M.O.W. boxcar scene (part 1)

One of my favorite things in real life is discovering old, abandoned track. While I would much prefer that it be operating track, there is something exciting about uncovering the remains of long-forgotten railroad infrastructure. I suppose it is industrial archaeology in a way. For the left side of my layout, I had built in two sidings. One would be in front of the layout and home to a small industry, and one would be in the back and lead to an Agway.

Having nearly finished the righthand side of the layout, I decided to start planning the left side. First, I had to clear everything off.

Then, I caulked some of the foamboard joints to give me a nice flat surface.

I had designed this front portion of the layout to include a Maintenance of Way boxcar shed that I built a couple of years ago. It's construction was featured in the October/November 2024 issue of O Gauge Railroading magaine. I also wanted to model a portion of track that was buried in grass and weeds and clearly abandoned. Since the overall length of the siding was only a couple of feet long total, this seemed like a good place to do that. If I stuck any meaningful industry here it would only encroach on the MOW scene, as well as whatever I built in the back.

I had one leftover piece of Gargraves flextrack that was the perfect length for this siding.

After cutting it to length, I removed every fourth tie and then respaced them. I don't know how visible they will be under the greenery but it seemed like a good idea.

Another important consideration was the location of the road crossing in this area. I wanted to incorporate blinking crossing lights onto the layout and the road into the lumberyard didn't seem appropriate. But I wanted a road leading to the Agway as well as Northeast Chemical, and I had to account for it now. I had two options (assuming it didn't come from the side of the layout, or from the back): through the switches or to the left of them. To the left would mean that the siding would never amount to anything, so through the switches it was.

Enough planning... time to get to work!