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HO scale small town shops

Brian’s been in touch with his HO scale small town shops, saw mill and farm:

“Hi Al

Brian here from southern British Columbia Canada.

I came upon your blog back at the end of 2021. Enjoyed reading what people sent in and viewing the photos. This inspired me to finally start building my own layout.

Like most of your modelers it started with receiving a train set at christmas. I was not different.

My first train set was a Lionel set that went in a circle. A few years later I got a fold up table with tracks, rolling stock, a couple of buildings and some farm animals. Not sure what happened to it, but I think my parents gave it away as I was not playing with it.

Moving on to when I was in high school one of my class mates’ dad was heavy into modeling railroad. His layout took up the entire basement. That layout got me more interested in model railroading.

For several years I was wanting to start a layout but either did not have the space or not enough extra funds to get going on it.

Also at that stage in life had other interests but I knew one day I would have the space to work on building a model railroad. Over the years my thoughts kept turning to doing a model railroad. Would get out pen and paper and start drawing a layout. But I never seem to come up with one I like.

Fast forward to 2021. One day Al your blog showed up on my computer. That sparked my interest again. So kept reading your blogs every day the modelers send to you.

After doing some research decided to go with HO scale. I knew I wanted 3 different areas. A town site, a saw mill, and farm site. I now have a work shop that I can build my layout…

The layout is 6 ft.x 14 ft ft. So now is the time to start. I started constructing the table on December 1.

In the photos to follow are the different stages of construction. It was great fun planning and building all the different buildings and learning new techniques. I think this is the best hobby anyone could have.

Brian”

HO scale small town shops, sawmill and farm:

A huge big thanks to Brian for sharing his Ho scale small town shops, sawmill and farm layout.

Brian’s post put a big smile on my face, I do like it when the blog inspires anyone to make that all important start, because that’s what it’s all about.

Here’s a few more town, sawmill and farm layouts for you:

HO town

HO scale town

HO scale town buildings

Model train town layout

HO scale sawmill layout

HO scale lumber layout

HO scale farmhouse

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you grab the bull by the horns and make that start, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

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.

Timesaver layout

Brian’s been in touch with another layout, this time the timesaver layout he’s made with his club:

“Hi Alastair,

after reading the Inglenook post about a timesaver – switching layout, here is our groups one recently finished. Hope you can use it on your site.

Our group of guys decided to build this and have fun with it when we all get together.

Time taken to build this layout was about 30 hours over a 5 week period.

It is HO scale standard gauge 16,5 mm and is 6ft long by 2ft wide. It is built on an ISO board base surrounded by a plywood facia. The knobs on the front control the switch machines. It is very lightweight and easily transportable.

It is fully sceniced and operational. We have 7 cars (rolling stock) of different types and a small Athern SW1500 diesel locomotive as power. It is controlled by a transformer and a single pole double pole switch which is set at 3 volts to power the diesel locomotive.

All the couplers are of the Kadee magnetic type and there are magnets under the track at strategic places. Therefore hopefully all the shunting will be hands free.

All the points and track is Peco and was donated to the group.

Everything on this layout was donated by the group members as well and the local hobby shop that donated the buildings for this layout.

We plan to take it to shopping malls and schools that will allow us to display and run it. We hope to create and increase awareness of the model train hobby by doing this.

All the rolling stock has been weathered except for the diesel locomotive. That is the last piece to be done.

There are two figures (a camera crew) on the platform of the top left hand side building standing between the rolling stock and the tanker that are hoping to photograph and video the train movements.

All the best Alastair and keep up the great work of promoting this hobby.

Brian – the HOn3 guy in Knysna RSA”

Timesaver layouts:

A big thanks to Brian for sharing his timesaver layout.

Quite a few of these on the blog now, here’s a few more:

HOn3 brass locomotives

Inglenook layout

Inglenook model railway layouts

Inglenook siding layout

shelf model railway

Model train display case

British shunting layout

Next up, Gary:

“Alastair

I’ve been working along on a portable layout I can take with me when we travel in our Winnebago motor home.

