Mount Lowe Micro-Layout in Voie Libre #126!

The Mount Lowe Railway is featured in the latest issue of Voie Libre, #126, July / August / September 2026. I've only seen what you see over there on the left, which I saw in an ad that popped into my Inbox today. I submitted 46 photos - photos not seen here ! - so I'm curious as to which ones appear. I anxiously await its arrival in my mailbox! 

As they say on tv: Don't delay, get yours today! Quantities are limited! French and English editions are available!

Ok, so much for shameless self promotion. For penance it looks like the ! key on my keyboard may need repair :-(

A Short Biography of Thaddeus Lowe via the BBC

Here's the link to the podcast.

As part of their A History of the United States in 100 Objects podcast series the BBC features the biography of Thaddeus Lowe - yes, that Thaddeus Lowe, of Mount Lowe Railway fame - in episode 4. His story begins at the start of the American Civil War, continues on through the creation of the Mount Lowe Railway, and ends with Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, orbiting the Moon. Give it a listen. You won't be disappointed.

Mid-Century Basement*

Popular Mechanics, Dec '54; Model Railroad With Sound Effects

"... Tolcua Lines, the big central system that is located in the basement of Chet Tayloe's home in North Hollywood, Calif.

To provide the space he needed for the joint railroad system Tayloe had to remove 60 truck loads of dirt from under his home, then build new foundations to support the house. The model layout is 65 feet long and 25 feet wide and there is a sunken way along its center from which all parts of the layout may be reached. The system is actually two systems in one, there being some 1200 feet of "O" gauge (1/4 inch to the foot) and 800 feet of "O" narrow-gauge track.

Two months ago the final "mile" of narrow-gauge track was completed and the occasion was fittingly noted by a "golden spike" ceremony attended by model railroaders of the neighborhood, including Dick Wessel, television star who helped build some of the background scenery, and by A. D. Jack Scott, paint-store manager who installed some of the narrow-gauge trackage."

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* Digressions

Awhile back Vince alerted me to this old Popular Mechanics article. It's a fantastic model railroad, but I must admit I was most taken by the layout illustration at the end of the story done in classic mid-century modern style. I love that style of illustration, and this picture in Popular Mechanics reminded me of the Bill Baron illustration I stumbled across in 2020.

I was surprised to read in the article about the attendance of actor Dick Wessel at the Golden Spike ceremony, and that he was referred to as a model railroader. Although I couldn't find mentions of any layouts by Mr. Wessel in Model Railroader magazine, I did find two full length articles about the Tolcua Lines: A visit to Tolcua, Aug '65; 45 years of the Toluca Lines, Mar '73.

Interestingly Chet Tayloe has a 2-page article in the Feb '73 issue about a 1/4" scale model he created of the Echo Mountain cable incline on the Mt. Lowe railway. The article notes: "Two of the passengers [JDL: of the real cable incline railway] in the 1920s were Chet Tayloe and his bride on their honeymoon."

The Mount Lowe Railway Alcove

The stand rotates so all faces can be made visible.

Just in time for Christmas

The Mt. Lowe layout emerges from the workshop for a Christmas appearance. Here's what it looked like around this time last year.

Of Painted Backdrops, Mt. Lowe, and E. L. Moore

One of the backdrops hanging from the curtain rod support ready for a photo shoot.

I've been working on painting two backdrops to be used when shooting Mt. Lowe layout glamour shots. They're fairly big things: 30" x 40" illustration boards painted with artist's acrylics. 

I haven't done these sorts of paintings before and was a little reticent about getting started. At first I thought maybe I should get a couple enlargements made of photos I took on the Mt. Lowe trail to use as backdrops, but gave up on that because they wouldn't look right. They'd be 'photo realistic' and the layout would be 'craft realistic'. The two forms of realism wouldn't go together.

I finally realized that even if my backdrop paintings were rough-and-ready things it didn't matter too much because in any given photo not much of the background would be visible. There'd just be hints of sky and distant mountains. Once I realized this I didn't have any problem diving in and having a go.

The second backdrop.

