Ian Holmes

Excellent!

That is looking awesome!

It's important to remember that even Carl drew a distinction between micro and small layouts. His website started off as the "micro layout design gallery". Then after the gallery had reached 200 schemes he expanded to include the "small layout scrapbook". Parts of The Dispatch will have a scrabook feel, but the content will be exclusively micro. Ian btw: Schiller Point is still one of my favourite small layout scrapbook schemes of all.

Glad you like it. It’s early days yet. This issue was to “test the waters”, so to speak. To gauge the interest. Which seems fairly positive right now. As things develop I’ll see about adding email sign up lists and such like. Ian

It has always been four square feet. I've seen modellers create micro layouts in 16mm scale in four square feet. This is one of the points of the introduction of the publication. To get people back to thinking of a micro as 4 sq.ft. and smaller. There's no need for any complicated fudging and mathematics to adjust sizes dependent on scale. Accept the 4 sq.ft. limit for what it is and work within it. I'd like to see a return to the early days of micro layout design and the creativity shown. The fiddlestick and the train turntable were developed. Sector plates and cassettes were used in ways previously unthought of. It was a great time. Ian

Same as it has always/traditionally been. Four square feet. Ian

I would totally be in favour of showing this layout in The Dispatch sometime. I'd forgotten all about it. Shame on me! The address for submissions is MMRDeditor@gmail.com Ian

Thanks. The address for submissions is MMRDeditor@gmail.com Ian

It's called The Micro Model Railway Dispatch. I have been working on it for the past few months. The preview issue is out now. I hope you like it. You can down load this preview issue through the Dropbox link below. Hopefully it will be a new way for micro layout fans to share their passion for this branch of the hobby. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ophuj2uvq82uj3y/AAAxyOu9VECNQk71Ll3j2zGka?dl=0 Ian

Some more updates from the box file micro. I found these "wire foliage branches" in my store of scenic materials the other day, and I though they might make good birch trees with a minimum effort, and who doesn't like minimum effort... The plan is to use a small clump of birch trees to hide the engine shed's join to the side of the container. I think that's going to work. The overall scene is starting to come together quite nicely. I might just get some ballast on the track soon.

@Wrenn @Man 'o Kent thanks for the kind words about the bit of locomotive shed. It’s very much a “model only what you can see” structure. As you can see from these shots, the unseen sides are plain.

Spent much of today building the end of the loco shed from evergreen styrene. It looks pretty OK and seems to fit the space.

Nice layout. I always like to see layouts with a Lincolnshire feel to them. I may well have had a pint or two in The Morning Star in my younger days...

Right now I’m trying a mock up of the end of a loco shed in the scene to see how it fits... I think it will work in there.

Nogg now has a new locomotive and it’s a beauty! A Minerva models K class Manning Wardle. It appeared for sale through the Gauge O guild in America, and the chance of being able to get hold of something that is British outline 7mm scale in the States without paying huge amounts for shipping was too good to pass up. The size and attention to detail just amazed me. It makes O Gauge very attractive.

I’m liking the look of this. I think view 2 is really outstanding. It oozes atmosphere and that’s only a mock up. Excellent!

Superb little micro. You've certainly captured the right atmosphere. Excellent!

I'd pretty much decided that I wanted a rock face on the back of the box file, and I thought to myself. "Cork Bark. That was what everyone used to use when I was a kid. I've never used it. I'll give it a go." So I headed down to the local hobby shop for the first time in months. No cork bark anywhere. It didn't even look like they had ever stocked such a thing. Is cork bark still a thing? Or am I so out of touch these days? However I did find this. It goes by the name of "Mountains in Minutes" Flexrock. It's a foam material, similar to that in pillows, a bit denser. Can be cut easily and takes acrylic paints. It looks pretty reasonable. "What the heck." I thought. "If it's all they've got, I'll try it." Once I got it home I decided to see how easy it was to work. It's very easy. Very light and slices nicely with a craft knife. I tried it in the background of the loading dock vignette I'm working on for the layout. Back there in it's base colour it looks like the Arizona desert. But a change of colour should work wonders. Limestone maybe? I quite like the loading dock scene. That's an old Wills Halt platform to be trimmed and bedded in. I'm pretty cool with the way that looks.

Moving on. With the relief formers in place I covered them with lightweight spackle, or polyfilla depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re on. Followed by a coat of woodland scenic colours to kill the snow landscape.

It's all offcuts of Code 100 that I had lying around. It is PECO though Ian

You may or may not know that good quality box files like you can buy in the UK are unknown of here in the USA. So when I decided to build a box file layout, to run and display my collection of small 00 scale locomotives. I first had to build a box file. Which was not a difficult task. I used 10mm foam core board for the base and 5mm for the sides. The longest time of the construction was spent waiting for the glue to dry. After messing around with some track, I decided on a layout. There might be a bit too much track on there compared to other box file layouts. But it's too late now it's all glued in place. Though I might be able to obscure the fact there's too much track with the right scenery. So far, I like what I see. Ian

That certainly is something different. I love it!

What is the rolling stock and what are the loco's? Knowing what those are can go some way to helping decide what you should build. It's no good suggesting a coal depot layout if you have fish wagons, for example. Stoneferry Engineering is a nice simple little track plan, it should be easy to tailor that to your chosen subject. Ian

There's also been a lot of development of the track plan and concept. There's too much to go into in a post here. So please check out my blog for further details. https://ogaugemicrolayout.blogspot.com

Slow progress on the DS499 this week. But I'm quite happy with how it's turning out.