Model railroad layouts plans

Jim’s been in touch again with his HO scale curved trestle bridge – his last post is here.

“Hi Al.

Jim from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada back at ya.

Thought I would send Part 2 of my train layout video.

I started the layout in the winter of 2003 & only worked on it each winter since.

It has basically been finished since about 3 years ago except for purchasing new engines, rolling stock, people, animals & scenery.

Watching Dangerous Dave’s tear down & rebuild is starting to get to me, but then again, so is my arthritic knee & that keeps a tear down & rebuild in the far background for me.

I very much enjoy receiving your e-mails every day & there always seems to be a good tip in each & every one.

So keep ‘em coming & kudos to you & all the model railroaders out there who are submitting their efforts to the cause.

You can see a track plan in the previous posts.

The HO scale curved trestle bridge was not a purchase. I cut 12″ long by ¾” thick pine boards with a bandsaw into strips of ¼” x ¼”.

Those pieces were then hand cut into various lengths for the cross members & struts.

Over 500 individual pieces were used in the making of this trestle. With cutting, gluing, clamping & drying it took me approx.3 weeks of afternoons & evenings to complete.

Interestingly, I assembled it upside down on a work table & when finished, fitted it into the space reserved in the layout & then plastered in the quarry & gorge to the trestle footings.

The mountain & waterfalls were already finished & in place before placement of the trestle.

The HO scale curved trestle bridge is 28″ long by 9″ high and 4 ½” wide at the bottom and tapers to 1¾” at the top.

HO scale dimensions are: 203′ long, 65′ high.

I fitted the coal cars with a false bottom & then glued down about ¾” of real crushed Cape Breton coal found between the old railway tracks about a mile from my house.

Will send Part 3 of my layout at a later date.

Many thanks to the viewers for their interest & very kind comments.

Jim”

A huge thanks to Jim for sharing his HO scale curved trestle bridge – just goes to show it doesn’t matter at what pace you build your layout, they are all fun.

Slow and steady really does the trick. Jim’s fabulous trestle bridge demonstrates that in spades.

Please do leave a comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how ‘long’ a layout should take.

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.

Jim’s been in touch again, this time with his Broadway Limited HO scale engines.

His last post is here.

“Greetings to you and all of your wonderful and knowledgeable subscribers.

I have two new Broadway Limited HO scale ES44AC’s and five new Maxi 1 well cars along with some containers appeared in the “train room “.

So, I set to work weathering the well cars (with only mild weathering as these cars have a build date from ‘02) and the containers.

I have to say, these BLI’s are truly great.

They run smoothly, have great sound with many sound functions and are capable of producing smoke. WOW!

Accordingly, I had to replace my Santa Fe era on my layout with my BNSF fleet and put together this video highlighting some of the sound effects from these engines.

I programmed horn sounds for grade crossings and forward, reverse and stopping as well as volume levels for various functions.

And of course the smoke.

Here’s hoping you enjoy this update and run by.

Best regards,

Jim AZ”

Broadway Limited HO scale:

And now something from Michael.

He’s a man fo few words, but I thought i’d publish it because it looks fun, and it also goes to show you don’t need a lot of space to enjoy this hobby:

“Mike’s 44 X 33 layout for his nephew.

Plaster cloth over Styrofoam.

Mike”

That’s all today folks.

Thanks to Jim for sharing his Broadway Limited HO scale engines, and to Mike too.

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.

John’s been in touch again with his mine layout. (His last post is here.)

“Hi Alastair,

John from Baltimore here with an update on the coal mine layout.

This mine is kit-bashed from several buildings, the Walthers Gravel pit, Diamond Coal mine with some parts of other buildings added.

Stairways and ladders not with the Walthers kits are from Tichey train group, and the transformer, lots of other stuff details piping, the trestle and the coal dump is scratch-built.

The mine is now home in the mountains (still under construction all around it) and I think it worked out pretty well. Turns out that I had to build a bridge when I places the module because the valley was just too deep to work around.

All the tracks are in and the tedious task of eliminating the derailment points is underway. My test is to back a 20 car train all around the layout slowly. If any bad or flakey places are there, bcaking through will find them! Oh, ya can’t back a train with the toy horn-hook couplers, have to be Kaydee of other upgraded ones.

Next update to the mine layout will be the mountains, trees and stuff on either side.

Regards, and to you and all the railfans across the globe.

John from Baltimore”

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Stunning stuff from John. Have a look at all the comments at the bottom of the page.

If you look at the first post for his mine layout, you’ll see a wonderful pic of his table with nothing more than a few pieces of track on it. Now look at it!

Just goes to show it’s all about making that start.

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

And if all these posts have got you itching to start your layout, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

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