# Adventures in Inner Space, unfinished HO micro form Ebay



## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

A few weeks ago I found this for sale on Ebay, took a chance and got it










13' x 17" track needs some cleaning. tested a couple small HO engines and they work on it. 

I am thinking urban traction with catenary? 

The train gods must want me to do this as within a period of about two week after getting this I got three Woodland Scenics metal building kits on Ebay and at a local thrift shop where I have had great luck with train stuff in the past, I got three more Woodland metal kits. All for cheap! I am currently building them. I also added a wood base to the micro with a power pack attached.


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

Well I also found at the same thrift store some HO 30' cars and some VERY old O gauge clockwork Locos, more on that later.

some pics of the buildings so far, slow but making progress


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

Progress, got a bit done faster than I expected. Here are test placements on the layout, with a basswood sidewalk base. 



















After reading alot of sources on MR regarding interior detailing advice, here is the results:




























Overhead view:



















Now, for the fun part, heres a test shot using my uber-cheap lighting system, a $5 string of battery powered christmas lights, what the heck, I think it works pretty good!



















I just turned this thing around and realized the back side going to be 10x more complex, oy vey! []


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## Bill C. (Jan 2, 2008)

The track reminds me of the trolley track that Tyco made back in the late'50s and early '60s. I had a loop but sold it off with my HO layout about 30 years ago.

And let me take this opportunity to say that I am still lamenting the fact that I did not buy more of the Aristo 31-and-20-inch circle G scale track.


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

Same here Bill, had I known AC was going to go feet up I would have bought more of them before they disappeared. BTW I have one of those Tyco track circles, have to get around to it one of these days


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

Bill C you can make a small circle with 2 8 foot brass rails, 8 ties and a rail bender.
No power loss as there is only 1 set of clamps!!

Also, with 4 rails you can make a 5 foot circle with only 4 clamps used.
Great portable layouts for table tops.


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

At the trains shows here in Florida, there is a club that sets up several trolley layouts with live working catenaries. They are really cool. Amazing how well the trolley poles stay on the wire and spark as they go along.


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

Progress on the backyards:










A rather crappy pic of the backsides










WS kit bashed as a car shop










lighting added










WS metal kitbashed into a bungalow










roofs from Paper Creek










That's it for now.


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Pretty amazing Vic!

Speaking of "inner space," in case you want to put a train set in one of the windows --


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

Cliffy I may be crazy but I'm not nuts!


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## ewarhol (Mar 3, 2014)

Cool video Cliff. Hmmmm say the gears in my head


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

vsmith said:


> Cliffy I may be crazy but I'm not nuts!


I used to make that distinction for myself, but my therapist disagreed... 

Anyway Vic, NICE WORK! It's always amazing to see what you do, and so frugally.


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

CliffyJ said:


> I used to make that distinction for myself, but my therapist disagreed...
> 
> Anyway Vic, NICE WORK! It's always amazing to see what you do, and so frugally.


The thing is, even though I've gotten several kits for cheap, they still add up. I picked up a couple cheap Model Power HO locos, but it adds up. and the fine detail stuff, some of it you just cannot get second hand or on Ebay clearance so I'll be getting those at the LHS, those *really* add up. I fear by the time I have this where I want it, it will have costs about as much as a basic 4x8 HO layout! 

The good news is that I went through my landscaping scenery stuff, and I think I won't need anything new there, whew!


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

To whom it may concern, due to circumstances beyond my control (Vertical Scope screwing the pooch and deleting 80MB of my photo history three months ago with no resolution) This and all other threads of my 10+ years of activity on this site are now closed, if you are curious please look to my identical threads on LargeScaleCentral which in the coming months I will attempt to re-edit photos into from my personal archives once I have a new storage site up and running. It was fun while it lasted but the collective of monkeys now running this site now have soured my experience. Have a good day.


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