Ria built this two-story outhouse kit produced by Wild West Scale Model Builders. The first photo is of the cover of the instruction sheet. The instructions are straightforward and the kit was easy to build. The hardest part was deciding who took the upper toilet and who was supposed to take the bottom toilet. Let's hope the downstairs person can't look up!

At a recent train show, on the Houston S Gaugers modular layout where we display this structure as an odd road-side attraction, we noticed people were trying to look into the top toilet and wanted to see what was inside. Ria decided that we should have a light in the upper toilet. We recently purchased some 603 SMD LEDs and magnet wire, which are perfect for just this type of installation.

I soldered sufficient lengths of magnet wires to the LED. I then drilled as small a hole as possible into the back of the structure just under the rear roof line. With a bit of patience (and after testing the LED), I was able to guide the two magnet wires through the hole from the front of the structure. I then glued the LED to the inside roof using 5-minute epoxy. Since it is hard to hold while the glue is setting, I waited with pressing the LED in place until the glue was just starting to set. You only get a few seconds after that, so it is delicate work. I had bought some stainless steel tubing from Ngineering (part #N2025-2), which is a perfect fit for two strands of magnet wire. I cut the tube to length and routed the wire through it. I then superglued the tube to the back of the structure. This makes it look like an external electrical pipe routing wires to the ground. As can be seen in the next photo, I cut and glued two strips of brass to the bottom of the structure (using 5-minute epoxy glue), and then soldered the magnet wires to the strips.

For a test set-up, I glued two strips of brass to a piece of leftover plywood and soldered two wires to the strips. One of the wires has the current-limiting resistor soldered to it. I then hooked that up to my 12-volt accessories bus that run throughout my layout.

It was then just a simple matter of putting the structure up on the test set-up, and the LED lights up! My plan is to attach similar brass strips to the modular layout where this structure typically resides, as well as a more permanent location on my layout. We can then just transport the structure back and forth, without having to worry about disconnecting wires. This idea, by the way, is not originally mine; I gleaned it from a friend here in town, Jim Thompson, who has built entire lit-up city blocks using this brass strip method so that he can remove the structures for easy dusting and for access to hidden track.

If you think these types of toilets aren't prototypical, check out these links:

- Home-built version
- Remains of a two-story outhouse for a two-story home
- Two-story outhouse with walkway to building
- Historic two-story outhouse video