Photos by Richard Schumacher
Glenn Koproske, of the Mississippi Valley N Scalers, displayed his HO scale “Halloween Fright Fest Layout” at the recent Gateway NMRA St. Louis train show. This layout has been displayed at a number of area shows, the Iron Spike Museum and at Mark Twain Hobbies, and always draws a crowd.
The Halloween front yards and buildings came from a garage sale in Ballwin. Glenn’s wife, Mary, helped with the design and Jerry Smith helped with the build. The layout was built in only six weeks on 2-inch foam board; a 4’x8′ sheet was cut down in size to fit inside Glenn’s small SUV. The hills are shaped foam board layers glued to the main layout with Glidden® Gripper Primer. The supporting display base is also made of 2-inch foam board, designed for the pieces to interlock on site for easy setup and tear-down.
The Halloween train runs on Bachmann E-Z Track® and is controlled via WiFi using the engine driver app on Glenn’s phone. A Digitrax LNWI is used to receive the WiFi signal. The edge of the layout is decorated with holiday lights left over from a purple-themed wedding reception and additional candy corn lights. Mary added the wonderful candy corn trees and the shimmering spider “tunnel.”
