Building Billabong Marina: 3 Maximum Industries/Minimum Cost!
Every model railway needs an industry or two. Running passenger trains is fun, but it’s shunting the sidings that makes it even more enjoyable. On a tiny model railway like Billabong Marina you may think that there would not be room for many industries, but this is not the case and operating the little layout can be lots of fun.
When the layout was first mooted, I examined a few suggestions. I could model a colliery, but I had one of those planned for the extension. I could model a brewery. Like most blokes, I like beer and have dabbled in a few home brews, but I didn’t think it would give me enough variety of wagons – I may be wrong.
I could model a steel works. It would give me a destination for my steel train, but I knew that many of those wagons would not make the 9" (229mm) curves that I would need to use. After seeing a couple of articles for small layouts in overseas magazines based around rivers, I figured that a small harbour would be a good setting. It also gave me the opportunity to include more than just one type of industry.
Choosing the Industries
How do you decide what industries to put on a new layout? What influences your decisions? The
