Price: $41.99 each (nos. BR5856, BR5857, and BR5858) Footprint: BR5856 tin shack approx. 2½ x 3½ inches, BR5857 work shed approx. 3¾ x 3½ inches, BR 5858 wood shack approx. 3¾ x 2½ inches Features: Fully assembled and weathered.
Three small O gauge structures brought out by Woodland Scenics can be the center of one of these attention-getting vignettes that make a layout stand out from a loop of track on a bare 4×8 plywood sheet.
The latest additions to the Built-&-Ready Landmark Structure line are the nos. BR5856 tin shack, BR5857 work shed, and BR5858 wood shack. They are well-executed rendering of outbuildings you can find just about anywhere. Each of them comes assembled, painted, and weathered. They are ready to be customized or just planted on your layout.
The BR5857 Work Shed is a proper work shed or small field office. It is well painted and has simulated power hookup. The roof has a fresh-looking layer of shingles as well as a stovepipe. Outside you’ll find a covered and locked bin as well as a stack of kindling for what must be a wood stove hidden away inside.
Though there are no lights inside (none of the structures is illuminated), it wouldn’t be a problem to hook up the Just-Plug system to create a little interior or exterior light.
The BR5858 Wood Shack is slightly scruffier in appearance. Hey, this is where Scut Farkus and Grover Dill hide out to plan their villainy. Then maybe this is the Work Shed 25 years later. The structure is elevated off the ground and has a simple wood plank deck at the front door. There is one window that is partially boarded over. The roof clearly needs some work, with the wood planks being visible beneath many torn-off shingles. This structure says, “down but not out,” meaning it’s old yet still functional.
There are what looks to be two wood barrels next to the entry that may have it fit into a fishing village scene or maybe even a brewery setting. The paint on the walls is terrible, by which I mean great! Was the building painted gray, and the previous color, brown, is showing through? Or is the color brown, with the old gray revealed from the peeling paint? It appears to be for storage only, which means you could place this close to anywhere in Train Town.
The no BR5856 tin shack is the rock bottom, absolute last stop before you get to a hobo shack. Hey, it may even be a hobo shack for those upper 1 percent hobos! The structure is made of beat-up corrugated steel sheets. Maybe the sheets come from the roof of a farm structure or perhaps from a scrapped passenger car. But this is the kind of place nefarious plots are hatched, a hidey-hole where PCBs secretly leak into the soil, and a den where some crazy inventor may hide his time machine.
These three well-built and superbly decorated Built-&-Ready shacks are a great idea since they don’t require a lot of real estate to place them. Untied to a specific main building, they can be used anywhere on an O gauge layout, with your imagination being the only limitation.
