OH, OH HERE'S OO

I have got to admit it, many of the good suggestions for things in my train room come from Mary Jane. And this one certainly did. Part of our afternoon ritual is for her to join me in the train room for tea. And being held in the train room means that if there are things that bother her, they get discussed. One of those “things” was my preference for collecting and displaying trivia items in shelves under the layout. One of those held a Gilbert microscope and chemistry set - neither of which were near mint. She thought them boring. So finally I said “what would be better?” Mistake. She quickly replied, “why don’t you do a little layout there.”

Well, you don’t just do a “little layout” in a 40 inch wide space - unless you are a OO collector. Actually I am not a major OO collector, but have enjoyed a small Lionel and Tru Scale collection since the early ‘80s. After two unsuccessful attempts to incorporating two rail OO layouts into my prewar layout, they have been relegated to display shelves.

But Mary Jane’s prompting got me thinking, I do have one three rail Lionel Hudson, and a circle of three rail track just might fit into that 40” wide space. Quick checks of track dimensions confirmed that I actually could put a small oval of track on a shelf in that space. The problem was I had only two rail track with its 50 inch diameter. But a call to a friend who happens to be a major OO gauge collector and he located an oval of three rail track that would fit the space.

In the meantime, the old shelves were removed and a piece of 3/4 inch plywood was cut to rest on runners attached to legs under the layout. Some colorful paint, edge trim and blue painted cardboard for a backdrop and an almost instant layout was born. Power was supplied by a RW transformer. An overhead fluorescent lamp brightens the whole scene.

All that remained was to scenic the layout. A couple of bags of trees from the ceramic building section of a local craft store and some old dime store metal autos helped give life.  But the main attraction was to be some prewar mansions, bungalows, a litho’d station , #092 signal tower and the #1569 027 accessory set. These almost proved too easy. The latest York train meet seemed to teem with houses. Never have I seen more choices available. So two mansions and a boxed set of five bungalows came back to Arizona. A #48W whistle station was also easy. But finding a #092 tower didn’t work, I only saw one there. And for some reason I never saw any of the #1569 accessories. So upon arriving home I took a signal tower off the prewar layout and started the ultimate search for the accessory set - Ebay. Bingo, a couple months later I was the proud owner of a very nice black and gray set.

The town lights up and the Hudson starts chugging in its little circle. Now Mary Jane is casting her eyes on some shelves that need repainting.

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