The skies are just loose mixes of Liquitex cobalt blue and titanium white acrylic tube paints. For the mountain profiles I first troweled on some Golden brand Fiber Paste to give them some texture as I didn't think I could create convincing textures with paint alone. Once the paste was hardened I painted on colours I used on the layout's mountains. When that was dry I applied some thin washes of cobalt blue to create a little aerial perspective.

Backdrop painting E. L. Moore used for his Canal Boats article.

This work on backdrops got me thinking about the backdrop work E. L. Moore did for his photo setups, especially the one I think he used for his unpublished Canal Boats article. I still don't know if he painted this one or any of the others he used over the years. I wouldn't be surprised if he did, but I don't have any supporting evidence.

A Gemini colourization of the Canal Boats backdrop painting.

Be that as it may, I started to wonder what that Canal Boats backdrop painting would look like colourized. I asked Gemini to colour it, and that image up there is what it produced. It's quite credible, and Gemini seems to have done a little restoration to the image as well.

Looking through E. L. Moore's photos it looks like he used a number of painted backdrops over the years. I'm curious to see if Gemini could strip out the foreground images, fill in missing backdrop imagery from the stripped areas, and colourize the result to create pictures of what those backdrops might have looked like. An interesting project for another time.

Test photo for glamour shots

A test shot for composition with the partially completed backdrop

I've been working on painting a backdrop for when I take glamour shots of the layout. This is the first time I've tried my hand at backdrop painting. I'm using acrylics on a piece of 30" x 40" illustration board.

Normally when playing with this layout it would be set up opposite the couch in the family room so there wouldn't be any backdrop present. This is purely so I can take photos of scenes I have in my mind.

Early sky layers

I see a lot of things to tune-up in the photo, but I'm liking the direction things are heading. I have a vision of the adventure I'd like to see in these photos, and I'm getting more positive that I'll be able to realize it.

A base for the Mt. Lowe layout

The layout on the base mock-up.

Before starting on shooting layout glamour photos I thought I'd finish building the mockup for the base. Who knows, maybe this will become more than a mockup and be the actual base.

Trefoil base plates are rough cut with a Japanese handsaw.

When I set aside base construction last year I had the three tubes cut out and covered with that wood grain contact paper for a 70s Radio Shack look. The trefoil tube arrangement supported the layout quite well.

Marking the location of the bearing on a foam plate.

Sometime last year Galen suggested mounting the layout on some sort of bearing so it could be turned around for better viewing. I was intrigued by that idea, but I had to resolve a few problems before it became viable. First was the layout had a power cord sticking out of it for plugging into a controller. If it were to rotate, the layout couldn't have any external power or control cables coming out of it. In keeping with the 70s vibe I decided to build in a battery powered controller to solve that problem. With the benefit of hindsight I'd probably make use of an external wireless controller in future projects. 

Plate edges were shaped with a rasp and smoothed with a sanding block

Then there was finding a suitable turntable bearing. The one I eventually settled on is a bit of overkill as it's rated to support a 750 lb load (!), but it cost less than $30 and had the diameter I was looking for, so the decision was easy.

Exposed portions of the base plates are painted with black acrylic.

For awhile I thought I'd use plywood or chipboard for the base's trefoils, but 1" thick foam sheets that are used for house insulation won out. The load to be supported is minimal (I should weigh the layout, but I'll simply comment that it is "quite light" ) and this material is good enough for supporting light loads like those often encountered with micro-layouts. It's easy to work with too. All I ever use is a small handsaw for rough cutting, a rasp for final shaping, and a small sponge sanding block for smoothing edges.

Transfer tape was used to bond the turntable bearing to the foam plates.

Finally, in the mockup spirit, I decided to bond the bearing to the foam trefoils with transfer tape. The tape provides a surprisingly strong bond. I've used it extensively in layout construction, so I thought I'd use it here too to make construction quick and easy.

Top and bottom plates have been bonded to the turntable bearing.

The bottom of the base panel that rests on the floor has a some anti-slip material bonded to it. Again, I used transfer tape for this. The part I haven't figured out is how to attach the layout to the tubes. If someone bumps the layout, it could take a heartbreaking tumble. Of course, if the layout were attached to the tubes the whole thing could still be tipped over because it's rather top heavy. I might need to add some weight inside those tubes to try to make that harder to do. Well, that's what experiments and mockups are for: finding out this sort of stuff. 

