The road in town came to an end at the tracks in front of the left-most store. I have now extended the road out of town over 3 tracks to the edge of the layout. The yard maintenance area was now inaccessible to vehicular traffic, so I created access ramps to allow entry from the…

I’ve been fighting with this one on and off for several months now. Last year I bought an MTH Ellicott Mills dry goods transfer warehouse and located it on the layout in a nice big spot between the rail lines and the highway. I scenicked the lots and roads around it but couldn’t decide how…

It’s mid-summer in Bobotville and the weeds around the Railtown General Store parking lot are just about to get out of control.  I used a combination of Super Turf, Heki wildgrasses, dirt, fine turf, and small broken pieces of Super Trees.

24 hours later and I’m still waiting for my Scenic Express Concrete pads to dry. What to do?  Build a picnic table for outside your ice cream shop, of course. You can buy a 1.5″ O-Scale picnic table online for $12, but why, I thought.  I took some thin sheets of balsa wood and a straight…

Last year I created Main Street in my town.  At one end, there was an awkward space near the entrance to the yard where another full size building would not fit.  Also, Main Street came to a dead end and looked silly.  I thought for a long time on what to do with it. In…

Last year I created a mobile home scene, but never finished it.  Well now the dude who lives there has a road to get to his home and a lot to park in. Finally He’s been parking along Main Street and walking across the grass in his yard for over a year.  I put up…

I have another dead spot on my layout that now has scenery! My PA State Trooper’s cruiser hides behind this building Main Street in Anytown, PA, and beside him is a dirt/stone lot with some random wood, boxes, and barrels. I used a combination of 5 different ballasts, dirts, and soil turf to make the…

I have a couple “dead corners” on my layout. This one was on the town square so I thought I’d fix it up. I started with a foam core base primed with Gesso on both sides. The sidewalks are from Scenic Express, laser cut from balsa wood, and stained with creosote stain. Bricks are sheet…

I purchased grade crossing signals and circuit board from Custom Signals at the York meet. Installation requires use of insulated tracks on the blocks you are trying to protect. I needed to cut the outside rail about an engine length from the actual crossing on each side of the road to be protected. Then needed…