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HO scale medieval figures

Lawrence has been in touch again – he’s added some HO scale medieval figures to his layout!

You may remember him from his HO helix post.

Well, I have to say, I do love his stuff – you can tell he has a lot fo fun with his layout:

“Hi Al

Another Update. As a member of the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism = recreation of the middle ages) I was thrilled when I found out that the Renaissance Faire was coming to town.

There are companies that are starting to make Ren Faire stuff but not on the market yet. So, it is time to ad-lib from what I have see by going to the Ren Faire myself.

The first picture is the clearing of the field and setting the boundary. The second picture shows the walls in place, made from food scurs. The shields are pictures from the web on thin styrene. Most of the devices I recognize from registered devices from Baronies, Shires, and Cantons in the SCA. The third picture shows the entertainers arriving and a food court set up for them. Now we see the full Ren Faire set up for the customers. With some of the entertainers practicing their art (dancing and jousting).

The Ren Faire is officially OPEN. Customers are arriving with the police helping to direct traffic.

The Ferrier shop in the picture has been shut down and the Ferrier is now available for the jousting horses as needed.

The motorcycle club arriving is the Booze Fighters, the oldest motorcycle club.

Picture number 6 shows customers arriving and starting to enjoy the festivities. But to get in they have to pay and get their hands stamped with an ink device. To allow them to leave and reenter the same day without paying again. The shack just inside the entrance checks for the hand stamps.

Now the fun begins. In the eighth picture people are seen to wander around in normal street clothes, Renaissance garb and even SCA (medieval) garb. The multiple attractions are the jousting, dancing, food, mead, and of course turkey wings. The next picture is a close up of the jousting. The jousting poles are actually balsa wood so that they shatter on impact with minimal damage. Then there is the general area for the food and mead. You can order at the counter or be served at a table. The kiosk in the rear of the picture sells the turkey wings. The last picture shows the dancers, usually to an Irish tune.

Lawrence”

A huge thanks to Lawrence – I do love it when I see his name pop up in my inbox. Over the months he’s sent in quite a number of posts, and I hope he keeps them coming too.

And now on to Dangerous Dave. I know I post a lot of his stuff but it’s just that if I start watching something, and find myself watching all of it, I generally post it. I don’t know what it is about Dave’s layout, but it seems to get me everytime:

“Bit of fun running for the weekend Al, tried to name each one for those not knowing which type is which…

Regards

Dave”

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

That’s a lot of locos Dave’s got there. Great to watch.

A big thanks to Lawrence for sharing his HO scale medieval figures.

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.

Lionel model railroad – Bill’s

Bill’s been in touch with his Lionel model railroad:

“Al: I have been enjoying your daily emails for a number of years.

Many of your contributors have much better train layouts and more realistic landscapes than I do and they certainly have nothing to learn from me. Nevertheless I think that there are a group of model train enthusiasts who might benefit from my story.

In 1950 when I was 11 years old I received a much sought after Lionel 027 starter train set. Our family had no space for a permanent layout so I assembled and disassembled it many times. After I was married I sometimes set up a layout around the Christmas tree to entertain our children, but I took it down after the Holidays.

When my grandchildren were young I set up the train set at Christmas again. The second Christmas with grandchildren I put the layout on a couple of 4×8 sheets of plywood supported by saw horses in a spare room in the basement and added some rudimentary scenery.

For Christmas in 2007 my children (who always find it difficult to buy me presents) recognized my interest and bought me a new Lionel model railroad, the Polar Express set with Fastrack. For a while I had a mixed layout with part tubular track and part Fastrack. But the trains ran a lot better on the Fastrack and over time I replaced all of the tubular track.

The layout expanded until it filled the 15 x 17 foot basement room. I sometimes regret not taking the opportunity to switch to HO gauge so that I would have room for more train equipment.

Above is a SCARM diagram of my current Fastrack layout. I run two LionChief trains and occasionally a third conventional Lionel train. The layout is not meant to represent any particular time or place. The scenery however is typical of the sandstone cliffs in the Yellowstone Valley, where I live.

