Model railroad layouts plans

Brian’s been back in touch with his HO scale harbor model.

“Hi Alastair,

photos of the latest build, one finished and the second one almost finished.

Below is the 99% finished FSM Seafood Emporium in place on my layout after more that 3 months of work on it.

Now to bed it onto the layout with ground cover and surrounding details.

A photo showing a boat loading / offloading products at the wharf.

Note the fresh fish and lobsters on the sorting table and the blacksmith eyeing them for his lunch. (He already has the fire going inside).The guy in the small boat alongside is hoping to get a freebie from his mate on the bigger boat.

My next project, a Sierra West kit, the first building of 4 items in the kit – Foss Launch Co. The main building.

On this very rare occasion, I will be basically assembling it straight out of the box with no kit bashing or modifications to it. The only addition will be a full interior and lights added

As usual when building kits, I always make a cardboard mock-up of the building from the plans to make sure that it is what is correct for the position on the layout.

Here it is shown above the start of the kit assembly using my corner magnetic clamps.

This is where it will be positioned on the wharf at Pelican Bay. The wharf was scratch built many years ago and was on one of my previous layouts in two different locations as I made changes to it. That layout is long gone.

Below – adding the corner posts as well as the door trim.

Quite a complex roof system for this building.

I tried a new technique for the tarpaper roof and very impressed with the outcome of it. (As per instructions in the kit) Putting shingles on the peaked roof next.

Signs made according to the instructions and the +/- 15 year old dry transfers still worked well.

A view of it placed temporarily on the wharf.

As seen here, it is in close proximity to my Builders in Scale Boat repair complex. (Which also took over 3 months to build with the modifications to the kit).

Below, after figuring out which castings to use for this structure and painting them, placing them on the wharf.

Still lots more to add before it will be complete.

Added an interior. (roofs are removable)

Checking placement of the exterior details.

Now just to add the lights, wire it all up and place on the layout.

I must add that this I the first Foss Scale kit that I have assembled and am very impressed with the quality, ease of assembly and the amount of extras that are in the kit.

One part of this kit that stood out for me are the roof shingle strips. They are the best that I have ever used and look very real.

So far, this kit built as per instructions has taken me seven days (no modifications or kit bashing)

Till next time – keep modelling.
Brian – the HOn3 guy in Knysna. RSA”

A big thanks to Brian for sharing HO scale harbor model.

You can see Brian’s HO scale harbor post here.

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 Apologies to Brian for the order of the pics. How Brian sent them and how I received are them are two different things.

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

There are lot of posts on the blog on HO scale bridges – but Jim really has nailed it with his club layout:

“Hello Alastair

Back here in Buffalo NY, I belong to a model railroad club known as Trainmasters. I am currently the President of the club. We have several members: Peter Vice President,
Greg Secretary, Ted Sergeant at Arms, Paul and Marty.

Together we make up the club and run the Buffalo Erie and Niagara Railroad.

The club has been in existence since the 1980’s and with many clubs members have come and gone, so as you can see we are a small group of dedicated model railroaders. All of the members has their own layouts and enjoy the hobby.

Recently, we started to complete a new module that is replacing one of the old modules in the rear of the layout.

Below is a few pictures of the module as it now semi-completed.

The module was constructed by: Greg Tobin, Peter Ferraina and Ted May.

The bridge as constructed and completed by Jim Sr.!

The idea was to have a river flowing under the bridge with hills rising on either side. To say that this project took some time is an over statement.

Since we only meet once a week for a couple of hours each, the entire bridge took over two years of pain staking work, as did the work on the module.

As you can see, there is much more work to be completed before the module is completed. The river has to be poured, trees and scenery has to be installed, but hopefully within a short period of time the entire module will be completed and installed.

Once that has occurred, I will send pictures of the completed project

Jim Sr
President of Trainmasters”

A big thanks to Jim – I shall add it to the collection of HO scale bridges!

