Model railroad layouts plans

Richard has been in touch with his N scale small layout.

“Al,

I have been working on my small N-scale layout.

I have accumulated approximately 30 locomotives and somewhere around 110 to 120 freight cars and some 20 passenger cars.

I have not modeled any particular location but have mostly late 1950 to 1970 rolling stock.

The structures are mostly card stock with two plastic kits and several scratch built ones.

The 4 ft by 7 ft 6 inch layout table is framed with 1 x 3 limber and the topography is mostly foam building insulation.

I have found your site to be most helpful, as I am an amateur when compared to many of your contributers, but I am certainly having fun. Living in an apartment, space is at a premium and my train room is in one of the smaller bedrooms. I am thiknking of getting rid of the bar in the room to make room for an L shape addition in the future.

I have a few photos and any sugestions are more than welcome. Thank you for all you do for this wonderful hobby.

I look forward to your daily emails every morning.

Rergards,
Richard “Dick” Coerse
Lexington Park, Maryland, USA”

As far as I’m concerned, Richard is living the dream, because it’s all about having fun.

And all if you have to do is make that start, which is why I’m always banging on about it.

Remember, it’s the start that stops most people, which is a great shame. There’s fun to be had.

That’s all for today folks.

A big thanks to Richard for sharing his N scale small layout.

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.

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

Paul’s been in touch – he’s added an Atlas turntable to his HO scale layout:

“Hi Al

I think you and your readers might find this interesting since most of us are always looking to add more tour layouts.

I wanted to add a turntable,a roundhouse and RIP( repair in place facility) to my layout but could not see where to put it.

One day I was looking at my mountain and thought you can see the mountain from the primary side of the layout just as it should look –a mountain. Meanwhile the backside of the mountain was just flat as can be seen in the first photo.

All that land under the mountain had no purpose. So I decided to do some mining and exposed the inside of the mountain to be used for the turntable and such.

In the accompanying photos you can see the Atlas turntable I installed and the matching roundhouse which necessitated cutting into my workshop wall so that it would fit in the proper location relative to the turntable.

The RIP facility is also seen in the photos where the crew has jacked up a boxcar and is replacing the wheelset. I also have a Jib crane lifting up a set of wheels for the installation.

I built the Jib crane from scraps after seeing one in a catalog. The jacks under the boxcar happen to be some extra pieces that came with a kit that just looked like jacks.

Thanks Al for all you do for us modellers.

Paul from Northport NY”

A big thanks to Paul for sharing the addition of his Atlas turntable – you may remember him from this post.

And now on to Larry.

He’s sent in some pics. I don’t know what it is about these old cuban trains, but I find them fascinating. So I thought I’d post them.

“Al,

I have several images of trains from Cuba that I took the other year.

I am 83 years old.

Larry”

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide if today is the day you stop dreaming and start doing.

Best

Al

Charles has been in touch. He’s adding to the collection of N scale layouts on a door:

“Hi, again Al.

Well, I’ve decided to share some pictures of my N Scale layout.

It’s not that I’m not proud of my accomplishment, I feel it may not measure up to many of the other great layout contributions submitted.

My layout was designed and pretty much built by my son, (with some help from me). We built it on an interior hollow core door with a 3/4 inch styrofoam layer on top. Approximately 7’X4′.

It’s a “Roundie-Rounder” mainline with a passing track that is designed to perform switching duties at the industrial area on the left. We used code 55 track which I’m very pleased with.

The main goes through a “View block” to a back area where a coal mine is located, and further switching duties can be performed. It’s a DC operated layout with control blocks and has minimal turnouts for ease of operation. Owning 120 locomotives (Way too many) I can’t afford to convert to DCC.

In the village, many buildings and businesses are named for family members. Who gets a “Kick” seeing their names on them. I still have much work to do, including lights in all the buildings and hooking up the many street lights, maybe adding more live signals.

Living in a two-bedroom apartment I really don’t have room for expansion, so I have to live with what I have. I’m happy with the layout and continue to fine-tune it.

Charles”

Charles layout reminded me of Michael’s N scale door layout.

And there is Nich’s N scale door layout too.

Now on to Bill – who has recorded a second video for his last update (which you can see here).

“This video shows my thought process and techniques for hiding the seam between the bottom and upper half of the mountain and how I ‘grew’ the forest and ground cover to give a good forested look.

I did a count of trees in a small area by the trestle and above the two portals and based on that I’m between 250-300 trees on the mountain in this relatively small N Scale area.

It’s all fun!!

Thx!

Bill”

A big thanks to Charles for adding to the N scale layouts on a door, and to Bill too.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if you want to stop dreaming and start doing, just like Charles did, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Remember, it’s the start that stops most people…

Best

Al

PS Don’t forget the latest ebay cheat sheet is here. Still updated daily.