Model railroad layouts plans

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.

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.

Lastly, some news about the printable buildings.

I’ve been scratching my head over what to do with them – how to get them on the site in a structured way, instead of randomly appearing every now and then.

Everytime I mull this over, I always arrive at the same conclusion: build a store on the site.

Then I think of all the work that would take, and I manage to put it off until later.

And as we all know, later is never.

So I’ve decided to do it, bit by bit, starting with four, brand new buildings.

Here they are, I hope you like them:

Have a look at Smokey Joe’s lock up

Carl’s brick store

I love the weathering on Fat Bob’s store house

Big Tom’s timber store. Guess why they call him big Tom?

If you click on them, you’ll see they go to their own page, where you can buy if you want to (they’ll cost a little more when they are put in the store).

Of course, I’m biased, but they are a steal at $7.99 – but have a look, I’d really love to know what you think.

I’m really excited about seeing any of them on a layout. It does really make my day when I get sent a layout with the printable buildings on, like Mike’s.

That’s it for today peeps. Please do grab any of the new buildings sooner rather than later if you want them at the low, low price of $7.99

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

Al

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

Need buildings for your layout? Have a look at the Silly Discount bundle.

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”

A big thanks to Nigel and to Jim for his weathering HO freight cars.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you pick the hobby back up, the model train Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

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

Lawrence has been back in touch with some on details on how he has wired his train lift bridge.

But first, another update from Dave:

“Hi Al, Here’s a vid of my Deltic, I call the Beast from the East.

I have shown in the past but so many have said its one of the best sounding Loco`s they have heard, so did this one yesterday of it doing the circuit, it is a Bachman version with a EM2 speaker fitted, the sound is very good.
 
Regards 

Dave”

Now on to Lawrence and his lift bridge:

“Al 

None of us can thank you enough for all the time and work you do for us. 

A little history first.

When I was about ten years old Dad and Uncle Frank built a train layout that fit on a sheet of plywood. My two sisters and myself could watch (during the day) as they build the layout and ran the trains.

I think it was a double figure eight that crossed tracks a number of times. When we were sent to bed on the bottom floor, we could her them running the trains. And whooping with joy as they crashed the trains at the crossovers. 

When we moved from Massachusetts to Florida the trains and tracks were stored in a thick cardboard barrel. The barrel moves with us and went into storage.

Years later when I was in the Navy and Dad passed away the barrel came into my possession. What a thrill was it to open and see the treasure. 

I was an Electronics Technician in the Navy. In the Navy you move a lot. When I got out and as a Government Contractor with a couple of electronic companies, I also moved a lot. Lived in four countries (in Europe, Middle East, and Far East). Traveled in 32 different countries. The barrel with all the train treasure stayed in storage. 

Finally, the travel ended and the barrel came out of storage every December. The Lionel train ran in circles or figure eights under the Christmas Tree for a month. The back into the barrel.

When the wife and I retired we got a one level house. That means she got the main level and the full basement was mine to do as I wanted.

First project was a DC track around half the basement hanging from the ceiling. Then added another track that was DCC. I started basically knowing nothing. Learning from chatting with the local train store.

Next project was a two track HO DCC U shaped layout. Using three sheets of plywood at about 43” off the floor.

Digging through the storage I found the barrel again. Took apart the HO layout and started on the O layout with the Lionel Train and tracks. Got three new larger engines from an auction. Now I had four engines that took four minimum track curves (32”, 45”, 54”, and 72”). Designed the layout on AnyRail6.

Built the track base (ten inches off the floor, 30 feet long and 20 feet wide) and put down the track for all four engines. Bought four transformers, one for each track. Time to wire it now.

After talking to the local train store was recommended to split the track in half with plastic rail joiners. And put a Booster SB5 on one side and a Booster DB5 on the other. 

To keep the resistance down on the Buss Wires, broke the layout into four sections.

The output of the transformers went to four terminal strips, one for each track.

Displayed in the next picture is the distribution of the Buss wires to the four track sections and the lift bridge. Just the 32” track distribution is displayed. The other three terminal strips respectively match the first one except for the respective track.

With the layout so close to the floor all the wiring had to run on the side of the layout. For that I installed terminal strips at specific points for feeder wires to the tracks. Drilled a hole at the track and dropped the feeder wires and pulled them to the front to attach to the terminal strips.

I used split wire plastic conduits to distribute the wires between the terminal strips. Refer to the next two pictures. The third conduit and terminal strip is for accessories.

The last picture display the power to be applied to the lift bridge. When the lift bridge is up there is not power to the bridge and to six feet of track to the west of the bridge. When the bridge is down the micro switches applies power to the bridge and the track displayed in the picture.

Thus, if the train is running, forgot the bridge is up, the train will run into the bridge from the east and will have no power on the track from the west.

I hope this answers all the questions on the wiring.

Lawrence”

If you want to catch up with Lawrence’s layout and his lift bridge, have a look at this post.

As always, a big thanks to Dave and to Lawrence for sharing his train lift bridge.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you leave the comfort of your armchair and join in with the fun, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

It’s all about making that start…

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

And there’s the Silly Discount bundle too.