Can’t wait to see how the layout progresses. Might by a while, but that’s no problem at all.

Over the years I’ve doing the blog there are 3 stand out points, that I think make all the difference with the layout.

They are:

1. Pick a theme! The layouts that end up the best are always the ones that have a theme from day one.

2. Make a start – you can think about your layout as hard as you like, but until you roll your sleeves up and get going, nothing happens.

Will you first layout be a masterpiece? Probably not. But the second or third will. You’ve just got to get stuck in and enjoy the journey.

3. Pace. Some folk work on their layouts at a screaming hurry. But most just potter. Either way, go at the pace that works for you.

Jim’s bridge has taken two years becuase of the club time constraits – but I’ll bet the shirt on my back he’s enjoyed every hour when he has worked on it.

And that goes whether you are building HO scale bridges, HO houses, any scale anything infact, though here’s another trestle bridge.

The whole point is fun, which is another reason why a layout is never finished – who wants the fun to stop?

And now more scratch building from Kim.

“Hi Al. Just an example these are the main bus lines. These lines will be active. I have modified them since this picture to separate them a little more.

Each transformer will have a line from them to the bus lines. I added an old pic of my station for an example. you see the main bus lines with the transformers connected to the bus lines. Those lines are for show but still carry power from the main lines.

In the old station I hooked power to it and it worked great.But found it was scary lol to go near so I took it apart and am rebuilding it safer and better .Some of you think why don’t you make the station static.And just run a bunch of wires to every home sign street light bill board and such. I’m male and we like to grunt and bang your chest when you built something different.

I will send in a update once I have installed my tower’s. If you have it already not sure on a how to make poles and what you need I will send in a how to just ask or if anyone else wants them I will send it in.

Al my second attempt to weathering. A steam boiler in a falling down shed. will be another part of my swamp scene. have more work to do on it. The part for the belt to drive something is a part off a cigarette lighter. This is the moss I mentioned on your site.

Bunch of tool’s made from scrap. Easy build’s to fill space

Kim”

Next up is Chuck.

It’s a great example of how just a little bit of knowledge that gets in the way of enjoying your layout:

“Hi Alastair,

I just wanted to share my recent experience with you about track cleaning. When I read Cal’s tip about using contact cleaner and lubricant, I have also used the contact cleaner to clean and it does work well but I have not tried the lubricant.

So working on my layout recently on my track to fixing problem areas where my locomotives would stall.

I diagnosed the problem to be a connection with the fish plates or dirty track. So I would clean and resolder the fish plates and clean the track with very fine sandpaper, using 800 grit. I have even used 2000 grit too.

Anyway after this process I would try my loco and finding it was still stalling I tried brushing a little bit of transmission fluid on the track with a toothbrush.

I tried my loco again back and forth several times and guess what no more stalling. I was skeptical at first. I have heard other people using transmission fluid and had great success. So now I can say they absolutely right.

You want to be sparingly when using it, but it works great. Night and day difference. Give it a try !

Just my two cents…

Chuck in California”

I do smile from ear to eat when someone mails me the blog has got them back on track (literally in this case).

It’s the same when someone stars a layout because of the blog.

And for that, you must all pat yourselves on the back.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you join us merry folk rather than miss out on 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.

Dean’s been in touch with something we seeing more and more of: 3d print model train stuff…

Have a look at what he’s done:

“Al, from Dean in New Mexico.

It’s been a while. My layout has suffered since I’ve been working on developing new techniques for creating n-scale buildings using high-resolution resin printing.

In this post, I talk about two techniques for printing parts: FDM (fused deposition modeling) and SLA (stereolithography) to show how I made an improved engine house model.

With FDM, a plastic filament is passed through a heated nozzle while the nozzle is moved back and forth. Each layer is typically 0.5 mm, so the resolution is low.

Here’s a picture of the main building of the engine house being printed.