Anti-slip material is bonded to the bottom of the base

Well, that's basically it for construction. The tubes were stood on the base and temporarily held in place with good, old duct tape. Here's a video of me 'taking the base out for a spin':

I see a few things that need to be fixed, so it's back to the workshop for me.

Done

Friday afternoon, while I was in the workshop installing the final trolley wire support arm, I had a feeling come over me that the layout was now done. Done in the sense that all the things I wanted to appear on the layout were now in place, the trolley ran, and the layout could be shown to civilians in the right setting. 

The old saying that a layout is never really done I can see applying here even though I've declared the layout done. There'll still be primping, tuning the details here and there, and maybe even adding some minor ones. And there's the stand that needs finishing, but it's the stand.

So, it's done.

Genesis of a Micro-Layout

This layout has been a long time in the making. I first had the idea of building something inspired by the Mt. Lowe railway back in 2014 after a stay in Pasadena. However, I had no idea how to proceed.

In the spring of 2015 we visited the Los Angeles area again and I was able to hike a portion of the Mt. Lowe trail in the San Gabriel mountains which runs along the old roadbed of the Mt. Lowe railway. Bad weather and scheduling constraints prevented me from hiking the entire route.

Throughout 2015 and 2016 I toyed with the idea of building a Mt. Lowe inspired layout in N-scale. Strangely enough as a test piece for the layout I built a model of the railway's observatory. Nothing else came of that layout idea.

It wasn't until January 2020, just before the pandemic, that I was able to return to Mt. Lowe and resume hiking the trail. Again, I was only able to hike part as ice and snow made the trail a bit too risky for me. Near the end of that trip I caught what we now know as covid-19, but at the time no one knew exactly what it was. I had a miserable flight home and from news reports we watched I expected to be quarantined when we landed in Montreal. That didn't happen, but I was so sick I stayed home for about three weeks.

In the fall of 2023 after reading a few interesting pieces by Bill Schopp on trefoil shaped layouts in some old Railroad Model Craftsman magazines a light went on in my head and I finally had an idea on how to build a layout that captured what I wanted to express, and wouldn't take years and years to construct. By this time I had also dabbled with micro-layouts for a few years. My experiences with the Loonar Module and the Centennial Experimental Farm had opened my eyes to other forms and approaches that could allow me to express things I previously found inexpressible.

Instead of starting with an observatory I wised up and started the layout by building a trolley inspired by Thaddeus Lowe's personal trolley. The scale was S and the gauge 9 mm. It took a lot of thinking before I settled on that scale and gauge. Things like how I could build a viable trolley from commercial drive units, support tight curves on the layout, deal with steep grades, availability of figures and scenic accessories, provide adequate clearances, and so forth factored into the decision. By starting with the trolley this gave me a vehicle to test grades and curves to see how steep they could be on the layout, and assess what sort of clearances and dimensions I'd need. This was very important, so much so that I'm thinking of writing a future post on general trefoil layout design principles and the necessity of testing designs with rolling stock.

In June 2024 I finally made a serious start on the layout. By the end of June the track was installed and the trolley could run along it. And, you may not believe it, but the area of the layout's footprint is 4 square feet, the upper limit on micro-layout size. 

Building up the terrain was a long process. The big new technique I learned on this project was casting rock molds from latex and later using them to create the layout's rocky terrain. The mountains' basic form though was built up from styrofoam sheets. By August 2024 the final shapes were starting to emerge; by September the shapes were defined enough to begin solidifying the mountain structure and do final shaping with spray foam.

October 2024 was more-or-less dedicated to surfacing the mountain with Cel-U-Clay, making use of the latex rock molds. Creating the mountain surfaces was a big job and continued well into December. I kept working on the mountains into January of this year, but by this point I was wrestling with painting the mountains as shaping them was wrapping up.

You know, for a guy who considers himself a structures guy, I didn't start building structures until February. I started with the station at Poppyfield Flats because it seemed the simplest to me, and then went on to build the lookout at Inspiration Point, and then what I considered the most difficult structure, the Circular Bridge. The last structure, the Observatory, was almost an after thought to help sort out a design problem, unlike the observatory on the ill-conceived N-scale layout which was the first thing I built. 

