"During the past year I have read your articles and found them very informative and helpful, and, sometimes quite humorous.

I should share with you and your readers my layout. I have a HO layout that fits into a 12ft.by 9ft. room.

It is a lumber and mining theme set in 1900’s.

It is point to point with an extra two tier helix in the furnace room for continuous running for grandchildren and visitors.

The layout is a design of my own with the name coming from a place I worked at before retirement.

The bench work is 1”x3” wood frame built in sections with 2”x2” legs. The height of the layout is 40”.

Foam sheets are then glued on top. The flex track is glued right on top of the foam board. The track work goes up to height of 46” at the mine and lumber camp.

The town of Cedar Falls has a station and many wood related industries. It is also the engine facility with a shop and a turn table.

The port of Cedar Bay is a shipping center for lumber, goods and ore carriers. One other feature is the lodge at Cedar Point.

This station is at Cedar Lake. It is a stopover with a diner for the passengers. Everything you see in this picture is scratch built.

There are other points of interest, namely, a sawmill, a mine, and a number of other industries.

Lumber is brought down from the logging sites to the mill, then cut up and then shipped to other industries.

The houses and buildings are all made of wood as you would see in a lumber town. All the structures are either scratch built or wood kits modified to meet the space.

The station is a Fine Scale Miniatures kit modified to fit between the tracks.

The large sawmill and the lodge were scratch built from pictures I found on the internet.

The turntable and engine facility are all scratch built. Nearly all the rolling stock is scratch built.

The rocks are made from moulds and plaster. They are then coloured with acrylic colours and washes.

The water is poured liquid water. The trees are either wound rope on wire or natural plants dried, sprayed and sprinkled with flocking.

The track is code 80 Peco Flex track with Peco turnouts mainly #6’s.

The ballast is my own. I get it from a gravel pit then sift it a number of times until it is the size I want. ( Make sure your ballast has no iron particles in it.)

I then use the larger stones around the layout. This keeps everything the same colour. The same goes true for the ground that shows. It is first painted with latex paint the colour of the ground and then real dirt from the farm and ground foam are sprinkled on top while the paint is still wet.

The locomotives are mainly 2-6-0 Bachmann steam. There are two shays and a climax. The CVL RR also owns a 2-4-4-0 steamer.

The layout is controlled with Digitrax DCC and nearly all have sound.

hope your modellers can take some ideas and use it on their own layouts. It is always nice to share ideas with other folks.

I also do not mind other modellers contacting me for information and help.

Now for the bad news, it had to be torn down as a result of having to move to a new place.

Do not worry folks, I have started over again.

If you wish, I will keep you posted as progress continues.

Al, keep up the good work and thanks again for your site.

Jim,

Ontario Canada"

A big thanks to Jim - and if you've enjoyed this post, there are hundreds more just like this on the newsletter.

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Best

Al"