South African Railways Model Train

Since childhood, I was dreaming of mounting my train track on plywood, so that I never have to remove carpet fibers in my loco's moving parts, never having to worry about track pulling loose, after some serious railroading. In the past 5 months, I was deliberating where to put it up. I have quite some track, and needed a large area,but don't have the space. So , naturally I was contemplating a shelf layout, or a garage My nature is to plan for ever. However  "How To Plan A Layout - Just Build It" , with what you have was implemented immediately, after my darling wife gave me real estate in our Braai Room I built a 4m x 1m (13ft x 3ft) bench, as I already had the wood. Here are some pictures of the effort. Except for the front fascia board, all the wood was reclaimed. The cost of the wood was about R400 , which is about 30$. No glue was used ,only good old chipboard screws. We could add another 5$ for miscellaneous costs, sandpaper, wall plugs and screws. The benc...

I have been collecting Model Trains as a kid. Actually my brother and I got Lima HO Model trains as Christmas and birthday gifts. They were very wonderful to small Primary school boys, as they were made of steel, and used electricity. Simple round circles, and later in the shape 8, and later even larger track with joins. We saved our money to buy trains,buildings, tracks and and couches. If memory serves me right, I went into collecting a bit more than my brother in the end. The tracks was always built in our rooms , and in the lounge, on short hair carpet. Our parents was quite easy, and never complained too much,having to walking carefully over our trains. We bought our model trains at Aladdin's Cave, Kempton Park ,South-Africa, when it was were the new Civic Center is these days. As kids we didn't go to town much, but it was very exciting when we eventually went,seeing the latest models and couches available. I bought myself a crane, a motor vehicle carrier and some extra...