Amongst all the structure building there was a considerable amount of tree 'manufacturing'. 

Later, much, much later, I built a simple passenger car for the trolley to pull. 

Interspersed amongst all these significant projects was a lot of detail work. There was construction and installation of trolley wire support poles and arms, trolley wire installation, tree installation, layering on of ground cover and bushes, and lots of odds-and-ends work that is too persnickety to write about.

Again, much later during construction, in August, I changed my mind on how the layout should be powered and controlled. At first I merely provided a power jack for an external controller to plug into, but came to think the controller's power cord would inhibit play. I then scratchbuilt a battery-powered controller into the side of the layout so it would have stand-alone power and control. On a future project maybe utilizing some sort of wireless handheld controller would be better.

Now, all this may make it sound like I had a master plan right from the get-go and simply followed it to the end without any hiccups. I did have plans at the beginning. I wouldn't start a project like this without them, but once I got started there were lots of detours, changes of mind, conundrums that left me stumped for awhile, times when I just stared at the layout and thought about its design, mistakes, fumbles, and realizations about things I'd do different next time. Many of them are documented in the posts that can be found stamped with the Mt. Lowe tag. Some I'll take to the grave :-)

What's Next

Taking photographs to capture what's in my mind's eye is on the horizon and could last for a few months. Then there's the lead up to Christmas. I want the layout to be looking and behaving its best so I can show it off during the holiday season.

The Future

?

Dante's Staircase

Where once stood a proper stairway and winch,

now only remnant remains, 

against which a measly ladder leans, 

that leads to a string of metal steps and

a drooping chain handrail. 

Ascent is not for the faint of heart.

Planning discussion while awaiting the trolley

Crossing the Circular Bridge

Testing continues now that a lot of the scenic work is wrapping up. I need to give the track and trolley chassis a good cleaning. There's a little bit of stuttering and hesitation during the loop. So far so good though.

Six Seconds in the Mountains

Shot during a test run of the trolley and passenger trailer. I've removed the trolley's overhead pickup pole on this run. The trolley is just leaving the Circular Bridge and is heading for the stop at Inspiration Point.

27 Trees

Layout cranked up to nearly the ceiling.

When I work on my little layouts I do so at a standing desk that I've put on wheels, equipped with a 2' x 4' hardboard top, and has a crank so I can move that surface up and down. It comes in quite handy when it's time to add scenery as I can crank the top surface up and down as well as turn the whole thing to various angles since it's on wheels. This allows me to get a variety of views while I'm adding things.

Over the last few weeks I've been adding trees to fill out the scenes. There're 27 in total. Funny thing is back in May I thought I had made too many trees! Turns out I was right and wrong. I had a few too many tall ones and not enough small ones, so I had to make some little trees to balance out the scenes.

The other side.

These days I'm adding rock debris and shrubbery. At one time I thought I would put in the effort to accurately replicate chaparral found in the region, but I've given up on that and decided to keep with the more simplified and somewhat abstract look I've started with the trees. I'm focusing on size, placement, and colour instead of fidelity to 'prototype'. 

Adding shrubs and other foliage is taking a surprisingly long time. Ok, I'm the problem because as usual my method is to add a bit, have a look, add a little more, take a break, look again, and so on - my standard operating procedure on this layout. So, you can see why it's a long process :-)

Design notes on bases for dioramas and micro-layouts

Base for Moon Mail Madness diorama after Cell-U-Clay had hardened.

I thought I’d spend a little time writing down my thoughts on how bases for dioramas and micro-layouts should be designed; well, maybe I should back off a bit and say these notes are about how I like to design bases. I think about this topic from time-to-time and it popped into my mind again after participating in the recent scale model show held here so I figured maybe this was a good time to put some notes together. I don’t claim any originality or universality here. No doubt many modellers have gone down this road too and touched on many of the same ideas. I can’t say that these notes apply to all situations; your mileage may vary :-)

I used the models to sketch on a big sheet of paper how each would be positioned on the base.

Ok, let’s move on to the first topic. These notes aren’t in any particular order, just what pops into my head as I write.

The arrangement went through several iterations; this one is close to the final

Inspiration: MacRae, Smith, Bennett, Adams, + ...

