Model railroad layouts plans

Roger has been in touch with a ‘how to’ on his model railway traffic lights:

“Hi Alastair

I’m writing about my homemade traffic lights.

Like many of your readers I’m a pensioner and have had model railways for most of my life with long periods when they were boxed up as work and family came first.

I’ll write more about my railway in time. On this occasion I’m writing about my dabble with electronics. I’m retired from working in finance and farming so I’m no engineer but it’s always been a fascination.

Recently I bought an Arduino after reading how you could create a dcc controller with one – great theory but you need to start simply so it’s taken a while to understand the basics. I find learning easier if it’s relevant so looked for a project that I could use on my model railway- traffic lights.

From reading other articles I’d already set up an old PC PSU to power lights and as it worked bought a distribution board as picture 2.

Picture 1 is an Arduino UNO for those who’ve not seen one.

Using a breadboard I copied some source code which is freely available on the internet just search arduino traffic lights.

Some of this didn’t work, some were really a congestion control and frequently had limited ‘how to’ details, but I got there through trial and error and got it going.

I then realised different countries have different change sequences. I guess no one else would have noticed but I would have known so back to the program to sort it out. Incidentally in the Arduino world a program is called a sketch and it’s all FOC shareware.

I used wires resistors LEDs and a bread board to get it working.

Now I needed traffic lights and whilst it would have been easy to just buy them it wouldn’t be cheap and I wanted to experiment some more.

So I bought 3mm brass tube decided on 6mm lengths – if it’s too tall I reasoned you can always push it down the hole. I experimented with different types of led Scale size seemed too small and in the end tower type looks best.

There’s a lot of fiddly soldering and shrink Tubing to do and I used the brass tube as the negative. Grey paint for the poles and everything on the head covered in black paint.

I was lucky enough to find an unused 4 wire telephone extension lead and even luckier to find the wires are red yellow green and black which works perfectly for the different coloured lights and black as the return. Incidentally having 12,5 and 3.3 volts available off the PSU, I chose 5 volts.

The arduino is now given over to that function but I plan to share the wires with another set I’ll create later. Arduino start at around £6 the brass tube £5 but enough for 15 poles and LEDs less than a £ each including a resistor so for 4 poles the cost is around £4 per ‘light’

Before I finish I’d just like to say how much I look forward to reading your daily message with my morning tea. Particularly during Covid it’s great to have the background support of a world wide club who incidentally have been sort of meeting virtually before covid was dreamt of.

So hello to all my virtual friends.

Best wishes

Roger”

A big thanks to Roger for sharing his model railway traffic lights advice – I seem to be getting more and more on Arduino.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day when you pick this fine hobby back up, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

Dave’s been in touch with his N scale winter layout:

“Good day Al,

My name is Dave and I read and review your daily emails with much enthusiasm.

It’s refreshing to see how creative some modelers can be as well and the ideas they spark in my own mind. With that said I thought I’d share my recent creation in N scale.

I call the attached two pictures my “Winter Scene”of a winter scene. The brighter one is with a flash, the other is without.

The details of the scene are made up of one continuous N scale track on a 40″ wide by 30″ deep foam board layout.

The mountains and hills are all hand made and painted by yours truly.

The incline is as near to 2% as I could keep it. The houses are actually Christmas Tree ornaments with battery operated lights, the street lights, pine trees and cars are N scale off the shelf items all purchased on Amazon.

My intention was to create a portable layout that could be moved into the family room during the holiday and this takes up a small footprint yet provides an appreciable level of detail.

I still have to add more trees, some decorated for Christmas, more snow and figures such as ice skaters on the pond (a small mirror), kids having a snow ball fight in the park and some wild animals among the trees.

You might note the locomotive is not actually a locomotive but a German steam car. Unfortunately, the steam locomotive that matches the passenger cars is unable to pull all three up the inclines so I’ve had to find one that could.

I will eventually replace it with a vintage Arnold 0-8-8-0 steam locomotive.

Lastly, in the one picture (i.e. #2) you will notice there is a portion of an HO layout in the background. It’s also a representation of the area around CASS Scenic Railroad in Cass, WV.

I run various locomotives on it to exercise and test them, but primarily I run the old 80 Ton three truck Shays that are actually used at Cass. They are exact replicas and one has the Cass logo and number of old #4 that had a head-on collision many years ago.

If you are interested in seeing more of either one or should anyone have any questions regarding the layout just let me know.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do your postings.

Regards,

Dave”

Now on to Cassio.

He keeps sending me pics and videos with no narrative or anything.

Normally I discard these, but I think in this case, it’s a language barrier.

Also there is a real charm about his stuff:

(Watch on youtube here.)

Now on to Scott:

“Hello Al, and thanks very much for a daily dose!

Not much to add, other than an interesting photo of 1942 CNW engine house in Chicago – one of my favorite photos

Best regards

Scott”

“Dear Al,

I have seen several ways to add white lines to roads, the simplest and cheapest that I have found is to cut thin strips of paper and glue to the roadbed. Photos attached.

Best wishes
Andrew

Andrew
Queensland Australia”

A big thanks to Dave for sharing his N scale winter layout. And to Andrew, Dave and Cassio.

That’s all for this time 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.

Mike’s been in touch. He’s shared his layout and the HO scale buildings from scratch that he’s put together:

“Hello Al:

Here are some shots of what I have built in just over a year.

Benchwork is built and painted like furniture (my other hobby is woodworking) and blends in with the room decor (my wife’s influence 🤓). The layout is small by most standards, only 7’x7.5’ with a corner cut to hold my control panels.

All buildings except two are scratch built. I only buy what I am not able to make yet, primarily windows. That may come later since I make a lot of jigs to do other things. There are four buildings that use all or part of your technique. Photo copied wall materials glued to Matt board.

The barn on the farm is a building from your stock, made by my cousin. The other is in the area of the engine house. Can you guess which one it is?

I mentioned my focus is to encourage the beginner and intermediate modelers to be encouraged and try. Quality is a matter of some skill, ingenuity and patience. I learned much as I went. Not everything I built made it to a layout. Some were scrapped or revamped.

My layout now is working on details, adding to the character of the layout by creating interest in seeing the details that are not obvious at first glance. Half of my buildings are inspired from actual historic buildings I find driving around the country. There are so many great structures still standing in small towns that are not torn down yet.

Well, enough rambling..

Cheers mate and blessings to you.

Mike
Clermont, Florida”

A huge thanks to Mike – I loved his narrative, I couldn’t agree more with him: it’s all about getting started. It’s also great to see HO scale buildings from scratch, especially when they are from the printable buildings range.

That’s all for this time 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.