My life is in a bit of a mess right now. Big changes are on the horizon, and I’m just going with the flow. My wonderful wife and I have finally decided that the winters here in Alaska are too dark and too long. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy winter….. Just not eight months of it! So we finally put our house on the market to sell.

This is actually a big deal because my rambling N-Scale layout will have to be taken apart when the house sells. This sounds like no fun at all to me. With the inevitable in sight, I really don’t want to put the time and money into working on projects on my layout. But I also don’t want to give up playing with my hobby either. What’s a guy to do?

The answer is simple: Build some modules and take some photos of them! So I set out to see exactly how fast I can produce simple little displays that don’t really cost anything to build, but lend themselves to nice photos. What fun! A new project!

I thought it would be easier to build these modules if they were to have a central focal point. And what better focus than a bridge? So I rummaged around in my “to do” pile to see what I had on hand that I’ve never gotten around to building. And what do you know….. I had a number of great kits that were just begging to be built.

Over a two-week period I built a very nice deck trestle and a wonderful little covered bridge. I thought about building both of the bridges into one module, but scraped that idea. Why build only one module, when two would be twice the fun. Anyway, I decided to build the displays out of foam insulation, and each one took about two hours of construction time. (Not counting time for the glue to dry)

Now comes the fun part…. Will they work out in photos? When planning these modules (about 5 minutes of planning on each one) I kept thinking how they would look through the camera lenses. Could I come at different angles to get different feelings? Can I get in close? And what will I use for a backdrop? Hummm….. So many unanswered questions……..

As for the backdrops, I have a number of boards with pictures already pasted on both sides of them, and I also have a number of blank colored backgrounds. I use these single color boards so I can add any photo I want in the background later in the computer program called Photo Shop. (Good Fun Tool!)

Well, here are a few photos I was able to take with these new modules. I was able to have fun with the planning, building, taking photos, and also playing with these photos on the computer. (Not to mention the fun from writing this article) And I had all of this fun without even spending a dime on my poor doomed layout. Life Is Good!

If you ever find yourself in the same situation as I’m in right now, you might try building modules like this. Find a kit you like (it could be a building, or bridge, or what ever) and build a small module around it. When it’s time to actually move, just take off the valuable stuff from the module, and leave it behind. An added benefit is when you finally get started on that new layout…… You’ll already have a number of nice models finished that you can use right away.