We usually ‘snow bird’ it in Galveston so I thought it would be convenient to have some of my trains along in the Winnie’s basement. That’s RV-speak for the storage space under the floor of the unit. That limits my storable size to 48 inches by 18 inches that can fold down to 6 inches deep.

I prefer to model at 1/48 scale, primarily ON30, but I dabble in 3-rail O-scale too.

Since the layout and rolling stock will likely take some abuse from riding in the RV, I felt that the 3-rail track, accessories and rolling stock would handle that better than my ON30 Bachmann gear.

I really like the Inglenook Switching puzzles and found that I could fit a 3-2-2 version onto an 8 foot by 1 1/2 foot space (Google ‘Inglenook switching puzzle’ for a more complete treatment of the topic).

I devised a set of procedures to set up switching scenarios that change in a random manner.

To make the switching experience more reallistic I added a siding on which to park the switcher as well as a run around. To operate the run around I came up with a removable 18 inch extension to attach to the right side of the layout for the locomotive. I have included a picture of the extension I made.

The track is a mix of O27 tubular track and Gargraves 3-rail track. The turnouts are old Lionel manual ones with targets on the throws that stick up above the surface. Due to the need for clearance when folding the layout I had to devise offset hinges so the throws would not get crushed. Another picture shows how I did that.

Thinking ahead to when I build scenery, I built buildings to cover the hinges when I’m operating. They appear in the other two pictures I took of the layout.

I now have the GWK switching yard ready to operate. That’s for the Galveston, Winnebago & Kansas Railroad, also, coincidentally, that’s my initials. For those interested, there was a narrow gauge railroad on Galveston Island in the early 1900’s.

Future plans are to document operation procedures for my version of Inglenook, test them with my grandkids then publish them here and improve the scenery quality.

I will be attempting to create a dead-rail battery powered locomotive by adding parts from a remote-control car to an old DC Lionel 0-4-0 loco. That would allow me to operate even when I’m camping in the boondocks.

Whether I’m successful or not I will share my work.

My thanks to Alistair for his efforts to promote our hobby, seeing what everyone else is doing keeps me thinking.

Gary”

A big thanks to Brian for his Timesaver layout and to Gary too.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you decide to join in the fun, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

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

Inglenook model railway layouts

Andrew has been back in touch, adding to the inglenook model railway layouts on the blog:

“Dear Alistair,

My latest project is an Inglenook, shelf, OO scale layout of a fictitious UK branch line terminus called Blean Junction.

Length 6 feet 1 inch X 1 foot 5 inches (185 cm X 45 cm) that may be used as an Inglenook shunting puzzle.

The baseboard is an old offcut of chip board strengthened with 2″ X 1″ battens and covered with ¼” polystyrene.

The track is laid on 1/8 “ MDF and screwed to the baseboard and still awaiting ballast.

The points are operated by wire from a metal coat hanger, cut to length, bent and filed to a sharp prong (see photos X, Y and Z).

Power is from a DC controller with four isolated sections; the main line, the station platform, the goods yard and the engine shed. Initially designed to be operated with just one locomotive, it is possible to have two engines working, one at a time.

The station platform is made from MDF shaped to allow clearance for locomotives and long coaches.

Buildings are modified and kit bashed card downloads (some of which you might recognise); landscape is polystyrene coated with PVA and sawdust of various coloured. The roadways are real road grit collected from the street gutter and sieved. Trees are from garden pruning covered with strips of painted kitchen paper. Fencing is balsa wood or matchsticks threaded with florist wire.

The water tower, loading dock crane and signal gantry are bespoke, made with balsa wood and based on photos found on Google. People and cattle are the only new items and purchased from eBay.

I hope you and your followers will be interested in the attached 29 photos and a short video of the layout with my 63-year-old 0-6-0 Hornby in operation.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew in Oz”