Model railroad layouts plans

Rob’s been back in touch. In this missive he is adding railway telegraph poles to his layout.

“Hi Al,

You sure have sent out some great content lately. I have been enjoying your email links. I read them in the morning with my coffee and if they didn’t arrive, I would miss them terribly. It could ruin my day.

My subscribers have told me they want videos with information geared to building great scenes for their trains to run through. Along those lines, I have created this linked video.

I have always liked how my trains look as they traverse this subject section of the Farland Howe layout. With that in mind, I thought it would be greatly enhanced by adding railway telegraph poles.

In North America as in other places in the world, control circuits for the safe passage of trains were carried by overhead wires for many years until the advent of well-insulated cables that could run along the ground in cable trunks, be buried, or in the case of some railroads in the modern era the signaling circuits are linked by microwaves or radio digitally.

I felt that a series of telegraph poles would enhance this long view as I call it.

The images of trains running toward or away from the viewer in this section would be enhanced and the distance somewhat defined by the addition of and the interest the telegraph poles could add.

I embarked on the discovery journey of building telegraph poles and the history and use of these things along the railways and railroads of the world earlier this year when I got back into my Farland Layout after spending a year or so working on an n scale project, 1:160 scale.

I tried to build these poles as close to scale as I could and as I improved my methods and designs, I got closer and closer to actual scale as I went along.

In the process of building these and experimenting with design and materials, I ended up with many examples of various designs for them in varying approximations of scale.

The materials available and my methods and skill at fabricating these things improved over time and trial and error Practice makes improvement. The new telegraph poles on my Longview are the culmination of these experiments.

Besides the video about enhancing this section of the layout, I have provided a link to another video where one can see the various iterations of design from the track level that I have created to arrive at my current telegraph pole modeling level.

Here is the short telegraph pole video of my various experiments:

Here is the link to the video of me enhancing my Longview section of the layout:

Thank you so much for all you do for the modeling community around the world,

Rob – Farland Howe”

A big thanks to Rob for sharing – sometimes it’s the tiny little details like adding railway telegraph poles that make all the difference on a scene or layout, and Rob really is diving deep.

In his last post he made a signal gantry.

And there is also his scratch built crane.

Rob also did a post on making car tracks.

There’s also the Faller Road video, which makes his cars and trucks move.

There’s also more of Rob’s stuff in the Hall of Fame.

That’s all for today 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 Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

Mark’s been back in touch with his Lionel Pennsylvania Flyer:

“How goes it Al,

Here are some updated picture of my PW Lionel layout.

A video of a PW 682 Turbine A Williams car that I added seats and replaced lights with LED, along with a RailKing Pennsy passenger cars that I painted and added people

Here is the picture of the old sign that was on top of the Brewery, also I opened up a few spots on the layout to add some miners, the other photos were updated pictures I took over the last couple years.

A huge big thank you to Mark for sharing his Lionel Pennsylvania Flyer.

It reminded me of Andy’s: Pennsylvania model railroad.

If you missed his first post, it really is worth a look.

You can see more of his post war lionel trains here – just have a look at the comments.

Mark’s posts struck a chord with me, because it’s another reminder of how much a theme holds a layout together.

And of course, it reminded me of a few other posts too.

There’s Andy’s Pennsylvania layout.

There’s also a video of Andy’s Pennysylvania trains here.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you poke boredom in the eye, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

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

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

Rob’s been in touch. He’s added to the collection of Santa Fe model trains to the blog:

“Dear Mr. Lee,

I have read your daily posts every day for several years. I wanted to share with you my history with model trains.

When I was 1 year old and during WWII, my father purchased a 7 year old Marx Streamliner train. I guess we know who was going to enjoy it, especially since growing up on a farm he never had one.

They when I was about 9 years old I got an Americam Flyer Royal Blus train for Christmas.

Wow, it only needed 2 tracks like real trains.

Then a neighbor moved away and gave me his Circus Train modeled after “The 1952 Greatest Show on Earth Movie”.

My Dad Bought a 4’ x 8’ piece of masonite for a train table but never had time to build the table.

I put the masonite on a coffee table and a couch down in the basement. I had 2 switches, an uncoupler, 3 buildings and a cattle loader. Soon we moved and all the traiins got packed away.

I was entering junior High School and never got the trains out again. After High School I went to college and married soon after graduation. That marriage didn’t work out, but now I have the most wonderful woman in the world who has been with me for 51 years.

In 2006 I saw an ad for HO Model trains. I really missed my American Flyer stuff and this ad showed a 2 car garage with the floor covered with engines, cars, buildings and track. The price was right and several large boxes were delivered to my house.

I was in Charlotte, North Carolina and the trains came from Winston Salem, a few hundred miles away. Put everything in the garage and had to change jobs shortly there after.

Those boxes were moved several more times over the next years. There was either no room for a train table or no time. One of my jobs was being a model maker building plastic models of chemical plants in 3⁄4” to the foot scale so I got to develop some modeling skills.

I have finally retired and moved to sunny Florida, USA. The local hobby shop was getting out of the model train business and I was able to buy 5 HO train sets for a very low price. I researched the purchase I made in North Carolina and it appears the all the trains came from a hobby store and the owner passed away and the family closed the store.

There are several Santa Fe model trains engines needing repair and there were several buildings in kit form that had to be put together. There is a 1950’s 3 engine 7 car Santa Fe stream liner that is beautiful except all it does is sit and spin the wheels. It won’t pull the train.

I am now 80 years old and I figured I had better put together a train table. I started to clean out the garage and my great wife told me to set it up in our guest room. We only have 1 or 2 guests a year and we can put them in a hotel. As always she was right. The temperature extremes in the garage would have played havoc with the trains.

I have included several pictures of “Robertstown” as it is today. It still isn’t finished. I need to ad lots of grass and other details. But it’s coming along. There are several stories in the display which I recorded in a movie, but I am unable to transmit movies I take with my phone.

So, here are the pictures. I hope you enjoy them.

OH. By the way. The trolley, or tram as you call it, runs on a track with 8” radius turns. I used flex track and extensively modified the tram so it would make the sharp turns.

Thanks for all of your daily efforts.

Bob, Florida USA”

A big thanks to Bob for sharing his Santa Fe model trains – I do love how so many of have your trains in boxes for years and years. When they see the light of day in retirement, that’s when all the fun starts.

Bob’s post also reminded me of Jim’s HO scale Santa Fe layout.

That’s all for today 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 Silly Discount bundle.