After a lot of head scratching and soul searching about choosing baseboards for my much desired OO9 layout, I think I have at long last got somewhere. I was initially drawn to the Layout in a Box idea, having stumbled across Justin’s video of the building of a BB017 on YouTube. This appealed for many reasons, including: The idea of storage in the plastic box The extreme ease of building. The lightweight. The reasonable cost. Being old, arthritic and never having been vested with any carpentry or other DIY skills, the ease of construction and the weight were the main plus points for me. At first I thought of a small end to end with a small fiddle yard to be built in an L shape with the fiddle yard being the base of the L. I began to wonder whether the 221mm depth of the BB017 would be sufficient for my needs and expressed on here the idea of flipping the sizes of the base and backscene in order to give more depth but still allow the use of the 77l Really Useful Box for storage. This, however, wasn’t possible. I ruminated long over various options and during that time I decided exactly where the layout would be housed and how it would be supported. Again, lots of thought and backs of envelopes looking at a variety of options often based on that BB017 family. By this time I’d decided that it would still be an end to end in a U shape with the tops of the U being joined by a fiddle yard at the rear of the layout. This would allow continuous running for running in models and watching the trains go by. Also it would allow my station area to be the principal station of the line with engine shed etc but not necessarily a terminus. I have, at last, devised a combination of boards that fit my space. I just, now, need to check if @justin.noble can supply the BB03 without backscene to save me chopping them, and decide how I’ll link the boards as they’ll be going together in a non standard way.

Posted by ken_thomas at 2024-06-15 13:50:32 UTC