The road ahead

 So, we have some great models, track and scenic accessories coming or are here. Just what are my plans for them? 

As I mentioned in a previous post there probably won’t be anything in the immediate future. Not until next year at the earliest. I have other layouts to get ready for shows, and more relevantly, the items that I will probably want aren’t available yet. 

But that doesn’t stop me thinking, coming up with a concept. Some kind of plan. That helps to make things go faster when I get around to construction. So in the meantime I’m sure I’ll come up with plenty of concepts and schemes before I plump for one.

There’s lots of other things to consider too. I posted earlier about how I scratch built all the buildings for a previous layout. They were all made from card and meticulously hand scribed to represent stone. I’d like to make all my layout structures again. Not only because I enjoy it so much, but also living in the USA, anything British outline has to pretty much come from the UK. There’s a couple of retailers in Canada I have used in the past. But otherwise it’s mail order or a visit to a local hobby shop when I go home for a visit. 

Nowadays I use a lot of embossed styrene. What’s available to me from Evergreen and Plastruct to enable me to make a start?  Like siding to model a signal box or small station building for example. 

I know that with a lot of their building accessories like stairs, hand rails and ladders. Plastruct list a nominal scale. With their stairs and handrails, for example. I have used the same product on my 1:87 H0 scale and 1:72 00 scale structures. Yet if you look on the package it says the product is 1:100 scale. Just what is it? Is it 1:100? In which case it might pass for 1:120 scale. I’m inclined to think it’s better suited for 00 and H0 scale. 

However, with embossed sheets I’m inclined to think I might find something very near to what I would need for projects. If not exactly to scale. There’s an absolute plethora of different types of sheets in different sizes for different purposes. I’m going to have to do some digging to find out.