Les Lewis is a long time traction veteran and award winning member of the East Penn Trolley Club in Pennsylvania. Les resides in Westport, CT where his O scale trolley layout lives. Les is also the proprietor of Westport Model Works, featuring cardstock building facades available in multiple scales.

I visited Les at his home in December, 1998. He was gracious to allow me to spend a few hours visiting with him and photographing the layout which is set in New Haven, CT, my home town and features scratchbuilt trolleys in an era when the Connecticut Company was the mainstay of intracity transportation.

Les uses code .125 handlaid track with double rails to simulate girder rail. He constructs his own switches and most track is laid in the street. For street material Les uses Durham's Water Putty and carves out a convincing cobblestone effect. He constructs many of his own buildings. A major feature of the buildings are the well lit store fronts and the detailed interiors (photo 13). One entire structure is made to represent an entire block of buildings at Yale University on Elm Street in downtown New Haven (photos 8, 9 and 15). The resemblance is uncanny; the detail nothing short of amazing. Another attractive feature is the operating Tomlinson Bridge on Water Street over the Quinnipiac River (photo 3).

I took 15 photos of this layout. Just click on the photo number below and hit the "back" button on your browser to return to this page.