Roger Russell’s 3/8” Scale Portable Layout

Roger Russell’s ⅜ inch scale portable backwoods model railroad layout won Best of Show at the 1994 National Narrow Gauge Convention. A friend of his designed the construction, having the layout built on hollow core doors with legs that fold underneath. This makes it very very light and easy to get to conventions. Roger’s friends twisted his arm and encouraged him to bring the layout to a convention. Eventually he did and won 5 awards in one night including Best in Show, Dioramas, and more. What made Roger really glad, even more than the awards, was seeing the people enjoy looking at his layout.

Roger became interested in ⅜ inch Number 1 scale because of the amount of detail he could put into it. Number 1 differs from G scale by size, being about half the size. ⅜ inch is comfortable for him to build indoors, as it is right in between ¼ inch O scale and ½ inch G scale. There are some O and HO scale items on the backwoods and he has written articles on how to mix these scales. He says that deciding what scale to mix is as easy as knowing how many sizes of shovels a modeler has. When he looks at items to use on any scale, he looks at the items themselves and not the package. For more tips on designing your layout visit the Model Railroad Academy website.