale layout in the time frame. I’ve come on a long way though. It’s definitely starting to look like a micro layout. How does the old adage go? The last 20% of a layout’s construction takes 80% of the time? I’m getting perilously close to starting on the last 20%.

One thing that has been causing much head scratching has been the shelter for the tipping point. In the photograph I have, the structure looks flimsy. Very flimsy. It looks like it would get blown away in a strong wind. I’ve since had it confirmed to me that these structures were not to the strongest construction. The problem was to be recreating that flimsiness while building a structure that will withstand trips to model railway shows. 

With only one photo to work from and no dimensions. A lot of guesstimation was involved. I had a feeling that to keep things simple, the shelter height was the same as a sheet of corrugated metal (why waste time cutting things?). The standard sheet height was eight feet. The internet also told me that a sheet was about 28” wide. Knowing that there would also be a one and a half corrugations overlap between sheets helped calculate the length. I had some corrugated sheet that looked right and cut it to size. After that, I searched through my stock of styrene girders and found stuff that, once again, looked the right size. There was even more guesswork attached to the roof. But no-one will know. Besides, I probably used the same frame of mind in the construction of my model as the man who built the original.

My take on the tipping shelter. It looks good enough for me.

As for looking flimsy, but being sturdy. I’ve accidentally dropped it a couple of times and it has survived each fall. Job done then.

One job I hadn’t done yet was to bed in the tipping dock. I’m surprised I hadn’t done it as soon as the rails were laid on it. Because that meant I could run a train on there. There’s still lots of work to do on the tipping dock, finishing off the shelter of course, hand rails around the edge and a buffer stop at the end for starters.

But that shouldn’t stop me fitting it in place and trying things out…

You know you wanted to see a run of the train on the layout… 

The Motor Rail uses Chris Rennie’s LocoRemote WiFi system. Right now I’m perfectly happy with it. The big thing is there’s no wires to the track and the rails can be as dirty as you like. The trains will still run.

I suppose that you could say that with trains running and some scenery in place, I have built a layout in seven days…