Next it is time to lay my first piece of track. 

First I carefully ran a fine bead of Barge Cement along the track ties on the bridge and the underside of the rails, then I had to wait 20 minutes for it to dry.

I had a few people really like my first blog post so I decided to go back through my photos and share the construction process of my current layout West Avenue.

Many years ago I bought the book Building City Scenery by John Pryke. Since then I have had a fascination with city street layouts. In 2013 my wife and I decide to move 1500kms interstate and across Bass Straight to Tasmania. I had just parted with my n scale micro and was in need of something to run trains and tinker with.

I thought i would share an old layout of mine i built about 2 years ago.

I was after a small project as i lived in a unit at the time. I based the plan around the John Allen time saver with a little tweak here and there. The idea was to attempt to do it on a tight budget. In the end i think it came in around $200 for everything on the layout. I scratch built all the buildings with scrap from other projects. Used card to form the bridges ect. It was good fun but in the end i moved it on so someone could enjoy it.

Vacation continues, and more work is done on the boxcar. It has a roof, grab irons, brake wheel, vent doors on the ends and some details on the door. Still to be done: stirrup steps, roofwalk, paint, lettering, and "distressing" of the finish.

I started adding fences to my PoLA layout. I ended up designing and etching my own fences as I wanted the barbed wire as an integral part of the fence.  I also designed some gates to go with the fences.   The fences will be available for sale from Alkem Scale Models if you want to try some yourself.  http://alkemscalemodels.biz/chain-link-fence/

Hi all.

Work on the show case is almost done!

I have two months to get it done becase there will be a show on the 19th and 20th in Santarém, a town noth to Lisbon.

Let's see what happens!

** UPDATE 3-1-16 Latch added to swing gate (page 13 on this thread)

** UPDATE 2-21-16 Video of doing my faux rust (page 13 on this thread)

** UPDATE 2-16-16 Rusty Crusty fascia faux painting (page 11 on this thread)

** UPDATE - 2-14-16 Painting / rusting the fascia (page 11 on this thread)

** UPDATE 2-12-16 - Adding more texture to the fascia (page 10 on this thread)

** UPDATE 2-10-16 - Fascia wording installed (page 7 on this thread)

**UPDATE 2-8-16 - Installing bands on the fascia (page 6 on this thread)

As my vacation continues, so does work on my freelance, narrow gauge freight cars. What was a basic chassis with ends and a deck yesterday, is now this:

3/4 view. Mostly stripwood, formed wire for grabirons, kadee On3 couplers. Still needs door hardware and a roof, and I think the door needs some kind of bracing board. Oh, and a brake wheel, and since this is supposed to be old-school, end ventilation hatches at some point.

This blog will chronicle the design and development of a proto freelance sectional layout in HO scale

Peter