The Christmas layout 2003

This is my Christmas Z-scale layout for 2003. It was built within a time periode of less than 36 hours.

 

The Christmas layout is built with a cake tin filled with jackofoam. The tracks consist of one length of Peco flex-track, about 60 cm (24") long. The radius is about 9cm (3.5").

The church, moulded from plaster of paris ( I believe), was purchased at Toys'R'Us. The trees, by Busch, were bought with the snow already on them.

The snow is powder from Biltema, fixed with an adhesive. Finally, the whole layout, including locomotive and carriages, were given a light spray of white matt spraypaint.

The diameter of the cake tin is 23cm (9 inches).

I also took some pictures along. So here is my story about the making of my smallest layout ever.

Night before Friday 05.12.03

Upon soldering the joints on the track, it is important that they are kept perfectly straight to avoid unwanted angles.
The join-ups are made slightly staggered in relation to eachother, to minimize the strain on the solder.
The piece of track in the foreground is the bit removed from the inner track to make it a perfect circle - it measures 47mm (1.8").
Friday evening 05.12.03

The cake tin with jackofoam in it.
Ordinary white wood glue is used to fasten the tracks in place. I made sure to solder the electric wires on before gluing the track down.

 
Night before Saturday 06.12.03

To make the landscape more varied, I scraped and dug a bit in the foam. The church is sunken a little because of the tall base it came with.
The tracks are rust-painted.
To even out the surface, I used DIY filler.
This is the last picture taken before the layout was done. The ballast and a white layer of paint as foundation was added before sprinkling on the snow powder.
Saturday morning 06.12.03 - Finished
These are the materials used.