Q As asked by a randomly chosen reader of this blog: When will your model railroad finally be completed? It has been “in progress” for years now!

A Never. What counts is the journey, not the destination. A model railroad is a work in progress and will surely remain so.

I’ve shown pictures of it before. But they’ve always been wide-angle shots showing large parts of the layout. In this new series I focus on details, as seen when building an individual structure, in this case a house with detached garage. In order to show it step-by-step, we will look at each week’s progress in real time in separate posts in this blog.

First, though, a brief overview of our cast of model railroaders and our goals. The cast of thousands — well, two actually —includes me, of course. I have already completed the benchwork, the overall plan, random sections of the layout, most of the track, none of the wiring, and part of the scenery. But I am not in any sense of the word an expert craftsperson; that role in the cast is filled by my friend Meredith, who is one. So she builds, paints, weathers, and assembles, as I perform other tasks.

Even before unboxing, let’s look at the image on the cover of the box, so we can see what we’re trying to build:

Ignore the people, the car, and the landscaping, none of which are in the box. All you see in the box are six sprues and a set of instructions. The first sprue mostly contains windows and doors. The box cover claimed “four colors,” but we see only one color so far:

Maybe the second sprue contains the other three colors:

That image, of course, is ridiculously cluttered, so ignore the background if you can. We get color #2 at any rate. And note that the manufacturer offers us some choices, such the relative sizes and positions of the first-floor windows.

Finally come the other four sprues in one image. And here we see the anticipated additional two colors, not that any of the four colors are particularly interesting:

So the colors on the box cover need to be replaced with better ones. And everything looks like plastic, which won’t do. Yes, of course, it is plastic — but it’s not supposed to look like it. It’s supposed to be realistic. Paint and weathering will help solve both problems; those are two more skills that Meredith has and I don’t.

Stay tuned for step #2 in about a week!

Categories: Model Railroading