Road Crew Details - HO Scale

The tools and signs that turn a road into a work site

A dug up roadway is one of the most rewarding scenes that can be built on a layout or a diorama, because it explains at once why cars are queuing and why people are gathering by the railing. This set supplies exactly the equipment such a scene needs. It holds a bucket, a wheelbarrow, a rake and shovels, and along with them poles, cones, traffic signs with a warning meaning and a small pile of gravel that can be settled at the edge of a trench.

These are the objects themselves, not the workers. The set therefore completes a scene already peopled from elsewhere, or else creates a picture of interrupted work: tools leaning against the wheelbarrow, cones set out in a row and nobody there, because the crew has gone for lunch. This second way of using it has the advantage of looking believable even without a single figure.

A small thing with a large effect is the cones. Set out at regular intervals they lead the eye along a closed lane and reliably show where the detour runs. The signs in turn set the character of the closure; a short repair to a curb looks different from work that makes a whole street impassable. The poles can be used to mark off a fenced section, and the rake and shovels belong with spread material.

Everything is reduced in a ratio of eighty-seven to one and is supplied finished in color, including the warning tones that have a safety function in real traffic. The deep orange or red area of the cones is the most prominent color anywhere near on a model, and it is good to arrange the placing accordingly: a few pieces are enough, and overloading the scene would turn it into a confusing blotch.