Modelling Maine Railroads

The left hand section of my new layout depicts the modelled industrial spur running parallel to the CP main, and on the plan I pencilled in a small railway-owned storage shed to add some visual interest to the scene. The shed wasn't based on any particular building, but instead was to be a sort of combination of various similar structures around Toronto.  As I don't have any foam core board yet to proceed with layout construction, I decided to scratchbuild one of the two buildings that should be necessary for this model railway. I hadn't scratchbuilt anything for a while, so I decided to build the storage shed first before tackling the Hinde and Dauch Paper Company building that is the focus of the right hand layout scene, as well as a rather large building. The shed was not built with any particularly interesting techniques - I used Mt. Albert scale lumber clapboard sheets for the walls and styrene sheet for the roof, which was then covered with masking tape to represent...

This does not, in any way, mean that I've abandoned the North Toronto Team Tracks layout. However, I've run into a bit of a problem as I can't move forward on construction for the layout until I can purchase more styrene strip in order to make curbs for the streets on the layout. Until then, though, I plan to work on a project that is feasible with materials I have on hand. Recently, I've been looking through the old posts of Chris Mears' excellent  Prince Street  blog. While looking through his blog, I came across his ideas for a model railway with tightly controlled viewpoints, showing only small scenes within a very large overall fascia. My explanation doesn't do the idea justice, but  here is the link to his original post on the concept.  At the time, I was quite intrigued by the idea, and as I had no layout at the time, I considered building a version of it. However, I was unable to come with a viable prototype for such a layout, and I eventually moved on...