We’ve all been there, the inevitable “rut” where you just can’t get motivated and have no momentum. In my case this frequently happens when there seems to be a fairly long laundry list of difficult projects standing in the way of any forward progress. Such is the case with the Brooklyn Terminal layout….hand laid turnouts, steam locomotives that have stopped behaving, you name it, one hurdle after another.

To snap myself out of it I look for something easy, anything that can marked as an achievement even at the smallest level. I put the BT layout aside for now and decided to go back to the Downtown Spur (Yes, it is still there!). An easy project is the nondescript Bond Plumbing Supply warehouse between 12th and 13th Avenues. This will be a quasi building flat….not as thick as a full structure but not wafer thin either.

To start, I built a core out of one of my favorite materials, PVC “wood” found in the dimensional lumber section of most big box lumber stores. The PVC is dimensionally stable, easy to cut, and accepts adhesives. I glued the PVC core together with MEK and tapped in a few panel board nails for good measure.

Next up is the photo wallpaper laminates. Since the structure is right next to the street, images were easily captured from Google Streetview and then cleaned up with the photo editors. I’m about half way through at this point. It’s nice to be able to make some progress on….SOMETHING!