Five Ways to Hide an Above Baseboard Point Motor
Ian Castle
All pictures by the
author
HAVE YOU EVER had the need for a bit of camouflage on your model railway? The following ideas are to hide point motors but any kind of linkage, whether wiring or operating rods could be hidden equally well.
The point motor is a Minx
microdrive motor. It is 4.5
mm long and 3.2 mm wide
and very shallow. Larger
motors will of course need
you to adapt the ideas
accordingly.
The first example is a motor to operate a release crossover
at a terminus. In this case it was mounted under the platform
hiding it from view. The platform must obviously be removable
in this instance.
Next, we have a ballast bin, a fairly common article beside
the tracks. It is just an open box with a false base filled up
with ballast. Easy!
Another method of disguise is a lineside hut which can be
bought or made from scratch. It, of course, needs to be large
enough to cover the point motor.
A little more work is required for the next two methods. The first is a pile of sleepers which in this case was made from strip wood of a suitable size. I started by making a frame from the strips, a long piece front and back and short stubs stuck together at the ends.
A couple of sleepers are added underneath to support the
pile for drainage. I built up the height by stacking pieces in the
same way until it was high enough to enclose the point motor.
Subsequently the whole thing was covered in long strips to
finish off the pile.
The final piece of subterfuge is the greenhouse at the front
of the layout. Again it has to be of a size to cover the point
motor and then to show interior detail.
I hope this has provided some useful ideas. Imagination is really all that is necessary to overcome so many niggling problems we have with our layouts. Happy modelling.
Does anyone have other suggestions on this subject as we still have one unit to hide and haven’t been able to come up with a suitable item to use?