Model railroad layouts plans

Gary’s been back in touch. This time he’s been busy making some HO scale guardrails:

“I am working through my layout on Sunnyside yard, I have done a lot of things from scratch and after reading what the other modelers send, I thought that I should do the same and maybe it would help someone.

So I am sending you two tips….the first on creating Highway Guardrails and the second on a real simple way for creating hedges.

I also have started working on the Commissary Building for Sunnyside Yards and thought I would share that also.

How to make highway guardrails easily and cheaply:

I wanted to add a track to display some other engines that I have but I had already put up the fence between the engine yard and what would be the Commissary Building area. So I decided to put a rail towards the center of the layout for the engines but needed to blend it in with the layout and also needed it to be separate from the commissary buildings.

The main road coming into the actual Sunnyside Yards comes down a ramp behind the buildings. My main road is coming into the yard also behind the buildings, but no ramp and I decided to separate the road from the display rail with highway guardrails.

I found them to be too expensive for the 4 feet of rail that I needed so I decided to go from scratch.

As it turned out it only cost me $1.03 for the material and my time. The pictures below will show how I made them and what I used.

Picture 1: Material – in picture one you will see three items for my HO scale guardrails.

The top item is a 4 foot strip of wood 1/8 inch thick used for the guardrail stakes, cost .24 cents.

The middle item is a wooden coffee stirrer; no cost, I took a handful from to local coffee shop.

The third item is thin plastic to be used for the guardrails. The product is called RexLace and cost .79 cents. I found it in an Arts & Craft store; but you can use anything that would resemble the guardrail.

The dime is just to show reference for size.

Pictures 2 & 3: Tools – I am sure that every modeler would have most if not all of these tools. I left a piece of charcoal colored chalk for weather out of the picture by mistake.

Picture 4: Prepare the pieces – As you can see in picture 4 the first piece on the left is the coffee stirrer marked with seven dot for drilling one inch apart; then drill a hole at each dot

The second piece from the left is the stirrer with the holes drilled.

The third piece from the left is the stirrer painted. You can paint it whatever color you desire (I probably should have used a more earth tone color).

The next piece is the strip of wood to be used for the stakes painted aluminum; this will be cut up into 1/4 inch pieces. The last piece is the guardrail also painted aluminum. I found it easier to have everything painted before assembling.

I also found that working with a 7 inch strip was a lot easier. You can make the lengths anything you want.

Picture 5 & 6: – Make the stakes – for the number of holes you make in the base, cut 1/4 inch length for each stake from the thin strip of wood.

These should then be glued into the holes in the base.

Picture 7 & 8: Glue the guardrail onto the two end pieces and let dry so that they stay in place. I used CA glue and left overnight. Then glue the remaining stakes. Again, I let it sit overnight; they are sturdier to handle.

Picture 9: Touch Up and Weathering – When the glue has dried, take your paint and do whatever touchup is needed. I then took some rust color paint and dabbed some rust spots around railings and also used some charcoal to dirty up some spots.

Picture 10 shows what HO scale guardrails looked like when I was done. They are now ready to be placed on the layout.

Pictures 11, 12, 13 & 14 show what they look like in my layout. The large brown area in the pictures is where the road coming into the yard will be along with the Commissary Building, Power Plant, Yard Master Towers and Power Station.

Making Hedges – EASY

We have all bought scenery items for our layouts. I wanted to add some hedges to my layout around some of the buildings. I went to the hobby store and the person in front of me bought the last two items. I asked to see what they looked like; they looked just like a sponge.

When I go home I found a scenery package that was opened and in it were square sponge like packing. I painted them green and cut off a strip and they looked just like hedges. See the pictures below.

You can paint them any color and you can cut them up to make them look more natural.

Commissary Building (unfinished): Now that I am 99% finished with the engine yard, I started on the building for the Commissary Yard.

Below are pictures of the model I am building. It is not yet completed but I think it looks pretty good and I thought I would add to this blog.

Well, thank you for watching and reading.

Hope you enjoyed it and if I hope I gave someone ideas about their layout like you guys have given me.

Gary M.”

A huge thank you to Gary for sharing his HO scale guardrails step-by-step. What an update!

If you missed Gary’s last update, it’s here.

That’s all for today folks. Please do keep ’em coming.

And if you’re anything like me and want to avoid just looking out of the window, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

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

Peter’s been in touch with his HO scale farmhouse:

“Hi Al,

Some revisions here and how to’s.

There was a gentleman that commented on the last post that I needed a fence so the animals wouldn’t trample through the garden…lol

Well, as I stated in that post, I wasn’t finished yet. I made the fence from northeastern strip wood products, then aged with a greying solution. India ink and alcohol. It’s getting real close now.