To me a diorama isn’t just a few objects or figures set on a base to show off a model in a more favourable light as implied by the show’s flyer, which noted that for their purposes we’re looking at a diorama when the following condition is met: “As soon as ANY [JDL: All caps theirs] objects are added to the bases other than the model, it will be classed as a “diorama””. To me a diorama, in the context of scale model work, isn’t simply a collection of objects, but is a model display that tells a story. The story is the primary feature and the models support the telling. A few objects or figures on a base accompanying a model isn’t a diorama, it’s simply a way of displaying a model to best advantage.

From time-to-time eye level views were assessed as the arrangement was iterated.

I’m much inspired by the dioramas of Bruce MacRae, especially his Wine Tasters diorama, as well as the scenes constructed by Michael Paul Smith, Amy Bennett, and Kim Adams. 

Now the work of Smith and Bennett aren’t dioramas in the sense that scale modellers use. Smith created what could be considered temporary scenes for purposes of photographing them, and the temporary scenes Bennett builds are for creating paintings from. However, the key here is they both use models to create scenes that tell stories. 

The objects Kim Adams makes are closer to that of classic model making diorama-ists, but the content of his work is very different. His stories are often ones of exploration into alternative possibilities of our physical world, not just highly detailed reflections of it.

But, the connecting thread running through the work of all four artists is that the centre of interest in their dioramas isn’t one or two particularly well detailed models, but stories. 

Scraps of foam sheet to be used to make the base.

In the model railroading world, E. L. Moore is my main influence. Not everything he built centred on a story, but a lot did. Over the last few years I've been impressed by the layouts shown in the French magazine Voie Libre. Ok, yes, this has an air of shameless self-promotion since a few photos of the Loonar Module appeared there in 2023 in a micro-layout feature, but in my defence I submitted photos there for a couple of reasons. I was impressed by the small layouts they'd written about over the previous 3 or 4 years, and I had never seen a layout set in a Canadian scene by an actual Canadian in their pages! I wanted to fix that injustice :-) The rest is history :-)

I quite enjoy all the layouts Voie Libre has featured, but I especially like the work of Bernard Junk and Detlev Horn, notably their layout called The Island.

Continental Modeller is also a good place to see innovative layouts. And, yes, yes, more shameless self-promotion, the Centennial Experimental Farm layout appeared in its pages this year. 

All I'm saying is that there's a lot of interesting work going on in the wide world of model railroad layouts

Tracing template was cut out after finalizing the arrangement.

Shape: Base Shape Helps Story

The footprints of many dioramas and small layouts are simple geometric shapes: squares, rectangles, circles, and ovals. This is quite understandable as these are readily obtainable in the form of pieces of wood, picture frames, display plaques, and so on. I’ve come to think though that the footprint should help tell the diorama’s story.

Sometimes foam sheets were glued together to make suitably sized pieces

I didn’t really understand this when I built the Loonar Module. I used 2’ x 2’ by 1” thick insulating foam sheets for the base because they were easy to buy at the local home renovation store. But, I wound up building a round island on a square lake! It turned out ok, but if there’s a next time the base’s footprint will reflect the story since water isn’t square :-)

Later, when I was building the Centennial Experimental Farm layout I could have just gone ahead with a rectangular footprint for the base, but I thought it more appropriate for the base to be rectangular at the Carling road end since the road was all straight edges, and rounded at the streetcar return loop at the farm end. There it matched the graceful loop of the track, and didn’t present dead corners to be filled in as it would if this end was also square. So, curved lines at the natural end, and straight edges at the urban end.

A layer ready for cutting out with a hand saw and knife.

The Mt. Lowe layout is where I’ve really started to apply the ’base shape helps story’ principle. Mt. Lowe had several scenes that I wanted to capture, but they had to be somewhat separated from each other. The trefoil seemed to help realize that desire with its three prominent lobes, each providing a separate scenic area. Thinking about the trefoil’s scenic potential a bit more I realized its footprint actually allows for 7 scenes: the 3 lobes, the 3 concavities connecting the lobes, and the aerial view, which in this case is a mountain top observatory.

Lots of scraps and foam dust after cutting out the pieces.

