Recently, the Calgary Model Railway Society offered a challenge to modelers:
"Build a scenic element or diorama on top of a Peanut Butter Lid!"
The
RHJ Rail answer to this challenge was to build an operating
model railroad underneath a peanut butter jar lid!
CMRS Lid Challenge
Strictly speaking, this wasn't an official entry into the CMRS Bouma Lid Challenge because it doesn't follow the rules exactly. The rules said "1. Build any thing, any scale, any height on top of a peanut butter lid".
However, this entry is built beneath a peanut butter jar lid (PBJL). But, just to cover all the bases, there is another PBJL under the display. (You can see it if you look closely.)
 Layout under PBJL (works best in Firefox) (Click image for a video to see it in action - F11 for full screen) |
 Thinking inside the box! |
Two displays were considered but some experimentation and time constraints (yes, we had months of notice, but you know ….) helped settle on a simple but ambitious design:
Build an operating model railroad in the space provided by a PBJL.
The components to make it operate satisfactorily would not fit under a PBJL sitting on a flat surface, so the mechanism and controls were built under the PBJL, inside the jar, as was the layout.
In order to provide sufficient space, it was deemed appropriate to use the whole jar for the layout and controls, thus carrying the peanut butter theme beyond the mere lid.
The actual layout has two trains which revolve on a circular "track" no larger in diameter than the PBJL concealed in the wooden lid of the jar.
The complex and constricting surface of the interior of the jar used was a challenge itself to get the components into, never mind operating. The actual layout would not fit into the inside of the jar because the thickness and the shape of the jar were much too constricting, so the layout had to be sawed in half and reassembled inside the jar.
Power
is provided by two 9-volt batteries concealed in the mechanism container
at the top of the jar. One battery is for the LED lighting, the other
for the low-voltage, low-speed gear motor used to drive the layout.
Two mini toggle switches control the layout - one for the main layout
including the motor and LED lights (off/on) and the other for
speed control (slow/fast).
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The layout at a glance
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Bow Valley Model Railroad Association, Calgary - 2024