A Scrapyard Odyssey

The question posed at the end of the last post is a not unreasonable one. “Why don’t I rebuild/recreate Wingett’s recycling in P:48?” It’s an idea with its merits. I had so much fun with it. It was built for exhibitions, and the viewer reaction to it was always positive. From the employees of the industry that inspired the model discussing it with me, to the gentleman at a World’s Greatest Hobby Show, who gave me his business card and told me to write up the layout for his magazine - Model Railroader. (Which to my great regret, I never did)

Wingetts Recycling as it was exhibited

It was different back then. Wingetts was built to a deadline, 7 days. It was blogged, day by day. Several times during the day. I’m not sure I could re-create that momentum and dare I say it, excitement? Working to proto standards. It might well take me a day to built a switch for example. 

The curved layout front and interested viewers

If I were to recreate it, the main purpose of the layout would be exhibiting, as always. I enjoy interacting one on one with people in the hobby at shows. These people may not have any idea about what I am presenting but I can engage them in conversation about the layout and hopefully they come away from it with something to think about. I present small/micro layouts to grab the interest of people who think they don’t have room for a model railway having seen basement filling empires in model railroad magazines. 

This time the purpose of the layout would be to show people that proto standards are attainable by average modellers. Also that proto, (and O scale) layouts can be built in a smaller space than you’d think.

I think I can certainly entertain some ideas about recreating the idea. It wouldn’t be an exact copy, scaled up but a development, another way to work on this concept. 

To a certain extent it means changing the emphasis of the first P:48 idea proposed earlier, from making the scrapyard a small part of the layout to making it all about the layout. But it worked once, so let’s see what I can come up with.