Birmingham Southern Model Railroad 

Structures

 

As you have seen, I used fairly standard procedures and techniques in framing the layout, installing  the roadbed and laying the track. In addition, most of the scenery was done using methods and materials used by model railroaders for years. While I did experiment with different combinations of materials, nothing is really new. 

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To add the structures to the layout, I had to take a somewhat different approach. The time period for the layout is about 2002 to 2012, and it is difficult to find structure kits that fit that period and/or are suitable to the industries served by my railroad in the Birmingham area. Also, the layout is primarily a 2' wide shelf that goes around the walls and down a central peninsula and most of the structure kits that are available are too large for the space available. While there are a few open areas where complete larger buildings can be placed, much of the layout is better suited to background style buildings and those that do not have a large footprint. A few of those large kits that are suitable could be cut up and used as pieces for background buildings, but that can get expensive. I was able to find a few structure kits for some of the smaller industries, but most of my structures are either kit bashed or scratch built using a variety of materials.

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I'll talk about each of these  structure types -  kits, kit bashed, or scratch built - separately below, along with some pictures of each. Click here for a complete list of my structures, where they are and how they were made.