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HO scale farm buildings

Peter’s been back in touch with his HO scale farm buildings.

You can see all his posts here. It’s fantastic to see a layout come to life like this.

“Hi Al,

Working on the On3 portion of my layout.

Still track work to be done running behind the buildings. More trees to add & grass tufts.

Peter”

HO scale farm buildings:

Peter’s layout made me think of Mike’s: HO scale farm scenes.

Now on to Tim:

“A nice teenager was a bit too young for a summer job. He kept his agile brain and hands busy and built a diorama from the Jennings Lumber Company kit.

The kit is still available online for $150-$200 un-assembled from Scale Structures Limited. And what a job Tim did! Look at the detail, you can even see tire tracks in the dirt. Tim added a lot more detail to the basic kit and then built a stand and surrounding glass and frame for protection.

The diorama went on a journey, residing for a time at the local historical society and then the railroad park in Scottsdale Arizona. Eventually it became a fixture at the train store that Tim’s father ran in Mesa, Arizona. I enjoyed visiting the store for years, and although I never met Tim’s father, who became ill, I was charmed by Tim, his wife, employees and a couple of friendly cats.

It was a gathering place for us train geezers! Finally, it was time for Tim to move on and he closed the store, selling all the fixtures. I approached Tim and said, “You don’t want this winding up in someone’s basement or garage, sell it to me and my patients will enjoy it every day.”

We agreed on a price, separated the display from the base, loaded the two parts into my SUV and I carefully drove it a few miles to Scottsdale. I put a fresh coat of paint on the base before reassembling the parts, and, yes, I’m proud to display Tim’s work at my Ophthalmology office.

The only change to his work is I added an old locomotive and a few HO train cars, but otherwise it is just as he created it more than forty years ago!

My prediction was true, it is a guy magnet and patients passing by my office window often come in to ooh and aah.

Thanks, Tim!

Dennis Cooper, M.D.,

Scottsdale Arizona”

A big thanks to Peter for sharing his HO scale farm buildings, and to Dennis too.

Peter’s layout is quite something. I went back though his old posts when I added the link above. What a journey! Can’t wait for the next update.

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

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

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

Small O scale layout

Jeff’s been in touch with his small O scale layout:

“Hi Al,

I have been receiving your emails for several years and have enjoyed them greatly. They have encouraged me in model railroading. I am from Ohio and a novice to this hobby.

I’m sending you some pictures of an attempt I am making at a small O scale layout.

As you can tell I am running a loop within a loop. I have connected them with entrance and exits turnouts. I know I’m supposed to use insulated track sections. But I don’t know exactly how to place those sections or configure the wires underneath.

When my locomotive exits the inner loop to the outer loop or vice versa, it shorts on the insulated track sections. I would be grateful for any advice on this.

Thank you so much for your encouragement in this hobby.

I have included a couple of pictures so that you can see what I mean.

Have a blessed day.

Jeff”

Next, Hall of Fame member, Rob, has been back in touch.

And it’s wonderful to see what he’s been up to (his last post is here if you want to get up to speed.)

“Hi Al,

My Farland layout has seen a few changes which I thought some of your readers might be interested in.

I decided I wanted to build a flats kit by Kingsway Models for the layout. I do not have any urban structures on the layout and I thought it might be fun. But where to put it?

The only place that made sense to me was at a road intersection where there was a patch of level ground but then a fairly steep drop off. How could I possibly get the building to sit plumb?

I thought and thought and finally came up with the idea you see.

I cut out scale beams and columns form some scrap pine, then glued the columns to the beams and with superglue attached the columns to the beams. Knowing there would interference to the beams on the side with the hill, I estimated the lengths that would fit and left those parts out.

I then glued the beams with the columns to the underside of the building (it has a flat bottom). If a column hit an area that caused trouble I just broke it off easily since superglue is so brittle.

Since the building was going to overhang the road by a little bit and I didn’t want it to interfere with my Faller Road, I inset the column on the corner and hollowed out the lower section so it looks like it is buried into the hillside.

Since the train table is level it sits on the columns which sit on it and the building is plumb. Problem solved. It was a head-scratcher though.

Here is the before pictures where it is propped up on the box:

Below is the video after it is finished.

Rob”

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

A huge thanks to Rob. I do love his Farland Howe layout. There’s always something to learn with his vids too. Can’t wait for the next update.

And who can help Jeff? Please do leave a comment below if you can.

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

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

Minimum HO scale track radius

Dave has been in touch with some good advice on minimum ho scale track radius:

“I am very new to the hobby having started right around three years ago not really knowing much about anything involving model railroading.

My only real exposure was back when I was very young having a very typical DC train set. My new interest got sparked after seeing some different video’s on YouTube which re-introduced me into that world.

I first began by collecting photos off the internet of scenes that I liked and doing a lot of research into, well, everything.

The first really important thing that I learned was that the maximum/ minimum HO scale track radius one can fit into their space determines everything.

In other words, how large can you make your curves around the layout? That radius is the limitation to the scale you can work with and the type of track plan you can have. It is not just a mechanical limit to what can physically run, but also to what looks proportionally correct.

My space is a very small spare bedroom. I had considered HO to be my ideal scale to work with, but I figured that the broadest curves I could have were based on an 18 inch radius, due to the need to round a peninsula. So, it was N scale that would work perfectly with that radius limitation. It was far too sharp a curve for HO.

So, I spent several months learning different aspects of N scale and creating possible track plans all without any real understanding of how real railroads work, or what their operational needs were.

I then started to gather more photos of scenes that I liked and found a common theme to most of them. Nearly all of them were of narrow gauge railroads. I didn’t even know what that was. Once I had looked into it I found out that I could indeed model in HO scale and still stay within the track radius limits of my room by going with HOn3.

HOn3 works fine with 18 inch radius curves since the engines and cars are smaller and the track used is very close to N scale in width.

One other very important aspect that I picked up on looking at my gathering of preferred model railroad photos, was that the visual backdrops were of primary focus and not just an afterthought.

So, when I started actually building the layout the backdrop was the first thing installed and later all the scenery would expand outward from them as an extension creating visual depth.

I did my layout in stages choosing to nearly fully complete each section before moving on to the next. This way I felt the mistakes I would make in the track, scenery, etc. would be isolated to just that section. So, in theory things would improve as I moved along.

My railroad is DCC running the JMRI Operations software and called the Nickel Creek & Western. It is as freelance as one can possibly get. It doesn’t model any specific place, or time just a general feel of the Northwest sometime in first part of the century.

I consider it a facsimile of a reality rather than reality itself. So far I have basically gone with what I feel looks nice and not worried about counting the rivets.

A lot of my structures are scratch built from either my imagination, or from photos of what others have done. It isn’t finished. I still have a few small sections to complete as well as adding in a lot more detail such as people and vehicles everywhere.

Dave”