County Road 23 (CR23)
Status: Benchwork built but legs scenery in progress
This module is my first attempted at a Free-mo module. I haven’t really come up with a good back story on it yet but have a good idea what I want. It’s a 2′x4′ module that’s straight through with no sidings. It’s bisected in the middle with a road which will feature animated crossing gates. The scenery will be a modern town or small city. I’ll be using Summit Custom Cuts kits for some of the buildings. The main feature is going to be the animated crossing.
This module is named after the road that bisects it, I was having troubles deciding what to call the module and then I got the idea to name it after the road. But that just raised the question of what to call it. I didn’t want to use anything immediately recognizable such as Route 66 for two reasons. First it tied it to a specific location which I didn’t really want to do and second it’s a free-lance location but it would be almost guaranteed to not match any real location. Also this is set in northern Minnesota so that would limit the prototypical roads. By making it a County Road it could conceivably be anywhere and my wedding anniversary is on the 23rd so it seemed to work.
Missabe Fork
Status: Planning
Missabe fork is inspired by by the Chicago Fork I’ve mentioned earlier. It’s not a faithful reproduction in a Free-mo module but it has the basics. I guess it might be best to call it the Mangled Fork (maybe I’ll change it by the time I build it):
The module is focused on one industry, Newman Manufacturing and Tool, which specializes in metal work recieving raw materials and large metal work projects by rail. They also take provide occasional services for the railroads such as taking worn wheelsets for scrap metal and doing minor repair and modifications of rail cars.
NMT ships out scrap metals by rail in addition to the tools and other products they produce. Because of their somewhat remote location in northern Minnesota any heavy machinery needing to be sent out for repairs and or replacement are often shipped by rail.
The building NMT houseing the company and it’s operations is was originally built in the late 1960′s by another manufacturing company which abandond the location in the late 1980′s. The building has been updated by NMT but still maintains hints of it’s previous owner. Since the sidings were inactive for more than a decade they are in a bit tougher condition with a heavy cover of weeds.
Curve Modules
Status: Planning, some contruction started
I’m planning on building some 45° – 48″ radius curve modules. They will be built to the mini-mo standard basically to use scraps of birch plywood from other modules so it doesn’t have to be a full 24 inches wide. I have some of the pieces started on one of the curves. I will likely make more than one of these for operational interest since straight lines aren’t as fun for operating.
Signal Modules
Status Planning
I plan to eventually introduce signaling to my modules by creating small modules that are basically just have signals so they can be installed in appropriate locations during setups. I’ve heard this referred to as Signal-mo but don’t have a good link at the moment. I will post more information on this as I compile it.
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