With the Moon Mail Madness diorama I took the principle further. As you can see in this post’s photos I designed the base’s shape as I used the models to sketch out the story; both developed at the same time. And what is the story? It’s a slice of life in the lunar postal service: two lunar postal workers meet at a crossroads and one takes a photo of the other as he begins to remove letters from a mailbox :-) I thought the base’s footprint should match the shape of the road intersection to emphasize the crossing. Also, why make the base square or rectangular and have to deal with dead space that needs filling? The only external limit on the footprint was the show’s specified requirement that all dioramas had to fit in a 2’ x 2’ area, not be a 2’ x 2’ area, which was no problem fulfilling.  

White glue holds the stack together. A rasp and sanding blocks used to form the final shape.

Presence: A Subtle Call to Look

Over the years I’ve come to like thick bases for dioramas and small layouts. 

A lot of dioramas and small layouts I’ve seen present the viewer with a decent top side model and scene set on a thin, platter-like base. Sort of like a meal that has been put on a dinner plate. Some might say, well it’s the modelling that’s of interest and not what it’s sitting on, much like it’s the meal that’s important and not the plate below.

An anti-slip mat was cut and glued to the bottom of the base.

To me though a diorama or layout is a complete, integrated object; a type of three-dimensional sculpture. A diorama doesn’t consist of a good part (the model work) that is to be enjoyed and an irrelevant support part (the base) that is to be ignored. The base’s footprint helps to tell the story, and its height helps to command you to look at that story by establishing the diorama or layout’s physical presence amongst all other objects that vie for a viewer’s attention.

This is another idea that at first I didn’t fully appreciate. The Loonar Module’s base is 3 foam sheets thick because I wanted it to be quite rigid and strong. Mission accomplished. However, looking at the result over weeks and months I felt the thick base gave the layout a solid look that I quite liked. It seemed like the island actually was rooted in something, not just sitting on something.

Anti-slip mat trimmed to fit the bottom of the base.

On the Centennial Experimental Farm I deliberately made the base height about the same as what I thought the tallest tree would be. It seemed odd to me to have big, tall trees (completely to scale regarding height and canopy volume) sticking out of a base no thicker than a pizza box. It didn’t seem balanced. It didn’t seem substantial.

However, like the Loonar Module’s base, I painted it black because I didn’t want the base to draw attention to itself. Its job was simply to say “here’s a story” and bring it to a viewer’s attention, not be the story. The base is to be the strong silent type component in this object we call a diorama: it provides structural support, it’s footprint provides narrative support, it’s height makes a call for attention and visually balances the models, but it tries to do all this in a subtle manner, not calling unnecessary attention to itself. 

The mailbox rise is glued to the base. Note commercial vac-formed crater to the right.

Moon Mail Madness violates the subtly principle a little with the inclusion of the postcard. I thought it would help the overall story, and it tries to be subtle while doing so. Sometimes on layouts that are structured like framed paintings instead of sculptural objects you’ll see a lot of labels, stickers, photos, warnings, awards, and other ephemera attached to the surround. That’s all too loud and distracting for me. The layout needs to speak for itself. Likewise, dioramas need to speak for themselves. They shouldn’t need any supporting documentation or ephemera hanging around trying to divert attention.

Crater glued on. White glue spread on foam prior to applying Cell-U-Clay.

Materials: Sheet Foam

I use foam sheets for my bases because they are lightweight, strong when laminated, easy to cut and shape, and low cost. I learned a hard lesson when I built the portable Lost Ocean Line layout from wood. It became too heavy to be very portable by me alone. Other materials can certainly be used. Foam sheets aren’t some magic one-size-fits-all solution, but I’d say put the wood back in the rack if it isn’t completely necessary. If you’re using wood for decorative reasons, that’s a different story.

Spare Moonscope wheel was used to roll in tracks.

On the Loonar Module I sided the base with sheet styrene to give it a smooth finish. I’ve subsequently learned that isn’t completely necessary. Smoothing the foam sides and then painting them with an artist’s quality acrylic will produce a decent finished surface. Although foam sides may seem a bit rough and soft after shaping and smoothing, the acrylic paint acts as a binder to solidify the surface as well as provide colour. Think of the paint job as applying a surface binder that just so happens to have a colour, which is black in my case. 

