Brian has been back in touch with his layout that has its own model cliff railway.
You may remember because he’s a Brit living in New York who sent in this post: Canal layout
Now he’s shared a video of the layout.
I loved seeing the barge pulled by the engine – and the cliff railway too:
“Hi Al,
Its been about 1 month since you posted my model railway on your blog.
I must say I was very flattered by the comments which were made, what a wonderful bunch of people the model railway hobbyists are!
I must thank one contributor, Thomas Strangeway in particular. I had commented that I could not work out how to have my barge pulled by an engine; he suggested using Lego wheels. It works perfectly so thank you Thomas!😊
My other challenge has been how to send a video. With a little help from my daughter, not only have I managed to link together 4 video clips, I also learned how to download it onto Youtube.
In the 1st clip you will see the barge moving down the canal, with the help of the Lego wheels, in the 3rd you will see the Funicular (cliff railway) and in the 4th clip with the farm and park you will see at the bottom of the screen another canal with canal lock and 2 barges.
I hope you think this is good enough to post,
I much appreciate what you do for this wonderful hobby,
Best Regards
Brian Hopkinson
(Brit living just outside of New York!)
And now on to George, who always puts a smile on my face with his blog comments:
“Hi Al
Some of my pics from the Strasburg Pa Museum. I was elated when they had a Shay, Climax & Heisler engine for me to see since they are my favorites.
The layout is a small model layout at the museum and I think they have a larger display that I will see soon.
Best
George”
And now on to Jim who is after some advice:
“I am having trouble deciding on bench work size to run N scale. I have been told 4×8 is too small because of radius.
But I have read that size is a good starting point particularly if you’re going to run Kato freight locomotives and cars, no passenger at this point.
Can someone help me with some suggestions?
Jim”
A big thanks to George and to Brian for sharing his model cliff railway.
Jerry’s been in touch and added to the collection of large HO train layouts:
He’s been busy planning his model railroad, spurred on by memories of the past, and of course, you lovely lot of people:
“Hello Alastair,
After seeing Glyn’s post about his Marklin HO trains, and seeing that he’s a mere 100 miles up the hill from me, I figured I’d best get cracking and send you a post!
I’ve had Marklin 3-rail HO trains since the mid-1970s when my parents thought they’d be a good way for me and my younger brother to figure out how to get along.
He soon lost interest in doing anything other than crashing the trains, so I inherited the lot. My first layout was a framed 4 foot by 8 foot plywood board mounted on pipe legs and flanges.
Here’s a track plan for the layout. Solid track pieces are above ground and the dots on those pieces indicate the track joints for the Marklin M-Track. The dotted red, grey and blue track is underground.
And here are a few pictures of the first 4’x8’ layout I built. The photos are almost 50 years old, scuffed, faded and scratched, so I had to retouch them with Photoshop (a little artistic liberty for the backdrop.)
The general idea was to have an Alpine village with a stream, waterfall, and mountain lake that became a rushing river and divided the Castle from the village.
The Castle sat at the edge of a granite cliff, overlooking the rushing river.
Three trains could run automatically on simplified routes with block control, using switches built into the tracks at different locations.
The wiring for each block was run to both signals and turnouts in a way that allowed for two trains to run at the same time without colliding.
Train #1 would run into the at the left of the layout and along the red dotted underground loop, then exit the tunnel and climb the orange grade up to the village. As it climbed the grade and after the last passenger car had cleared the underground switch, it tripped a toggle that started up train #2.
After pausing at the village station, #1 would circle under the mountain on the grey line to return to its home / starting platform.
The freight train (#2) (simplified route) would run into the tunnel with the red underground loop and return to its home / starting platform.
Large HO train layouts:
A more complex route was to cross onto the turquoise / grey line, climb under the mountain and around to the village where it could either loop around the village or descend the orange slope to the red underground line and then return to its home / starting platform.
Train #3 would simply loop around the village (for the simplified route). Of course, it could descend the orange line, loop around the red underground, then climb back up under the mountain (after stopping at the platform) and return to its home signal where its passengers could hike up the short slope to the castle or the cathedral.
The power for each block / signal could be manually controlled with a series of switches and separate transformers mounted on a shelf toward the right front side of the track plan.
These are the only photos that remain to me.
However, the Anyrail software that I used to recreate the track plan has a 3D visualization feature that can give one an idea of the overall dimensions and geography of the layout.
I’m now planning a layout measuring 18 feet by 24 feet (large HO train layouts). I have to build the room first, and that might happen this year. I’ve already purchased all the materials for construction. I just need to start chipping away at it.
