In praise of the prefab concrete garage

With the general idea of what the layout should look like. I did some more measuring out. To see how things would fit more precisely. 

I’m looking for a pleasing vignette in this area.

The yellow grey board is the footprint of an archetypal 8’ x 16
’ prefabricated garage. The sort of thing that was very popular in the UK from the post war years to the late 1970’s (see below)

The prefabricated concrete garage is one of the forgotten mainstays of English society in the late 20th century. To go with the post war motoring boom everyone wanted a garage to house their beautiful new car. These pre-cast concrete panel kits were cheap and plentiful. Marley, Kencast, and Dencroft were almost household names. They could be “put up in a weekend with the help of a friend”, as one manufacturer said in their advertising. One of my Grandfathers had one. I’d really like to fit something like this on the layout. It would be the perfect thing for a small industrial narrow gauge railway to use to service and store their rolling stock. 

The standard size of a garage back then was 8’ x 16’. So, I cut a 16mm scale floor pan to see how it would fit on the layout. It fits as you can see on the photo above. Depending on its position, it may need a little cut out to fit within the track clearances. But it would fit in. But would everything fit in the garage? Another mock-up was called for.

Things seem to fit. It might be a bit cramped. But what garage isn’t? 

It would fit two small locos. The garage looks like it’s a going to be a project then.