Adventures in Coffee Tables

Coffee Anyone?

I have always been fascinated with smaller scales and compact layouts. Micro-layouts have also caught my attention.

Many years ago I built a small N-Scale layout based on a plan in Linn Westcott’s 101 Track Plans for Model Railroads (Kalmbach Publishing). It’s one of the most convoluted and twisted plans in the book – deliberately chosen. What I didn’t know was that the plans in the book were for custom-built switches. Anyway I made it work.

Ultimately the layout has ended up as a coffee table.

Scenically, it’s essentially as I originally built it. The plate glass preserves it beautifully. I’ve made a few adjustments to the track arrangement, namely adding a return loop which I only use infrequently and installing electro-frog switches where the option exists.

Recently the layout has been altered to include Arduino control, using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and the MIT Android App Inventor development environment to move the entire layout operation to mobile phone control.