Scenery and Structures for the new Layout Design

@coach joe posted:

Nice! I had no idea so many O scale details are available.  I've been making due with HO stuff available at the hobby shops.  I guess I need to mail order more often.

Joe - Walthers is a good place to go to order O scale details from a bunch of manufacturers. They even sell Plastruct and Evergreen plastic.

Interesting @Joe Fauty...I had written off Walthers because they seemed to focus on any scale BUT 'O'. I may have to revisit them.

In parallel with working on scenery the next building project is going to be a sand house for the spur leading to the open air locomotive shed. I plan on storing my UP Mik there.
I have a Korber sand house kit but never liked the design of the tower so will modernize it a little bit. I may run a pipe to ground on one side of the track and have the tower on the other side.

I did some more scenery over the W/E

Joe,

I noticed in the first pic that you have a Lionel IR device in the corner. I never liked the fact that the device came mounted on a base that, IMHO, detracted from the realism of the accessory.

If you like to solder, the device can be disassembled so that the base can be mounted underneath the layout and only the IR cabinet mounted on the layout. The only hitch is that the wires between the cabinet and the base are not long enough to reach between the underneath and topside of the layout and have to be extended by a couple/few inches. Since the wires run through the layout, you have to solder in place.

The only other issue is that the cabinet will probably not be tall enough for the IR sensor to pick up the body of a moving train and you will need to build a small base for it to sit on. I made mine out of sheet styrene.

See bottom of pic.

Richie - an excellent idea!

What about just cutting a hole big enough for the cabinet, pushing the detector from the bottom so the only the cabinet is visible? We would have to figure out a way of holding the detector in place under the layout - maybe duck tape?

Did some thinking on above - it won't work. With the thickness of plywood and homasote the top of the detector won't show above the table. As you stated the detector would need to be taken apart and rewired.

The problem of the detector not being high enough also plagues my Z-Stuff detectors. They need to be raised also.