Am I one of those guys who’ve never got over not having had a model train setup as a child? That hole in my character—already a swiss cheese of error and omission—isn’t necessarily at the core of the Agincourt project, but it’s surely lurking somewhere in the vicinity.

Model railroad enthusiasts (fanatics?) have essentially done my work for me, the principal difficulty being that they took a set of historic plans and built the actual water tower, whereas I’ll have to adjust several pieces to accommodate stairs and puncture the “barrel” to allow windows. Otherwise, it’s going to look pretty much like this. Still to be determined: 1) scale, 2) wood species, and 3) whether I should build the whole tower, just half of it, or the tower split in halves like a bi-valve mollusk.

The exterior is just over twenty-four feet in diameter, which probably means the interior will be nearly twenty-three feet clear—before the bookshelves are added, of course. The stairs will have to rise through the center, eliminating some of the floor space and restricting the number of chairs that can be placed for lectures. All things considered, it should become a curiosity on Carousel Alley.¹

¹ In case you hadn’t noticed, several of Agincourt’s alleys are named, “alley culture” having been part of civic life since the late 19th century.