Although it is not clear from the diagram there are three tunnels, indicated with blue track, and the bottom left section is a level above the rest. The tunnel on the right is actually in a closet. (The closet door is open in Figure 02.)

I have wired the sidings in the closet with Azatrax’s D2X Exhibit controller with infrared sensors so that without human input two trains can run alternately in opposite directions around the upper loop.

Most of the scenery is carved from 2 inch sheets of insulating foam. The sheets of foam are supported by a simple framework as shown in Figure 05. No attempt has been made to conceal the line between layers of foam in many places, as it is meant to represent the layers of sediment in the sandstone cliffs. I found the best tool to carve the foam is a drywall saw, with a Shop-Vac handy to control the mess. (See the saw in Figure 06, next to the waterfall). The carved foam is painted and sprinkled with Woodland Scenics turf.

On the mountain side, the left side of the track diagram, the trees are mostly pine. They were meant to be table decorations. I purchased them in an after Christmas sale at Hobby Lobby. The deciduous trees are home-made … twigs from sage brush with bits of foam glued on (also from Woodland Scenics).

A few of the structures are Plasticville kits but most are scratch-built from 3/16 inch foam poster board covered with printouts from Evans Model Builder computer software. Most of the structures are lighted. I cut up strings of battery powered Christmas lights and use 3 AA batteries to power the lights. The asphalt roadway is cut from asphalt shingles left over from my recently repaired house roof.

In order to provide more track power than the Lionel CW80 transformers I acquired with my LionChief train sets, I recently purchased an MTH Z1000 transformer from a local hobby shop. When I was in the hobby shop the other day I mentioned that the Z1000 was working fine. The salesman said “Lionel model railroads make you feel like a kid again, don’t they?” I think it was a rhetorical question, but I answered, ‘Yes!’

Bill”

A huge thank you to Bill! It’s great to see a Lionel model railroad.

I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I did. Not only is it a wonderful layout, the narrative behind it makes this hobby what it is.

That’s all this time folks. Please do leave a comment below, and keep ’em coming.

I leave you with this thought – if today is the day you stop dreaming and start doing, the Beginner’s Guide is here

Best

Model train level crossing

Rob’s been in touch again, this time with his model train level crossing.

(His last post is at the bottom of this one.)

He’s been working on his castle too, and I have to say, I really enjoyed the youtube. Hope you do too:

“Hi Al,

I have a video that you might be interested in. In it, I discuss the type of camera I use and my favorite go-to close up camera mount. One of your subscribers asked what I use the last time you posted one of my videos.

The camera is a Sony FD AX33. It is a middle of the road camera. The camera mount is called a Cinegear Folding Tilt Adjustable-Mount Plate and sometimes referred to a Z mount.

Except for the area surrounding my new castle ruin, my basic castle is finally done.

It has taken well over a month to build it, but it is good I could stick with it to completion because it is turning out to be a good addition to the layout.

We take a good look at it and to give it scale, I placed a couple of figures on it. They really bring the size of it into perspective.

The shotgun microphone sounds I tried for were somehow nullified by YouTube. I have no idea how they did that. I did find it annoying that they did, however. It did not reduce viewing enjoyment for anyone else, just me.

I also discuss future plans for my harbor area. I plan to have one, possibly two ships tied up there. I want to create the hustle and bustle of a busy wharf or quay with ships unloading into train cars/wagons and workers busy at their tasks.

One other thing I demonstrate in this video is my level crossing in full operation.

I did not find a kit to my liking so I built this one from scratch.

The electronics are standard off the shelf units but combined in unique ways to provide a total solution for a United Kingdom style crossing.

I did have one custom circuit provided to me. It was an adjustable on-delay relay. There are six sets of sender-receiver type train sensors to ensure the gates are always down when train(s) are present.

Thank you so much for all you do.

Rob”