NMBS Danny

Years ago I bought a ready made out of the box Hornby Signal box second hand described as "R503 signaling Box". These where sold as toys in the 70's, so you can put some houses next to the track on the living room carpet. This is how a lot of us started the hobby, and will bing back memories when railway modeling was on a low budget and we dreamt of the layouts a lot of us have now. And I thought it would be fun to use this as a base to start a scratch build on. So I take you on a tour how I go ahead. All sort of materials will be used, from cardboard to 3D printed parts. I don't like flat printed structure such as brik or stone, to me there must be structure. So I started to cut out Wills thin brick work, also use for tunnels. This is my favorite brick work because it's quite thin and very easy to cut, strong, and not too thick to glue against existing structure. After the brickwork was cut to size glued it on to the signal box. Next thing I did today was cutting out the molded plastic interieur with a Dremel cutter. Sometime one has to destroy first to start the build, a bit like renovating a house. Next thing is to make a plank floor, but that's for next post…

Hi, I've just become a member of the RM Forum, and thought this maybe a good way to start. I personally live in Belgium, most of my career I've been an international train driver, and for more than a year retired. Half my family is British, so there's my connection to the UK. Collected model trains for more than 50 years, last 25 years only 00 gauge British all in DCC, but no sound (looks nice but don't personally like all the noice). Also have some antique stuff, mostly O gauge in live steam, clock work and electric going as far as 1885, but that's not the reason I'm on this forum. I prefer Era 1-3, and although I'm collected for so long, never had a real layout due to lack of time, but since my retirement things have become more serious to layout building. At the moment I'm in the planning stage, and have started building layout parts such as buildings and station infrastructure. My plan Is part indoor, part garden rail all in OO gauge. The indoor will be mainly station, and can be divided in 3 themes in 3 levels. The bottom level is a half cut, of the oldest part of Baker Street Underground station in London arround 1900. Mid level is my personal fictive Baker Street, cutting from front to back, where the house of a famous detective at 221B really exists, all is set in Edwardian high street style, so lots of horse traffic, trams etc. The left side of my Baker Street are half build back wall shops, houses and access to the underground leaning to a dividing wall. And the right side is a retaining station wall with build in shops and one of the entrances to the higher level station. A railway bridge crosses my Baker Street. Top level Right, is a late Edwardian station (just before WW1) in GWR style ( although all trains of the big 4 will run in). The station is mainly a head station, except for two rails, going over Baker Street bridge through a dividing wall and there will be a model of LMR Liverpool edge hill cutting around 1830's, from the tunnels to the Moorish Gate. On the right side is an opening to the outside, where you only will find track build on waist hight level with the garden greens as back ground. Reason why I came up with this idea is that I love mainline express trains, and the composition of a real express train was often 9 to 12 coaches, that means over 2M of train, and by running them outside the feel of an express train seems to me more realistic and the speeds you can run them by are also more realistic. So that's my idea for my layout in a nut shell. As I sad I started by making the buildings part for the main street, station and edge hill cutting. The buildings are part kit, part 3D printing that I do and design my self. I don't like flat printed stone work, or buildings, I prefer that every thing has texture. So here are a few photos of buildings, that are finished or still in progress…