Building Lightweight Aluminium Benchwork
Around 2003 I built a small, portable layout (more a diorama than a layout) to test the feasibility of working in a new scale. I’d switched from HO to O (1:43.5) about two years prior to starting the layout, but up to that point I’d only built some rolling stock kits and scratchbuilt a locomotive in my new scale. The time had arrived to move beyond a couple of lengths of flexitrack on a plank. Queens Wharf [Described in AMRM Issue 276, June 2009 – Editor] was 3m long and 600mm wide and in its first iteration had no fiddle yard, so trains were confined to the scenic portion of the layout. This didn’t matter too much, as it was really just an exercise to see if I could hand-build 32mm gauge track and construct some buildings in my new scale. The layout wouldn’t survive long enough for its diminutive size to matter. Boy, was I wrong!
Portability
From the start I decided that, while may be small, I wanted it to be portable so I could take it to train shows and display it. While I’d built a number of home layouts in HO I’d only been involved in helping build one other portable layout. This was built as a model railway club project and had been constructed from timber. The segments of this layout each weighed
