Model railroad layouts plans

Brian the Brit in New York has been back in touch, with an update on his shelf mounted model railway:

“Hi Al,

Its been about 6 months since I last wrote and introduced you to my new project – a shelf railway based loosely on the Ashover Light Railway located in Derbyshire, England, close to Chesterfield where I grew up.

I described the history of the railway, which ceased operation in 1950 three years before I was born, and my interest in it which started with a school project so I will not repeat any of that.

I have a corner in my train room which has available wall space 8 feet and 6 feet long and 2 ft wide. I am limited in the length of the 2 legs by the need to access the stairs at one end and a door into the storage half of the basement at the other end.

I have built the infrastructure using a storage shelf system which seems very stable.

The layout will be L shaped with trains going end to end. Because I need to access the space below the stairs, the shelf is 52 inches above the floor. I have my work bench under it, and yes, I have to be careful not to bang my head when working!

The resulting model consists of a main line in OO gauge and the Ashover Light Railway in 009 gauge which is OO scale on N gauge track. Both tracks are set up as shuttle lines because, for the main line there is no room for a return loop and for the ALR in real life was an end-to-end line with no turn around.

My aim with this layout is a focus on the scenery rather than the fun of running trains although I do enjoy watching them go back and forth.

There are 3 main dioramas- Clay Cross at one end, Ashover Butts at the other end and Ogston Hall, a stately hall, in the middle. Clay Cross is a mid sized town where the ALR meets the main line from Sheffield to Derby and onto London.

It is represented by a row of terraced houses and a pub and the station for the ALR as well as a coal yard and fueling infrastructure for the main line.

The countryside starts at the end of the street and reflects the typical rural countryside of Derbyshire with agriculture and fields surrounded by dry-stone walls. The ALR had a number of small stations or halts along its route, but I only have room for one.

Further along, Ogston Hall is represented by a Metcalfe building and next to it is a cricket match and pavilion. I find cricket is a great way of filling a field with interest rather than just another field of animals. The item missing in the landscape, which I did not have room for, was a river but at least the background represents one.

Finally, at the other end of the line is Ashover Butts station. When the line was popular with tourists, primarily from Sheffield and Derby, they joined the train at Clay Cross and disembarked at Ashover Butts station where they went to the café called “the End of the Rainbow” which I have depicted along with picnic tables.

This station is much bigger than the actual one at Ashover Butts but it’s one I made for a previous layout and decided to use it with poetic license!

The main line goes into tunnels at each end, one under the town of Clay Cross and the other under Ogston Hall, the bridge in the foreground carries the ALR over the main line.

I very much enjoyed building this layout, very different to my main layout which you have featured previously.

(Below are pics of the previous layout: Model cliff railway.)

Finally, as ever, to AL a big thank you for giving us model railroaders this blog which I enjoy every day. It’s a great source of help and inspiration and makes this hobby so much more rewarding.

Brian
Brit living 40 miles outside New York”

A big thanks to Brian for sharing this update – I absolutely love what he’s done.

I know I’ve said it a million time before, but this hobby is all about picking a theme and making a start.

That’s all for this time folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you get started on your layout, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.

Need buildings for your layout? Have a look at the store.

They are great fun to make and great value too.

Brian’s been back in touch – he’s been busy building a modular train layout for his club:

“Hi Alastair,

Having manned and run the timesaver layout at the recent model railroad and hobbies fair held in Knysna – my home town, it came to light that the public wanted to see trains running, not backwards and forwards as in shunting to industries.

I made a decision to build a small portable oval type layout in HOn3 for exhibiting at future events. This one will be super detailed as I usually do with my own personal layouts.

It must be small enough to fit in a vehicle therefore the layout will be 5 foot by 2 foot 6 inches and very well detailed with a lot of scratch built buildings on it.

I obtained ISO board of that size and surrounded it with Masonite (MDF) facias.

Below is a tryout of the minimum radius on the ISO board before adding the facia.

It was then painted with a sand textured earth colour paint and got it ready to mark out the very basic track plan.

I figured that the largest radius curve that I could get on said board was 13 and a half inches.

I used a piece of track curved to that radius – almost a half circle and proceeded to test an HOn3 Heisler and an HOn3 C – 16 2-8-0 on it. Both ran perfectly.
Below is the C-16 2-8-0 locomotive.

Next was a track plan to fit and what to put on this layout.

Two main structures that would fit is a scratch built single stall engine house that could handle both locomotives and a scratch built scrapyard.

The first engine house that I scratch built was too long for this small layout, so I promptly sold it to a friend and scratch built a new shorter one. The original one shown below with a corrugated iron sheet roof.

Below, the new shorter one showing the HOn3 Heisler inside and was built in a day and a half. All the interior and exterior details came from my ‘bits’ box – some already painted and some needed painting. This shorter length suited the layout a lot better.

