More from inspiration point

With the layout on inspiration point, I have been looking though my research photographs for detailing touches to add to the scene. One thing that immediately sprang to mind was the track in the weeds. When the spurs at the location had been cut back, a turnout, maybe two, had just been lifted and left in the grass alongside the track. 

In early spring, when the snow has melted, the rails and ties are all visible. Then as the year goes on, the grass grows up and starts to cover the track. As the autumn/fall approaches, everything dies back and the track becomes visible again, only to be covered by snow in the winter months. I don't have enough depth of baseboard to add all the rails for a complete dismantled turnout, but I could add some sections of rusty rails for the same effect.

Anyone want to buy a turnout?

Burying rails in weeds, the desired effect is being reached.

In all the pictures you have seen of the layout under construction, there has just been the one loco and two cars in view. So I took it upon myself to add another boxcar to the layouts roster. I love Railboxes and I picked up a Weaver kit at the Twin Cities model railway museum back in 2022. It’s a really basic kit. As basic as the old Athearn blue box kits in H0.  Body shell, doors, slider rails for the door, and a brake wheel. The body details are moulded on. But it’s still a really nice looking kit, and a great way into 2 rail 0 scale. Especially if you can pick the cars up for $10 like I did.

You can’t see much in the box, because there isn’t much in the box

I have a good stock of trucks and couplers, so I assembled it and gave a starter weathering job with my Asphaltum paint. Little more than an hours work to get to the stage of this picture below. Any starter O scale modeller could be very happy with that.

Even lightly weathered it looks good at the warehouse

Seeing a different boxcar on the layout spurs me on again, and as the weather is warming up and my garage/work shop won't be too cold again. I can go back in there and make the hidden sidings. Then trains can really run.