After each layer is produced, the build plate moves down. Note that the software puts in removable supports in openings and a “raft” to hold the part tightly to the build plate.

With SLA, a light-cured resin is exposed to an ultraviolet LCD screen. After each layer is developed, the build plate moves up, typically by 0.05mm.

Thus, it is much higher resolution than FDM printing. But after the model is created it must be washed with isopropyl alcohol to remove excess resin, then cured further in a UV light station. And the resin is somewhat toxic. Here’s a photo of the end-door assembly and the windows and doors for the engine house. The skinny rods are supports to hold up the parts

Here’s another photo of a small chimney part produced with SLA. It is just a series of cylinders and a cone cap.

And here’s a better photo of the door end-piece.

Paper parts are printed on a normal printer then cut with a high precision cutter machine.

I use a simple free program (3D Modeling, by Microsoft) to produce models for both the FDM and SLA techniques. The paper parts are made with another free program, Silouette Studio. Here’s an outline of the free software and equipment I use:

3D Builder (make FDM model) à Creality Slicer à Ender-5 Pro (print FDM model)

3D Builder (make SLA model) à Chitubox 64 à Elegoo Mars 2 (print SLA model)

Silhouette Studio (make paper model) à HP printer à Silhouette Cameo (cut paper model)

Here’s a photo of the final product.

A big thanks to Dean for sharing his 3d print model train stuff. Mindboggling really.

Course, I’m biased, but much prefer the good ‘ol fashioned Printable buildings.

Now on to John, who has sent his track cleaning solution – there’s quite a few of these on the blog now, but I still enjoy seeing how people attack the problem:

“Some time ago, Al featured a motorised track cleaning wagon that I built using an old toothbrush motor and various bits and pieces that I had in my spares box.

The following, shown in the diagram (not to scale) and photographs, is one that I have built from an old Hornby ‘Permanent Way Dept’ track cleaning wagon.

I removed the original metal part inside the wagon and then glued two pieces of 3mm plastic sheeting on the floor of the wagon, one on top of the other.

I lined up the upper piece of 3mm plastic sheet of the pad to where I wanted it to be and (using a drill press to ensure that the holes are perfectly vertical) drilled two 5mm holes through the three pieces and the floor.

Using super glue, the brass tubing was then carefully glued to the upper piece of the pad. Ensure that the brass tubing is free to slide up and down. (A little oil on the tubing did the trick for me.) I then glued 1mm plastic sheet below the 3mm sheet but this time there was a slot from one side to the other.

I then took some soft felt, laid it along the bottom of the pad, folded it over the ends and glued the ends. (It will be a simple task to remove the felt and glue a new piece on when required. Two nuts are attached to the tops of the tubes. The weight of the tubes with nuts plus the weight of the plastic sheeting results in the pad being free to move up and down and is always in contact with the rails.

The original wheels were very broad resulting in the wagon frequently derailing at points or crossovers. Each axel was cut through and the original wheels removed.

Using super glue, I glued a small brass bush into each axel hole in the bogeys. I bought two sets of Hornby 10mm wagon wheels and to insert these into the bushes, it was necessary to carefully bend the bogeys to enable the wheels to be inserted.

The metal is quite soft and I am not sure how much bending it will take before breaking, so care is necessary. Once in place the bogeys are bent straight again.

A spot of oil was inserted into each bush, the wheels spin freely and I experienced no further issues with derailing!

To clean the track, I use a syringe to insert some 70% rubbing alcohol into the brass tubes.

The small holes in the 1mm piece of plastic sheeting, with the slot from side to side, allow the rubbing alcohol to seep through into the felt and spread from one side to the other.

I am pleased with the result as it works very well.

Regards

John”

A big thanks to Dean and John.

I would love to know what your thoughts are on 3d printing – please do leave a comment below.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you say no to boredom and missing out on all the fun, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Come and join us, it’s right good fun once you roll your sleeves up and start.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

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