Building a modular train layout:

Moved away from a corrugated iron roof to a tarpaper one. (Ran out of scale corrugated iron). The tarpaper is a sheet of A4 white paper sprayed randomly with a black acrylic paint so as not to cover it in a solid coat of paint.

It was then cut into strips and randomly glued onto the roof to avoid the same colour throughout. I Added a few repair patches here and there and then weathered it a bit more. Again all the details mainly the interior ones were added while still on my workbench. As seen above, the roof was made removable.

Below is the scratch built vehicle scrapyard. They are all resin cast from my moulds and glued together before painting and weathering. Next was the ground cover inside.

Below is the finished scrapyard ready for installation on the layout.

On one of the corners I placed another general scrapyard. It filled up the wasted corner space with a plausible industry. Note – not yet complete.

The layout had to have a bridge somewhere, so a small lake was placed on the opposite side for the bridge to cross over the inlet to the lake. (The white piece of paper)

As there was a lake to be put into the layout, people had to be able to hire or bring their boats and yachts to go cruising on the ‘lake’. A Scratch built boat hire shop shown below. Again a tarpaper roof was added as described above. The worker is fixing a leak on the peak of the roof.

The outboard motors are 3D printed in resin by a friend as well as the sawhorses.

A small town was next with different shops and related businesses. Also added a scratch built tractor repair shop.

On the other side of the layout there had to be an industrial area, so what better place to have it was opposite the vehicle scrapyard just out of picture on left side. A welding workshop is shown in the background. (A woodland Scenics welding shop kit).

Below is a bulldozer maintenance/repair shop (also scratch built) the dozers will be used in the logging area on the layout.

The next part was to cut out the lake area. ISO board (a nice solid type of foam) was cut out to the shape required. The base is 30mm below the surface making it 8 and a half HO scale feet deep. The backdrop does not belong to this layout as it is from my old home layout and is just resting against the back wall.

The base of the lake was glued into place and sealed completely to avoid water (resin) to leak through as seen below.

Below is an overhead view to make sure that everything is where it was designed to be including a graveyard (still to be assembled ) in bottom left corner just outside of the (town) also a woodland Scenics kit. No wasted space here. Top right corner will have a moonshine still hidden among some trees and bushes.

Top left will have a small sawmill where the water tank is.

All the corners have been put to good use and no wasted space here on this small layout.

The layouts main theme is logging hence the Heisler and possibly a Shay a bit later.

This is far as I am with this project and now to start laying the track.

No doubt that there will be a few minor changes and additions as I progress.

I used Ai (artificial intelligence) to give me an idea on how to scenic the layout and it came up with some excellent ones and I decided the best to follow would be the two shown below. First one was an Ai sketch.

Second one with the scenery below.

Another one showing the yachts sailing on the lake. I have both yacht models to use.

Part 2 will follow soon and as always Alastair, please keep up the excellent work you do for this site.

That’s all for now and till next time – keep modelling.

Brian – the HOn3 guy in Knysna RSA.”

A really big thanks to Brian for sharing how he is building a modular train layout.

Really looking forward to seeing the finished article.

That’s all for this time folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you get started on your layout, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.

Need buildings for your layout? Have a look at the store.

They are great fun to make and great value too.

Dan’s been in touch with some HO scale train cars for special loads:

“Hello Al,

Here is a short blog about special loads.

Railroads often have special loads to consider. Some are easier than others. Here are a few examples.

Photo B1 is a load for an old time tractor show. This also serves as a period time for my layout. My layout is roughly 1958 to 1962.

Photo B 2 is another load for the tractor show. I found these tractors at a toy store back in the 90s.

Photo BR 1 is a rotary snow plow being shipped to be painted in the Santa Fe paint scheme. The photo also shows the need for the two idler flat cars. The overhang is the reason.

Photo BR Prototype one version of the paint scheme.

Photo BR 2 a better view of the overhang.

Photo BR 3 one of the idler cars is also use for the trucks.

Photo BEAM 1 another example of a special load. This long beam requires two idler cars because of the length. The beam is 80 feet long.

SantaFeDan*”

A big thanks to Dan for sharing his HO scale train cars for special loads. I do love the detail he adds to his layouts.

This post reminded me of another Dan has done:

HO scale gondola loads.

You can see more of Dan in the Hall of Fame.

Now on to Len:

“Thanks for the mention of the camp ground on my layout. Here are a few more pictures of my work in progress.

I’ve added a mountain with tunnel, playground, dog park, and soapbox derby track. I also have a (golf) driving range under construction.

Len”

That’s all for this time folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you blow the dust of your old locos and find some track, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.

Need buildings for your layout? Have a look at the store.

They are great fun to make and great value too.