The model railroading hobby has gotten so expensive that I look for every opportunity possible to build stuff out of things you normally find around the house. When we moved to Texas I robbed several buildings off of the existing layout (that layout is now a peninsula off of the around the wall shelf layout) to go into the downtown of the new layout. The town in the original layout was pretty far from where you stand so you couldn't see the detailed buildings all that well anyway. What I came up with as a replacement for the footprint where two buildings stood on the old layout is a scratch built foundation. The building superstructure no longer exists--guess it fell down--but the foundation is still there. The stone foundation walls are Campbell Scale Models vacuform plastic stone sheets. You paint it, cut it to size, and it's done. The foundation floor is popsicle sticks that I scribed to add plank lines and painted and weathered to simulate old, weathered wood. It needs some more work, but it didn't cost a thing! Believe it or don't popsicle sticks can be used for a zillion applications. I use them to brace the insides of walls that are made out of cardboard, paper, etc. A crate that became a flatcar load was built out of popsicle sticks. There are so many things laying around the house--many of which get thrown out in the trash--that are great for scratch building.
That looks really good Paul. The weathering is spot on. You must have a pallet of those Popsicle sticks.