After 2 weeks of curing, cheap acrylic paints were used to colour the surface

Eye Level: An unresolved problem

I’ve always thought that the conventional way scale models (plastic models, train layouts, doll houses, every category really) are shown and displayed is odd. I think the best way to view them is at eye level because, usually, that’s how we encounter their real life counterparts. Yet, models are usually displayed so that the most common viewing angle is from above. I understand the practical reasons for this, but it doesn’t do justice to the models and the work of their makers. By setting out models on tables of conventional height only small children get the best views :-) 

Maybe conventional tables augmented with some sort of leg extensions would do the trick for model shows. Combined with showing dioramas or layouts with thick bases, this might almost solve the eye level viewing problem. Or maybe not. If you’re a long time reader here I’ve tried some experiments to fix this issue over the years, but haven’t been satisfied yet with the results. 

Ready for adding the models.

These aren't likely my final thoughts on the subject. They simply capture a few aspects of my current thinking. 

Oh, and before I run off for coffee, Sheperd Paine's book How to build Dioramas is always good to consult. Maybe I'll dive in again while coffee's brewing.

Awaiting the show.

The utility passenger car is ready to roll!

 It didn't take much more work to add a bench and canopy to the flat car. 

All the framework is styrene and I think the photo tells all about how it was built. The canopy itself is cut from a piece of vellum. 

The canopy frame has a bit of a crazy twist to it, but when it's rolling along the layout it looks right at home, twist and all.

Making a start on a utility passenger car

The 'passenger' car is simply a flat car with a bench. Here's the flat car part. Bench is still to come.

On-and-off over the past few weeks I've made a start on a very simple, open air passenger car for the Mt. Lowe layout. It's based on one I saw a plan for in this book:

This is one of the best RR books I've read. Highly recommended!

The Portage Railway, aka the Hunstville and Lake of Bays Transportation Company, was a narrow gauge railway that ran in Huntsville, Ontario from 1904 to 1959 and not in California's San Gabriel Mountains as did the Mt. Lowe railway. Strangely though, I don't have a problem with that. For this little layout I think this Ontario vintage, barebones people hauler - the so-called 'canopied inspection wagon' that is basically a bench on a flatcar with a canopy above - stylistically fits in with the overall scene. Plan 7 in the book's drawings section spells out the configuration and dimensions. 

A peek at the book's drawing as I work out dimensions

Two changes I plan to make to the car are: 1) change the height of the bench above the flat car's floor, and 2) make the canopy's supports a little less flimsy. The bench's seat seems a little low and the canopy looks like it would blow off in a light breeze, so both of these will be changed once I start work on passenger accommodations. 

For now though, the task at hand is building the basic flat car.

Based on a Peco NR-122 wagon chassis

I'm basing this project on a Peco N-scale wagon chassis kit; it's their so-called 15' wheelbase steel type chassis, kit # NR-122. I had bought a couple of these kits a long time ago to try my hand at building E. L. Moore's narrow gauge coaches. That didn't happen, but these chassises seemed just the right thing for this project.

HO scale Kadee couplers - leftovers from my spares box - were used.

It turns out I did at one time make a start on those E. L. Moore coaches. I had built up a Peco kit for one before setting the project aside. This meant I had to do some rather crude chopping on the chassis to replace the kit's couplers with some HO-scale Kadee units. 

Styrene strips were added to restore the deck after chopping the chassis for the couplers.

Super glue was used to stick the couplers to the chassis. You can see in the above photo I had to restore some of the hacked and chopped chassis with styrene strips to restore solidity to the thing. Those pieces are the same thickness as the metal weight that is provided in the kit.

Once all this basic structural work was done the next task was to build up the deck with pieces of styrene. I followed much the same procedure as with last year's trolley project.

This post's lead photo and the one above give you an idea of what the built-up deck looks like. I didn't strictly follow the prototype in the book. My rendition was more driven by scrap styrene I had on hand to build up something that seemed plausible. 

The couplers sit rather low and only about half are gripped by the trolley's couplers. Well, I've taken the flat car for many spins around the track and they don't decouple, so I'll declare the couplers ok even though they are very unprototypical - they work, so I guess that's some sort of prototypicalness :-)

Now it's on to a bench and canopy.