Mosslanda: Definitely Defiance (with Hilton and Mears)…

Four years ago a red high hood GP9 led me down a rabbit hole that resulted in a layout design, inspired by the Johns Manville plant in Defiance, Ohio…

Last weekend a sense that I was recreating the stock in N scale without realising went from casual observation to deliberate re-acquaintance. The space vacated by Night Shift offers up a footprint of 55x10cm which just about allows the twin tracks of the prototype.

The prototype serves the Johns Manville plant, a manufacturer of fibreglass based insulation, in this facility specifically pipework insulation. Two sidings terminate a short spur from the yard in Defiance, itself a short link away from the CSX interchange, although the ND&W itself continues over a flat crossing. These Google Earth images show the site and its obvious attraction as a shelf layout. Street running and constrained by relatively modern structures and interesting industrial equipment and pipework.

Johns Manville plant, Defiance OH. Google Earth 2026.

I like my Mosslanda projects to have an element of challenge - this time, that will be creating a relatively believable section of inlaid track and turnout. I’ve not yet decided quite how I shall do this, but today’s coffee break distraction will begin with some card mock ups on a heavily modified Peco Code 55 turnout. The rest of the composition is relatively straight forward with just a choice on a conventional or ‘Fancy Another Beer’ style unloading shed.

Operation would be arriving with a car and swapping it out for a second, or swapping in one for two - the only requirement being access to get a Kadee hand uncoupler in from the front and under the layout lid and lighting. Equally, the stage set is ‘generic’ enough to work with my other N scale models - the RioGrande GP30 or the Canadian models - and so acts as a photo backdrop, much in the way that Paxton Road can for my British examples. 

Johns Manville plant, Defiance OH. Google Earth 2026.

Expect to see more on the project through the Autumn. Whilst I’d love to further explore the Canadian prairies I need to reflect on the disconnect between heart and reality with the very obvious lack of space for any more layouts here - in fact this ‘one in one out’ is likely to be the reality for the short to medium term anyway. Embrace what you have and enjoy the challenges you can find fitting a prototype to the space, and all that entails - as I described in ‘The Marriage of Space and Prototype’ in my first book (Small Layout Design - Handbook). Until next time, more soon…

EDIT After I wrote this post my great friend Chris shared this on his blog, I’ve included a copy here as I like to see our collaborations in one place. Go there and enjoy his writing, when you’ve finished reading this…

Johns Manville but Jay Kay’s way

This would be a really cool shelf layout. You have done a perfect job of detailing the design context and I really like what you’ve come up with… I made a sketch that I just really like looking at; its thoughts are too clumsy to be a comment and I like when we work on Hilton-Mears collaborations so, let’s go…

Chris Mears 2026.

I don’t want to pave around a turnout in the street. Especially in N scale. Be better if it wasn’t there at all… hang on… if it wasn’t then you’d gain that length of track back and could reinvest that into one more car’s length in the headshunt. The walls headshunt could move!

• you could mount the whole switching lead like you would a traverser (track, buildings, “scenery”…all of it); and
• move the whole scene, forward-backward, to align with the 2 sidings and do the switching. 
• It would be simple to wire (actually, only the headshunt even needs electric since an engine will never reach into the building).

James proposed a scene arrangement where the headshunt is outdoors and the sidings are inside the building. That bisecting backdrop is handy in my scheme too as it’s the same as the hole in the sky that usually bridges from the scenicked portion of the layout to the fiddle yard where a traverser normally lives anyway.

Chris Mears 2026.

Between operating sessions its perimeter is within its envelope so there’s no compromise in a clean presentation aesthetic. Only when playing does the left side (shunting lead) start to do its in and out dance and the layout reveals it’s not always so demure.

I really enjoyed making the sketch. Daydreaming about model trains has been great fun that I’m grateful for too.

Thank you James for all you do and for sharing it all with us. It means a lot and feeds this community in ways that make it all better.