Commercial Street

[garethashenden]

With all the industrial layouts here, I thought I should share mine.
It is a simple bit of inner city in a box. I am using a 9.5" x 14" boxfile to contain the layout with a 15" cassette on each end.
I've been inspired by street trackage in New England cites and while this isn't based on anywhere in particular it could be Boston, Lowell, Nashua, Portland ME, Claremont NH etc. It is Boston & Maine somewhere between 1940 and 1980.
There are two industries, one on each side of the street with the turnouts facing each other.

Here is an early concept for the buildings, I've widened the street since then and the industrial tracks are no longer inside buildings.


These are my point machines, they switch the frogs and the brass wire moves the points


An overview shot of the whole business


Industry Number 1 held in temporary place


My solution to keep the flangeways clear, nickel silver strip superglued against the spike heads.


Brick between the rails, cobblestones for the street.

[MichaelWinicki]

Wow!

Terrific work!

Very interesting project, please keep us updated.

[packers#1]

Very very neat; I love these little layouts

[Ian MacMillan]

Im definately seeing some Lawrence in here...and I much like.

This small space makes it perfect for some scale height and sized buildings so start hacking those kits up!

[garethashenden]

So I have finally made some progress on this. I made one of the cassettes a couple of days ago. This allowed me to finish the track laying. I should be able to do the other cassette tomorrow, then I'll actually be able to operate it. Now that the track is done I can continue with the street, then I build the building to fit.

I used a BMLA flat as a test car. It's the longest car I have and has the finest flanges. It had no problems on the joint from the cassette to the layout.

Coupler overhang to make a trolley line proud, but no problems getting the SD-26 into that siding.


Here is the cassette. There is a four pin plug at either end which provides power and aligns the track. This allows me to turn the cassette and run the train back the other way.

[railnerd]

awesome microlayout!

[garethashenden]

More progress today. I've finished the cobblestones! Now I just need to do the brick down the centre of the track...
I have one building in progress, here are some more pictures.

[LIRR]

Why the box?

[garethashenden]

It's limiting. The box keeps the cost down, it keeps it manageable. This is a layout that I may actually finish. In the meantime I can pack it away on the bookshelf when I'm not working on it.
There's a tradition here in the UK of boxfile layouts, I wanted to try one.

[Chris333]

I like it. What about cutting holes in the sides where the road is so you can look down the street.

[garethashenden]

I've thought about that. The reason I haven't done it yet is I needed to get the track finish so that I could see where the road was. There are openings already for the trains. I could enlarge these to fit the road, but I'm concerned with the structural integrity of the box. Also, enlarging the holes to fit the road would leave a rather large gap in the scene. If I expand to a second box then it makes sense but for now I think for now I'm going to leave it as is while the layout develops.

[garethashenden]

The second building is starting to take shape:

[garethashenden]

I'd welcome thoughts on building interiors. Since the buildings are all that's here I feel I need interiors. But I'm not sure how to go about that. I have a Bar Mills sign for the "American Tool & Die Co" that will go on the top of this second building, so something appropriate for that.

[timwatson]

You could place a photo based print behind the windows and fill in on the floor with some boxes and industrial style junk.

You could use a photo similar to this and tile it across the whole interior.

[garethashenden]

I'd like input on further development of this layout. It's not turning out to be what I had hoped for. First of all, it doesn't run well at all. My NW-2 works great but nothing else really works. I think this is caused by the street material being the same height as the rail top. I could fix it, but I'm not entirely sure I want to continue. I didn't give the entire concept enough thought when I started.

I think the box is a good idea. It's very nice to be able to put the whole thing away when I'm done and not worry about it being damaged. My current thoughts are the end of a small branchline, late 1940s. I'm thinking of either Hillsborough NH or Peterborough NH for inspiration, maybe stealing the best of both. Lets expand to two boxes, short side together with a third for a fiddle yard. So that's 28"x9.25" of useable layout space.

In that I'd like a small station, a run around for the station, a fuel dealer, and a team track. I've been wanting to have a go at hand laying track, so it will probably be handlaid code 40 throughout.

Any thoughts?