Model railroad layouts plans

Bob’s not a man of many words, but he’s been in touch with his decal for Amtrak model train:

“Hi Al,

I made this

Bob”

Bob’s post reminded me of Larry’s: HO scale Amtrak.

And Peter’s: Peter’s post on adding liveries to your locos.

Now on to Dan:

“Hi Al;

There have been several money saving tips passed along recently, as well as some wonderfully crafted layouts. I thought I would pass along a tip that can save some of our hard earned cash.

In Minnesota we sometimes “joke” that we have two seasons, winter and road construction. While spring has had a sluggish start I am sure the road crews are making plans for repairs.

A typical road maintenance regime here is the laydown of a heavy oil like material followed up by an aggregate of some sort. While sometimes heavy compaction is the next step, often the compaction is left to the normal traffic of the area.

The aggregate can vary in color and size depending on the municipality and the availability of material.

In the picture you can see two samples of road material I was able to pick up after the laydown of the stone. The coin in the can is a US dime, about ¾ of an inch in diameter, or about 17 mm.

The grey rock is the smaller material, and while too big for ballast, both could do nicely as part of a boulder field, or scree (talus) as part of a slope. Nothing looks more like rock then… well rock! I made a slide shed for my valley, and the grey material worked well to depict the scene.

The best spot to pick up the materials is often at corners where the stones get thrown into piles by the action of the tires, so one must exercise due caution in your gathering. Maybe take a lad with you as a look out.

Thanks for the great site, Al.

Minnesota Dan”

And lastly, another vid from Dangerous Dave.

“Hi Al,

Sorry not loaded anything this last few weeks with the model railway, been busy gardening etc, and this time of year can be a bit warm in the loft, but this last weekend I went out up to North Yorkshire Moors Railway and captured a few clips of steam running.

On my return I just had to go up in the loft and get a few of my trains running, have just loaded this video on to Youtube , and thought it may be of some interest especially with the real steam trains

Regards

Dave”

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here

A big thanks to Bob for sharing his decal for Amtrak model train, Dan and Dave.

You know, I still get mails asking why Dave is called Dangerous Dave. You can see why half way down on this post.

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 train layouts here if that’s your thing.

Bill’s been back in touch with his small HO scale switching layout:

If you missed his ‘track-plan-pic’, it’s at the bottom of this post.

“Hi Al,

Bill from Virginia again. My first 4×8 section is nearly complete.

All basic scenery is in and now I’m adding in details and starting to weather the rolling stock and buildings.

Still a lot to do but I’m switching happily and having great fun!

Thanks again for your posting all of the talented modelers out there.

Your site and seeing what other do motivated me to get back into active participation in this great hobby. You don’t need a lot of space to have fun.

Attached is a link to my latest video. Trains are running and I give a quick overview of the layout as well.

Thanks!

Bill in Virginia”

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here

Now on to something completely different.

Who can help, Peter? Because I’m sure it will help quite a few of us:

“I know it’s been awhile but just wanted to drop a line and ask a question maybe you can answer or get some feed back for me.

Only have a few engines with DCC and some smoke, but I have found that they require a lot of power or you just can’t use your typical HO transfer.

I recently had a problem with a Broadway limited T1 4-4-4-4 steam engine DCC and the board burnt out for the second time first time got board from them to replace second time they wouldn’t help at all but here’s where it interesting, I dismantled the engine took out all the DCC and required the engine , just have to touch the transformer the engine takes off runs better then it did before just now no smoke or sound , runs awesome.

Don’t think it’s fair that the new technologies should cost us so much money because now a family hobby has become more about money than creativeness , MTH for one I’ve found out that there engines work properly only with there equipment, is that fair , that why I only have 1 engine by them and I don’t even run it because it don’t run well off my transformers.

Thanks for listing hope to hear from and keep send out those emails from other hobbyists , there great.

Peter”

Please do let me know your thoughts on this – just leave a comment below if you can help.

A huge thanks to Bill for sharing his small HO scale switching layout – loved his video and can’t wait for the next update.

It’s been wonderful to see its creation right from the very start. Stunning stuff. He’s right too, you don’t need a lot of space to have fun. You just have to start.
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 train layouts here if that’s your thing.

John’s been in touch – he’s added another module to his HO scale mountains on his coal mine:

“Hi Alistair,

John From Baltimore here.

The next module for my coal mine railroad is nearing completion, and will be moved into the basement train room soon. I had neck surgery a week ago, and will need to wait a month or so before I can really lift or move anything.

Anyway, this module will go to the right of the existing mine, photos and descriptions of which you’ve posted in the past. This module will pretty well conclude the scenery on the mine-side of the layout, just back-drops to the ceiling back there.

I’ve included a few pictures of what the module looks like “from afar” to give readers a perspective of how the module approach works. The mine cars are N gauge and resting on N gauge track, they are static and glued in place. The mine loco was cut down from an N gauge Plymouth shuttle loco, and “converted” to electric.

The left side of the module and the right side of the existing one is measured to pretty well fit together, so continuity of the mountains should work. This time I tried cardboard framework hot-glued together, instead of wood. Hope it works when moved, seems pretty stiff with the plaster on it.

By the way, I use 20 minute set-up sheetrock compound, make small lots and use it before it gets solid, and when the 20 minute clock goes off ya better be done with what ya mixed up!

The story of this mine is that it’s from the early 40’s before the other mine buildings (past posts) were constructed and still brings coal out of the mountain as needed when customer orders exceed the main mines output. I decided on an electric mine railroad and catenary, (adds detail and interest) after watching YouTube vids of coal mines.

The coal is loaded into dump trucks and moved to the more modern processing mine in earlier posts. Back in the day coal was left in chunks like it came out of the ground, and users like power-plants crushed it on their own, now coal is sized and sold to customer specification.

I’ll add to the dump truck roadway to connect and blend in with the existing mine and mountains when the module goes into it’s final home.

Thanks so much for all you do for those of us in the model-railway community, world-wide.

John”

Stunning stuff from John – my eye’s lit up when I saw his name in my inbox.

(It reminds me of Dean’s post: Plaster cloth mountains.

Fantastic pictures and can’t wait to see this module in his layout. If you want to see John’s story so far, his last post is here.

A huge thanks to John fo rsharing his HO scale mountains module.

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

Need buildings for your layout? Have a look at the Silly Discount bundle.