It’s a bit of a challenge because one of the walls is meant to stabilize the floor of the guest room upstairs. I haven’t quite mastered Harry Potter’s trick of levitating objects like the 12 foot length of lumber that will span the joists of the guest room floor, but I’m working on it!
Here are a couple of photos of what I’m working with:
The door will go away and I’ll have an 18 foot span (from the wall behind the door over to the handrail for the stairs) for the railyard with turntable, 9-bay roundhouse and maintenance sheds for steam, diesel and electric locomotives.
It will also include freight loading docks and the ever so essential coaling and watering stations for the steam locomotives.
Now that I’ve sold the 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood to a collector, I have the room to build the large space needed for a scaled down version of the Landwasser Viadukt on the Rhaetian / Albula Railway in Graubunden Switzerland. That’s the route that runs the famous “Glacier Express.”
I’ll also have my alpine village named Filisur, which is just the other side of the Viadukt.
Here is a copy of the track plan and a few photos of the various notable railway features in that area of Switzerland that I plan to model.
The layout will have a 24 inch difference between Filisur (on the right) and the base track layer.
To properly scale the height of the Landwasser Viadukt in HO, it would have to be 5 feet 6 inches tall from the base of the tallest pillar to the track. Even if I use open benchwork for that part of the layout, I think I might have to decrease the height a bit.
Here are a couple of photos of the Landwasser Viadukt:
Here is a Photo of the Kriesviadukt:
And here is a photo of the “Bear Step” bridge:
One of the advantages of the Marklin 3-rail system is that you don’t have to worry about polarity changes if you’re running the layout in analog AC mode. I’ve converted most of my locomotives to ESU DCC LokPilot controllers and I’ll be using the ESU ECOS command station to operate the trains. I hope to be able to operate five trains at a time when the layout is complete. I’ll keep you posted as I progress.
All of the members and contributors to your website, and you especially Al, have inspired me to dive back into my model railroading. The model railroad industry had changed so much since 1977!
Everyone here has posted something that has taught me and given me insight. Over the past six years since I joined the site, I have learned so much and it has forced me to re-think the first sketches that I made of the track plan that I’ve shown in this post.
Thanks to everyone for your contributions! Happy Model Railroading and modeling to all!
Jerry in Belen,
NM USA”
A big thanks to Jerry for adding to the large HO train layouts on the blog. Very much looking forward to seeing this one take shape.
If you want to see a ‘finished’ HO scale, Bill’s springs to mind: Large HO scale layouts.
That’s all for today folks.
But please do keep ’em coming – it’s so quiet at the moment.
None of the buildings sell for les than $9 in the store, so that’s $324 worth of printable buildings.
Then there’s the Beginner’s guide which sells at £27 – so you are saving a whopping $342.
Of course, I’m biased, but it’s a crazy deal.
And just to show how much fun you can have with printable buildings (they are brilliant to dip your toe in the water with this hobby), here’s a small selection of them on layouts:
“Al, like you I have been retired for some time now.
I have gone back to my American Flyer, s Guage boyhood train.
I have had “n guage, HO, G scale”, and this American Flyer has been the most fun of all. I guess it takes me back to my parents basement where my 4 x 8 foot layout was back in the early 50’s.
I resized your wonderful old barn and had so much fun building it. Here are some pics. Hope everyone enjoys it as much as I have.
Jerry from Illinois, USA.”
“Al,
Great project and a lot of fun. The barn is on it’s way to the Railroad Club.
Charles”
“Al
I have enjoyed your site for a long time, since I have retired had to find something to fill the spare time, I purchased one of your bundles and printed out one of the Engine sheds among many others.
I have created my own version of the Engine shed as shown in the pictures.
Side walls have ventilation fan vents.
I have dreamed to set up a model railroad layout for a long time and when I started to make it a reality one thing came up after another, like kids, education, weddings and now I have time and room to finish the dream, but not much of a budget.
Best to all talented people like Hall of Fame Dave, talented hobbyists and their many beautiful layouts.
Ryszard”
And of course, there’s lots of the printable buildings on your layouts.
Here some pictures of them:
Mike has used a lot of the houses and grain elevators (not featured in the bundle – just using a print out example).
And frankly you couldn’t pick a better time to take the plunge with the Beginner’s Guide – it’s just $9, 36 free buildings, and you also get the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing you’ve supported the blog and helped kept the show on the road.
Best
Al
PS None of the buildings sell for les than $9 in the store, so with the Beginner’s Guide, you are saving $342 – but only until tomorrow!
