Radio Island, North Carolina

With the planned sale of my HO Scale layout - West Allen Street - I will be left, for the first time in several years, without a layout.
I've got a couple of tiny N scale micro layouts that have gotten to/past the wiring stage before being shelved, so I thought it best to crack on with one of them and get it finished.
Initially, the layout was due to be set in New Orleans, however my love of the Southern and the L&N has made me think about moving the layout further north. Having built a layout set in Virginia, one in Kentucky, and am currently working on a layout set in Georgia, I thought - why not North Carolina?
North Carolina has the benefit of a coastline, and this layout was always supposed to be a waterfront themed layout. On top of that, I've been wanting to build a layout using the Clevermodels Waterfront Collection for a while.
As such, I've looked around, and decided to borrow the name Radio Island from a real place on the coast of NC.
The layout won't be a representation of the real place, however.
Benchwork is made from 5mm foam board, creating a very sturdy but very light base. Trackwork is Peco setrack switches, a little flextrack for the straight sections and then Kato unitrack for the curves.
Minimum radius is about 6", so rolling stock will need to be 40', and locomotives small switchers. I've got a Bachmann 44t switchers, and an Atlas MP15DC, both in Southern colours, and I'm currently looking to get hold of L&N 98 and 99 - a pair of GE 70t switchers.
Photographs of my starting point are below, however a lot of the structures shown below are mockups, and won't actually be on the finished model.


I've started building some of the Waterfront Collection to go on the layout, starting with Witten's Chandelry, Haven Point Lighthouse, and Zelmer & Co Merchantile.
I'll post progress photos on the builds as they progress.

 

This morning I finished off the Witten's Chandlery build, and have started work on Zelmer and Co.

Here's the finished Witten's build:

 

When I got home after work yesterday, I managed to get some pictures of the Zelmer & Co build. It's not finished yet, but it's getting there.











My next projects are the Haven Point lighthouse, the Cannery, Lucky or Knotts Mining Supplies (I'll be re-naming that one to something suitably Nautical), the Marine Supply, Royal Imports and the Warehouse flat, and an E L Moore inspiring Southern Railway flagstop.

All bar the flagstop are Clevermodels kits.

 

Yesterday's build is a kitbash of the Marine Supply building from the Clevermodels Waterfront Collection.

I've modified it by doubling it's length, and adding an annex along one wall. I also used an image editing tool to flip one of the end walls with the big doors and print it as a mirror image, so that the spacing of the doors matched at each end of the building.

I'm thinking of adding a shadow box inside the end with the open doors, with the prow of a boat visible. Maybe even a flickering welding light.

 

Not sure what today's build will be, but we'll see.

 

To be fair, the benchwork and tracklaying was already done from many moons ago when I first started working on the layout.

I've just re-purposed it.

 

Today's effort:



I think I'm going to have a go at the Clevermodels Cannery kit next.

 

Cheers Paul!