Structures in tight places - 2
N
o matter what kind of layout you have, I’ll bet there
are some awkward corners somewhere. In my case,
there was one in particular. I had to move a layout of
the Southern Pacific in Los Angeles, which was in Los Angeles,
up to the Seattle area. And make it much smaller at the same
time, since I no longer had the time or the room for my former
garage-filling layout.
I managed to save and move a favorite part of downtown. The
buildings were packed away and this section cut from the old
layout, but when I reattached it to the new benchwork there
was an odd corner where tracks had formerly gone into a tun-
nel and though a backdrop. Now there was nothing. I even had
to scrape off the old track and ballast, since it’s nearly impos-
sible to save ballasted track. Actually, let’s not get your hopes
up if you are planning to relocate a layout – it is impossible!
The easiest way to fill corners is with trees and hills, but if you
model an urban area the only natural fillers would be cemeter-
ies or city parks, which are not normally found near tracks,
even though they would be fun to model. So that leaves build-
ings which are not only logical, but can hide where the tracks
end or disappear into a backdrop.
There had been two tracks leading to the tunnel, so I put back
two tracks, though this time as curving sidings. One would
disappear inside a covered loading dock, and the other down
an alley. The part of downtown LA that I model – called the
Rathole by crews who switched it – is stuffed with narrow
alleyways and a great variety of buildings, including some with
covered loading docks. I’ve not sure why they were covered
since it hardly ever rains in LA, but they sure are interesting to
switch. I made my first years ago, building it from scratch, but
since then Walthers has come out with several models having
covered loading docks, and I was anxious to try one.
Since there was little space to fill, I didn’t even need a full kit.
I got the Cornerstone Heritage Furniture Background Building.
Though it is meant to be used parallel to the background, I
planned to reconfigure it so it would be perpendicular, and
hide the end of the track. The kit was surprisingly similar to
an actual warehouse in the area I model – the Haas Iris Foods
1a-1b: The prototype buildings that are the inspiration
of this article. They are located in LA and I vividly
remember watching the business being switched.
1b
1a
Filling in that
awkward corner ...
MRH-Feb 2014