After the benchwork of a particular scene is complete, I grid it with 1 x 3’s to accommodate buildings, the rest is sectioned off with cardboard strips or metal light screen for the plaster cloth to adhere to.

After all plaster has been put on (1st the gauze then fill in with pre made plaster (mud) in tubs) It is all painted with a latex earth tone. When dry, texturing begins. I use a combination of a lot of things as you see.

Lot’s of ‘Wood scenic products, etc. grass tufts, many different shades of texture, rocks, sand for roads, and so on.

I scratch built the HO farm house and barn, though the barn was a spinoff from an old Campbell HO kit, I just built it up from scratch to 1/48 O scale that I model in.

Trees are mostly commercial, I just grab whatever, whenever it suits my aesthetic needs.

The water for the garden hose is woodland scenic products for water falls and still water combination.

The rest by viewing is self explanatory, sooo, if you could kindly post these pics of both the standard gauge & narrow gauge, it would be most appreciated.

Thank you,

Peter”

And if you want to fast forward to Peter’s update, here it is: HO scale farm.

Now on to Ray:

“Hello Al,

Yesterday I received this Walthers Dairy Queen model from my grandsons.

I woke up this morning and planned on putting it together. As I do first thing every morning , I checked your email, and I see Jon’s post on how he detailed a roof on his model.

What a coincidence, the model he was working on was the very model I received yesterday, Dairy Queen.

So I followed his directions and loved the results.

Thanks Jon and, of course, thank you for all that you share.

I’ve attached a picture of the final project.

Best,

Ray”

(The post Ray mentions is at the bottom of this one: model railroad harbor.)

A big thanks to Peter for sharing his HO scale farmhouse pics (his last post is here).

His layout just gets better and better.

Ray really did put a smile on my face. I do love it when someone sends in a pic after they have seen how to do something on the site.

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.

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

Brian’s been back in touch with is model railroad harbor scene.

(Or should that be harbour? That’s the thing with a global platform…)

“Hi Al,

lots of people on your site asked if the water in the harbor was photoshopped as they only saw it in the night shots.

Firstly, I don’t have photoshop nor would I know how to use it (no time to mess with it) and takes away good modeling time.

Secondly, the photos below show both night time shots as well as daytime shots of the harbor water in place.

Preparation of the base before pouring is very important be it a harbor, river or lake.

There was a lot of negativity about the Woodland Scenics Realistic water where they had problems with it.

If one follows the instructions properly and stick to the depth that they suggest or less (3mm max), then you will achieve a good result as seen below.

If deeper water is needed (as in my case below) then pour as many layers as required to get the depth needed. I have poured 3 layers so far and I still need to pour 2 more layers to achieve the result that I am looking for.

The most important thing to remember is, do not shake the bottle before pouring as this creates air bubbles which are difficult to remove.

Remember that there is no heat involved in this product therefore no shrinkage. Although it is hard to the touch, do not place anything on it that has to be moved as it will sink slightly and will be very difficult to remove. (I am talking from experience) on this.

As said in previous blogs, I have been using this product since it came out many years ago and swear by it.

I hope this helps all those asked about the water.

Cheers

Brian – Knysna RSA”

“Hello Al.

I’ve been building a new restaurant for my layout, and I thought I would share how I detailed the roof. Gravel topped roofs are very common on commercial and industrial buildings, and I wanted to mimic that look.

I started by painting the top of the roof on a charcoal colour to represent the underlying asphalt. Once this dried, I taped the edges and painted the red trim.

Next I brushed full strength white glue over the top of the roof and poured fine ballast onto that. I then sprayed on rubbing alcohol and diluted white glue to fix the ballast in place.

Once the glue dried, I used weathering powders to make the roof look more natural. An overall dusting of earthy brown, with grimy black to show where water may pool in low lying areas. A few dabs of rust under where the sign would sit, and then the whole thing was ready to be sealed with Dull-cote.

The final step was just to add the rooftop details.

Jon”

“Hi Al…

Just uploaded this video showing some new Hunt Magnetic Couplings.

They come with standard and short, stepped and normal, and fit in to NEM pockets which we have on the majority of rolling stock these days.

Think these will be a great addition to our Hobby, making coupling up, and uncoupling far easier, they tell me that hopefully end of this month there will also be N gauge version of these, and will also be able to post off shore.

I think that this is what we have needed for a long time, and would recommend to try the standard length fit and the stepped, to see what you need for different height Loco`s and rolling stock.

Regards

Dave”

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

A huge thank to Brian for his model railroad harbor update. And to Jo and Dave. (Brian and Dave are both in the Hall of Fame.)

That’s all for this time.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you stop dreaming and start doing, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al