One More Foot of Space

A follow-up to the previous entry about the lift-outs used on The Hills Line. When we rebuilt the basement of our home, we had a new staircase constructed for the space. The old stairs were uneven, narrow, and as we discovered... structurally unsound. Considering we had lived in our home for the better part of … Continue reading One More Foot of Space

Filling Gaps

If you take a good look at the plan for The Hills Line, you'll see the oft-mentioned segments that make up the layout. Joining them together is a set of custom built lift-out sections assembled from whatever scraps were left over from benchwork construction. Since the sections are supposed to represented unmodeled portions of the … Continue reading Filling Gaps

The Golden IDC

I don't use spikes, so this will have to suffice. 18 months after the IAIS Grimes Line was dismantled and our basement reconstructed, and a year after the first piece of Ikea Ivar shelving arrived to serve as the base for the new benchwork, track is fully installed and wired on The Hills Line. The … Continue reading The Golden IDC

Gandy Dancing: Flex Track

What is it about laying track that causes us to pull out every tool we own to get the job done? I have no doubt that the visual carnage currently present on top of my layout has been repeated in countless basements time and time again. Despite the feeling that a small bomb has been … Continue reading Gandy Dancing: Flex Track