Route 66 Railway Construction

It's off to work we go!

The spare bedroom became free now that the nest is empty and so we set off to fix it up as a fairly comfortable space for the layout.

First thing was to carefully measure the entire space and make an accurate plot of it so we knew what we had to work with. After this was done we went through the process of designing a Track Plan for the room.

Then finally we set about the remodeling of the room in preparation for the building of the layout.

Here's are some "Before" shots of the Room.

First thing was to pull out the ancient carpeting and lay down wood flooring. We decided to go with Pergo American Cottage Flooring in Revere Oak. The installation went smoothly and was done in under a day.

Here are the "After" shots of the the new Pergo Flooring.

After the flooring was done we set about painting and finishing the room. Taking out the old closet and putting in new outlet and light switch covers and doorknobs.

We decided that we would do the room in a two tone scheme with an earth tone on the bottom and a sky blue on the top and that we could then come in later and white brush this blue to make a functional backdrop.

Here are some pictures taken during the repainting process.

American Tradition's Ultra Premium Amber Sienna 3003-5A was used for the bottom earth tone and American Tradition's Ultra Premium Slumber 1007-9C was used for the top blue.

Here are some pictures of the finished room.

With the room done we took the plunge and got to the bench work - Now I, for one, couldn't nail a fencepost to the side of a barn, so we looked around, did some investigating and finally settled on Mianne Benchwork.

It was a joy to work with them and Dealing with Mr. Foley at Mianne Benchwork was a pleasure.

Here is the original drawing we sent in and Mr. Foley's proposed custom kit.

Mr. Foley helped work out a custom kit for our needs using as much of their standards kits as he could - to help keep the price down - and got an estimate out to me fast as can be. Once we settled up on cost he and his folks had the stuff tooled out and shipped to us quick.

The Benchwork arrived in four c.48 lbs boxes and went together like dream with only two screwdrivers, a level and some elbow grease.

As for total price? Well for c.122 odd square feet of benchwork at 48" height and shipping and handling for c.200 lbs. of materials it cost us a grand total of $1315.00.

So in the end, for a fellow with absolutely no carpentry skill or tools needed to cut my own wood, was it worth it -for me-? You better believe it daddy-o!

Here's the Benchwork going up:

With the benchwork in we started the process of adding the tabletop/sub roadbed. We covered the benchwork with 1/4" Birch on top of which went 2" of Owens Corning INSULPINK foam Insulation Board.

Tabletop and Foam Installation:

With everything in place it was time to finally start making the model and see our dream come to life!