Ian Holmes

A view down the layout. Cork area will more than likely be the roads.

Top notch! I love it when people get creative with IKEA products.

Looks good to me. Anything with name 'mogtrains" attached to it is fine in m y books. Four feet is loads of room. My new layout is only 3' 6" and it feels like acres of space.

Well, I think I just discovered the perfect station building and platform for this model. Utterby Halt, between Louth and Grimsby. What appears to be a platelayers hut on a low platform perfect. http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/u/utterby_halt/index.shtml

This photo should give you an idea of the track arrangement. There’s a short siding for the rail bus. A longer siding for a freight train (or a 2 car DMU if I’m so inclined) the middle two lines for the passing loop when aligned correctly. I think I saw this idea on Iain C. Rice’s Hepton Wharf.

Thanks Marc. Yes the feeling of space is very important to me. Some folks seem to feel that because the layout is in a small space you have to cram as much as possible in there. Less is More for me. I just discovered the Hornby Skaledale Old Toll cottage. It looks awfully like the one on the A153 just outside of Louth. I might have to try to fit that building in too

Found a Hornby Skaledale chapel on Ebay. It should make a most excellent view block. To me, who grew up with with The Hornby buildings of the 1970’s. A structure like this is quite remarkable

Really liking the way this is looking. Theres a great feeling of space. It doesn’t feel cramped and tiny at all, and that’s why the best micro layout layout are about IMHO. Ian

Time to start track laying in earnest. Already decided to extend the scenic area of the layout by six inches

There’s a good chance the layout will even fit in the trunk of my Model T Ford

A selection of images from old postcards I’ve amassed over the years of the Lincolnshire coastal area, for inspiration. Above: Perhaps that shelter at the right might make a good platform shelter. Above: Be nice to have a dyke full of water in there somehow. Above: Damn! Lincolnshire is flat Above: A Wesleyan/Methodist Chapel would fit in nicely. Hornby Skaledale have a low relief one in their range. some food for thought

As I had no cork tiles in stock to lay track on. I decided to take a leaf out of Chris Nevard's book and lay the track on 5mm foam board (I have loads of that, and I'm trying to keep expenditure to a minimum) This will be a new experience for me. Still a little unsure how that will work out, but hey, If it works for him, then it must be OK. With that board down and a nice clean white surface to work on I laid the elements out. It looks very wide open. The tin tabernacle won't make it to the layout. I'll be looking for a bigger house for that location. I like my single ended platform, its quirky, light railway-ish. That'll stay. It'll soon be time to give the layout a name and location.

I like the multimode concept. It's something I have had to develop here in America. For as much as I'd rather run UK outline stock on my layouts. The US exhibition goers don't care two hoots for a layout that isn't American (unless in extremely rare conditions they are ex-pats that's just Two people in twenty years of exhibiting. ) I fear my new layout will spend some time running as HO scale instead of OO. Looking good, though I think the building in the corner looks a tad awkward the way the corner runs straight through the middle of the building. That's just me.

A new project then. For a long time I've been trying to find a way to use the UK outline stock I keep accumulating here in the USA. The latest issue of Model Rail with all the layouts built using Tim Horn baseboard kits struck a chord with me and so I started trying to come up with something. Doodling with track and structures to get some ideas. I liked what I was getting from the ideas. Enough to go out and build some baseboards. Now despite my best efforts at total incompetency that included driving a nail into my thumb and measuring 13 9/16" instead of 12" I have a pair of baseboards, 3 feet x 13 9/16" wide. One baseboard will house the layout and the other the sector plate fiddle yard. Lets see what happens from here.

If I might make an observation on the password continual re-entering issue? I was having this until I quite by chance noticed that the space in-between the two words of my display name had gone Ian Holmes had become IanHolmes. Using IanHolmes I have to re enter the password. Right now using Ian Holmes I don't appear to have an issue

Well, kinda sorta. Life got in the way and it hasn't been updated in ages.

Superb modelling, delightfully atmospheric. Plenty of inspiration for the space starved modeller Ian

Another great looking little layout. All the proportions are right and everything looks very believable.

What a great thread this one is. I'm searching for inspiration for a new Micro Layout. This layout has inspiration in bucketloads. Thanks for all the great pictures Ian

Well, the other day I discovered the last time I contributed to RMWeb was back in May... But I do have a lot of other things to do in the summer like most folks. But Graymont has progressed quite steadily. But has missed a deadline for a show already. But for a while work has ground to a halt as I'm now in the progress of moving house. Some of these delicate structures are going to have to be treated very carefully in the move. I'm hoping that once the move is over I'll be able to finish the layout in time for the Granite City train show in St.Cloud, MN in April. a cruel teaser close up of some of the details An overall view showing the starting of a fiddle yard at the left.

The tower.

Progress on the layout has run in fits and starts lately, so I thought it about time I shared a new progress photo with you. In this shot you'll notice lots of Pringles tubes doubling up as silos to help get a feel for things. The most noticeable thing is the new tower built from more Evergreen styrene than I'd care to admit. There's over 15 hours of work in that structure alone and it stands just over 20" tall. Still a long way to go.

Of course a larger Pizza wouldn't be so easy to transport to train shows. The simplest track plan can be operationally interesting if done right. I've said it before and I'll say it again, at the risk of pulling out an old double entendre. "It's not what you've got it's what you do with it"

No need to remind me Jack. It was at the back of my mind, when I started work on the project.