More layout mock-ups

After having dinner with my mom, I stopped by Home Depot on the way home to pick up some materials to continue testing benchwork designs. I got a couple sheets of 1 inch foam and some premium pine 1x2s.

Various models from my collection used to mock-up the benchwork.

I used the 1x2s as stringers supporting  the 1 inch styrofoam base. I clamped some scrap 1x2s to the legs of the Ivar shelves. The resulting benchwork was very stiff, especially the long span across the top of the TV where there will be 4 feet without any legs.


As I examined the benchwork and its interaction with the TV and shelves, I realized that I could drop it by the thickness of the 1x2 stringers. I was concerned with  the benchwork interfering with the TV screen, but when viewing the TV from the chairs, the slight lines are not blocked. In fact, the lower benchwork makes the underside of the layout harder to see.   The lower benchwork is desirable as it means I can more easily add a track under the stairs to make a fiddle yard.

In looking over the rest of the space, I ruled out the optional location of the staging track along the stairs. That was just not going to work. If I want to use off layout staging, it will have to be in the closet.

A Geared Bulk ship dwarfs the BNSF locos

One objective of this harbor layout is to show how the ships dominate the trains, To that end, I would like to have larger ship models, or at least one large ship on the layout.

I revised the drawing slightly to allow for a larger (wider or beamier) ship at the pier. However, some on-line research found some multipurpose cargo ships that are longer than the Anna Marie, but with the same beam. Adding a nine inch extension to the Anna Marie would be easy. That brings Anna Marie up to 106m in prototype length.

Example of a half hull merchant steam ship model

I also drew a half hull 140m ship to see how it would look.  This would be a scratch build model, but being only a half hull, and waterline model would be much easier to make. It  might be just as effective as a full hull in this location. It is worth investigating. I plan to do a more detailed mock up of a half hull to see how it looks.   Half hulls are very common in ship modeling to show hull features. They usually don't have deck fixtures or rigging detail, but this model in the photo below shows how one such model would look.