An Interesting Layout Idea

[Anonymous]

At a garage sale today, I bought an excellent item for my layout. One of these:



No, I haven't gone crazy! I'm not going to put a humungously out-of-scale bike ramp on my layout...well, actually I am, but it's not going to be a bike ramp. The one I bought is exactly like the one shown, except that it has the black framework on the top ends as well as the tall grey thing missing from it.

Now, picture this standing upsidedown. Are you starting to see what I'm thinking? This would make an excellent tunnel or underpass for a train layout. There's about 6 inches of clearance underneath it, so it would work for most O gauge trains (not the larger scale-sized stuff, though). As you can see in the picture, there are six sections to it. They all come apart, which makes it very versatile. You could make your tunnel or underpass 6 inches or 1 foot long and vary the width from 1-2 feet. Of course, you would need to add on stuff to complete the tunnel or underpass, but it makes a very good start for such a project. Another possibility is getting several of these, lining them all up and making an arch bridge.

I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to build on my layout using this. It will take some thought. But I though I'd let you guys know about this idea. Keep your eyes peeled for these things at garage sales and thrift stores. Perhaps you even have a kid relative that you could steal one off of.

Also, a neat feature on the one I bought is a speaker that plays the sounds of rock music, crowds cheering and an announcer saying various inaudible phrases. I doubt that it would be very useful to my layout, though.

[Anonymous]

You can probably make piers to fit under the ends to bring it up another inch or two if you have scale sized stuff.

Better yet, you can use it as a mold for making duplicate tunnels! After all, why stop at one? [:D]

Good idea!

Tony