Blog - Page 104 of 683 - Model railroad layouts plansModel railroad layouts plans | Free model railroad track plans, pics and tips

American Flyer engines

Gene has been in touch with is American Flyer engines:

“Al, I grew up doing model railroading with my Dad, mostly American Flyer from his childhood.

After he passed away, the stuff was packaged up and sat in boxes for more than 20 years.

I started a layout two years ago and to my shock, most of the engines still ran. Most of my engines and rolling stock from my Dad and are more than 50 years old.

Anyway, I have now started to work on scenery and the coaling plant is my beginning. I also plan to have an ore mining area that should be completed soon.

Keep the emails coming. I really do enjoy them.

Gene”

Gene’s post reminded me of Wayne’s, American Flyer model railroad.

Now for some more tips from the collective:

“I think the best thing I’ve found for creating varying ground levels is the insulating foam that comes in a can.

I’m not talking about large mountains here, but just easy undulating terrain. Just spray a glob of the stuff where you want a rise in the terrain, or a low ridge or a crevasse, and let it dry.

Now take a box knife or a sharp razor saw and carve the insulation into the general shape you want. Then fill the holes and gaps that appear with ordinary spackling or wallboard putty.

Again, let it dry, sand the surface to the smoothness you want, and paint with the color of your surrounding terrain.

Before the paint dries, dribble on some sand or kitty litter to simulate loose turf or small gravel and rocks, add a little colored lichen or ground foam here and there as needed, and you’re done.

And if you want to add trees, just stick the trunk support into the foam with a little Elmer’s glue.

Tom”

“I had a late friend, Jim Brennan who now is past. He owned a hobby and train store in Ohio. The one trick he used was to save all his old thinner from cleaning his brushes. He would use it to color the plaster rocks and scenery on his layout. No extra cost but the results were terrific. Keep up the good work. Your hints and ideas are great.

Bill”

“Hi Al,

I can only run trains for a limited period of time before I get bored, so I’m always looking for something else to do, such as filming or photographing it.

I also like making up cameo poses, and my latest is a tablet exchange for single line working and a lorry (truck) which has just made a delivery. The driver is seen rolling up the sheet prior to roping down the load. The rope can be seen lying on the ground.

keep up the good work

Alan”

Another fine installment from Alan.

A huge big thanks too to Gene for sharing his American Flyer engines and rolling stock – I love the fact that they still run after all those years.

That’s all this time folks. Please keep ’em coming.

And don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide if you want to take that very first step on your own layout.

Best

PS The very latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

HO Santa Fe layout

Jim’s been in touch with his HO Santa Fe layout:

“I will be 75 next month and I have “played” with model trains all my life.

When I was five years old my father bought me my first train set.

It was an O-gauge CB&Q Zephyer. He bought it used from a friend whose son had grown tired of it.

My dad covered a 4′ x 6′ sheet of plywood with a green Army blanket and tacked down an oval of track with a passing siding.

Together we added some houses, roads, cars and trees. Good times.

About 3-4 years later I got a A-A Santa Fe Marx set for Christmas.

When I got older we passed those sets on to younger kids in our neighborhood and I messed around with HO for a couple of years.

Then life happened. After High School, I enlisted in the Army and served in Vietnam and Washington DC. Got out of the Army in 1969 and went to college.

After graduating landed a good job, got married, bought a house, and raised two great kids.

During that time I was in-and-out of N-scale and 3-rail O-scale.

I build an 18′ x 8′ O-Scale layout in my basement and was a founding member of the Independent Hi-Railers Midwest Division.

We had the LARGEST modular Hi-Rail layout in the world and would travel to major cities (New Brunswick NJ, Cleveland OH, Madison WI, St Louis MO, Minneapolis MN, Chicago IL) to set-up, display and operate our layout.

In addition, we also participated in 4 or 5 local shows each year.

Fast forward, I retired at age 58 with plans of building a large HO layout in my basement.

Many starts and stops, tear-down and rebuilds. I was never satisfied with the results. My carpentry and electrical skills never measured up to my desired standards. I wish would have realized that sooner.

In 2018 I met with the good people at PMD (Professional Model Design) to discuss having them build an HO layout for me.

Yada, yada, yada… 16 months later they delivered a beautiful 11′ x 22′ HO layout.

For now, I will just post this video. In the near future, I will provide more information and include pictures of the build process and MORE videos.

For now, please enjoy these.

Jim”

A big thanks to Jim for sharing his HO Santa Fe layout.

Now on to Peter.

