Benchwork - First Steps

While I jumpstarted building benchwork earlier this fall by preparing a corner for a backdrop "how-to" presentation, putting it into action in the attic is happening just now.

After moving to Northwest Pennsylvania last summer, I found myself somewhat in limbo as far as my participation in the NMRA activities.  Because of my new address I was assigned to a division of the Niagara Frontier Region that was "inactive." Before much time passed I found that the NMRA National reassigned the members of the affected counties to two divisions of the Mid Central Region. In joining my new train group: The Western Reserve Division, Division 5 of the Mid Central Region, my first participation was to prepare a presentation on backdrops for their annual "Building A Model Railroad" event. I shared my bare-bones corner with a hardboard backdrop and created a handout of backboard ideas (located on Backboard Overview  page).

Flash forward six weeks. After building a second section of open grid benchwork and setting it up in place, I realized that I had misjudged (by a few inches) the size of layout that would fit under the roof rafters given the benchwork and backboard height I desired. So, in the last few days I have:

• Installed a permanent L-girder ledger  
• Started mocking up the plan in place on the layout

• Redrew the track plan with an adjusted bottom to the "U"