Randy Lee Decker has embarked on modeling a 95% accurate replica of John Allen's third layout. Randy's background is in museum display work and he's approaching this project as another of his museum projects.

That means this layout is a serious "replica" of John Allen's famous layout, almost board for board, stick for stick -- but not quite. Randy will be using more modern technology in his replica -- like high fidelity flex track, Kadee couplers, and DCC. Plus he's making a few "improvements" or "corrections" to John's design -- but only a few. Randy can talk about those.

One of my go to tools as I am getting older is an Optivisor. I have tried other magnifiers and glasses but find my favorite is still my old Optivisor. I also find I need more light for doing fine detail work and have tried many different work lights as well but they often get in the way, so one day while in a Home Depot I ran across a small LED light with a clip. I purchased one and figured out a way to mount it to the Optivisor without making any holes. A simple Binder Clip from the Office Supply store made a perfect clamp.