He’s been busy scratch building from the printable buildings:

“Hi Al,

Here’s one of my scratch builds.

Peter”

I really do a get a kick out of seeing what you’ve created with the print out scenery.

A huge big thanks to Peter and Jim.

Really liked Jim’s back story, especially the line, “then life got in the way”.

It’s something we can all relate to.

But I think he’s made up for time with a HO scale 11×22 in his basement. Looks great.

That’s it for today peeps.

Please do keep ’em coming – just hit reply to any of my mails if you’d like to share anything.

And if today is the day you jump in and join in the fun, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

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

Weathering HO freight cars

Jim’s been back in touch. He’s been busy weathering HO freight cars, and they look spot on:

“Greetings, Alastair. Hope all is well with you and yours.

It’s been some time since I’ve posted anything any where. I have been busy adding a few things to my layout and weathering several rail cars.

However, I recently purchased a new Broadway Limited 2-8-2 ATSF steam locomotive with oil tender, sound and smoke.

The B&B Depot needed additional equipment for their excursion train rides.

Business is good, so more cars plus a buffer car were needed.

Hope you and your subscribers enjoy.

Jim AZ”

It really looks Jim is enjoying every minute of weathering HO freight cars, and that’s what it’s all about.

Jim’s last post is here:

Jim’s stunning cab ride video

And the one before that:

Jim’s video update

(Jim’s post also reminded me of Steve’s: Weathering model train cars.

Now on to Nigel:

“I have been following your blog for a couple of years now and it has very much helped we in wanting to fulfill a childhood dream of having a Model Railway.

I have found your blog to be an endless stream of useful information from all your contributors in helping me to try and avoid making any costly mistakes.

I live in Stacksteads in Lancashire and in the last couple of years kinda started the long journey of creating a Model Railway in a shed and wanted to give you some background as to how it came about and a progress report along with a few pictures.

When I was a young boy like many other kids I had a train set, it used to be put together on my bedroom floor most weekends and then have to put it away again.

I remember going to Hastings Pier in West Sussex as a young boy and seeing an amazing model layout of the Gotthard line (some of your followers may remember it), after seeing this fantastic model of trains going in and out of tunnels and the amazing scenery the dream was at some point to create a model of my own.

A marriage of over forty years to my lovely wife Lynda and the birth of my two daughters Charlotte and Becky and the time spent bringing them up removed any notion of railway modelling from my mind until I reached the milestone of my 60th birthday.

I started thinking about having a pastime in retirement, unfortunately still 5 years away those thoughts of having model railway of my own returned and the images of my visits to Hastings Pier came back to influence the sort of model I wanted to create.

I knew I would never get away with having a model in the house, even though the third bedroom would have been ideal, the wife would simply not entertain it. So I took the decision to make use of some spare outside space at the side of our house between the house and a conifer hedge which would allow me to make a good size model.

Now three months from my 63rd birthday progress has been made.

After deciding pre Covid 19 to create an N scale model operated by DC based on an Alpine scene with four main lines running around several loops of the layout crossing over each other thus using tunnels, bridges and gradients synonymous with the alpine region of Europe.

I started to purchase locomotives, rolling stock and track and after two years or so accumulated a good number of Swiss, German and Austrian locomotives albeit the majority of them used from ebay along with the rolling stock.

Having prepared the groundwork in early 2020 the erection of a 12 foot x 5 foot shed took place in June kindly being named Fernhill Station by my eldest daughter.

After triple coating the exterior of the shed with decking oil I started insulating it and installed the electrics.

I calculated that I could achieve a layout 4 and a half feet wide by 10 feet in length with a 2 foot by 6 foot area in the centre for me to operate it from, accessed by me crouching forward sat low on a salon stool to avoid me crawling on my knees.

I also wanted to have a small place to work and managed to install a small slideaway work top.

I wanted to have a place to store trains off the main layout and chose to have a lower deck with sidings to hold upto 8 made up train sets with two of my four main lines running around the lower deck, to link to the sidings.

So in last four months of the year I built the frame to support a double deck baseboard and also installed the lower deck made up from the doors and casings from an old discarded wardrobe covering it with some spare lino face down, later adding the 3% gradients courtesy of woodland scenics to get the trains from the lower deck up to the main deck, having already tested all my locos with 7 coach sets to ensure they could all manage the inclines.

I am currently working on the bus wire and In the coming months plan to lay the cork on the inclines followed by the track, following on by moving onto laying the track on the lower deck.

Kind Regards

Nigel”