Model railroad layouts plans

Rob’s been in touch with something that’s always fun: model railroad castles!

“Hi Al,

I have said from the beginning as I built this new Farland layout I wanted a ruined castle on it. I will also be starting on a ship for my harbour next month.

The castle was built from Elmer’s foam board with pieces cut with a craft knife in to the basic shapes, then covered with drywall compound about 2-3 mm thick. When this very soft plaster set up or dried, I carved the stone shapes with an old dental tool purchased on eBay. After scoring the grout lines and vacuuming off all the dust, I painted the lines with a very small brush using a black wash watered down.

When that dried, I sanded it lightly leaving fairly crisp edges. When it was thoroughly cleaned again I gave it a wash in a watered down sepia color to represent weathered lime stone. All in all I am very pleased with the result and once bedded into my layout with access stairways and small platforms, I think when done I may add a couple knights in armor with their horses demonstrating to a small crowd.

Thank you so much for all you do.

Rob”

Latest ebay cheat sheet here.

Thanks to Hall of Fame member, Rob. Stunning stuff:

Now on to Yale:

“Al:

As John’s Gardenton Model Railroad shows, the devil is in the details. When folks come to visit our railroad they always comment on the details we’ve added in these little scenes.

Yale”

A huge thanks to Yale and to Rob for showing us some more model railroad castles.

Just loved Rob’s video – watching him build the castle was a real joy.
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.

Peter’s been in touch again with his HO shelf layout.

(Last time, he showed us how to add loco liveries.)

This time he talks us through his layout:

“1. Thought you might be interested in the following….

This is the smaller of two layouts I have… the other in an attached double garage…mainly German..

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Notes:

Bedroom layout…

What one can ‘cram’ into a 11’ x 15’ ex. bedroom..

The layout has two layers… and three tracks…

The inner track runs only on top level

The two outer tracks run on both layers…[with a double gradient at one end]

This makes them approx… 104’ long each]

Why ?….One can easily run 2 trains on the same track, with a good interval between trains..[about 80 seconds]

At a push 3 trains..

The trains approximately 9’ long [loco + 8 carriages or equivalent trucks]

The layout is Swiss/Austrian….H/O….digital sound..[in most cases]

And not reprehensive of anything special ‘location wise’..

The lighting bought on E-Bay [China] at a fraction of the cost from the UK..

The catenary is home made [Very low cost]…The posts and ‘cross wires’… just for looks..

longitudinal wiring was not done…gets in the way of cleaning the tracks..

and I have 2 cats… not a good combination..

2. Just an interesting point on model railway insurance…

I am currently with the ‘Halifax’…

Who have done in the past an ‘unlimited’ insurance on the house and contents… [including the model railways…]

But the attached garage was limited to £2000…

Even though 11 inch cavity walls [no windows] and concrete roof [no roof lights] and electrically operated main door with it’s own alarm system… and PIR’s connected to the house alarm system inside..

All the other companies I contacted, did not want to know [insure] the railways at all..

So I had to take out a separate insurance for the garage [Magnet]… who specialize in model railways..

This year however….The ‘Halifax’ changed it’s policies….now the attached garage contents are ‘unlimited’ and the policy was £100 cheaper…

Regards

Peter”

A huge thanks to Peter for sharing his HO shelf layout.

I get quite a few mails pointing out cats and railways don’t mix.

But sadly, I get a lot more mails from folk who have lost their layouts, mainly due to flooding. So I thought Peter’s commments on insurance were worth talking about.

If anyone has had any good or bad experiences about insuring their layouts, please do leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you.

(Or if you just want to comment on the layout, that’s fine too.)

That’s all this time folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide if you want to take those first steps for your own stunning layout.

Best

Al

PS More HO shelf layouts here.

Latest ebay cheat sheet here.

John’s been in touch again – my word he’s been busy. This time he’s added a HO Walthers industrial substation.

And it looks fab too.

(His last post is here.)

“Al,

My latest on the West Virginia Energy coal lines is attached.

The mine module sent in to you before is now almost done, there will be another smaller mine constructed and connected to the right of the one pictured here.

I added a power substation, it’s a HO Walthers industrial substation kit but with all the buss-bars attached, tedious work, no wonder they don’t include them.

I worked as a lineman for the power company just after high school, so kind of know where the connections should go. Also the stock kit is on a rectangle base which I cut to fit the space I had.

The wire on the big towers is bead-string, and the green wires (static lines and the power lines to the mine) are Berkshire Junction EZ Line. The chain-link fence is lace ribbon from a fabric store, and the posts for the fence are bent copper wire.

Like most West Virginia back woods lines there is an abandoned siding someplace, even the switch to get onto it has been removed.

On this siding sits the first locomotive the W/V Energy people acquired from New York Central, a majestic Hudson, now rusting back to nature and glistening in the morning dew.

The back-head of the boiler warped when the mine owners kid wanted to be a “locomotive fireman” and fell asleep while the train was running another loaded coal train to the Chessie interchange, letting the water in the boiler get too low. The engineer dumped the fire to the roadbed, setting 3 cars of the following train alight but avoiding the disaster of the boiler exploding.

The entire episode embarrassed everyone, and killed the engine. They dragged it to the unused siding, and didn’t even empty the tender! No one dares to suggest the thing be cut up for scrap. The owners son, seldom out of his underwear, is now selling internet advertising to on-line war game concerns from his condo in Elkins WV.

Also notice the newly painted water tower for the town of Craig. The high school industrial arts class painted it, and it received a full page article in the Craig weekly paper, “The Coal Dust Current.” The art work did, however, not interfere with the town getting revenue from the Cell Tower attached to and removing the sanctity of the arguably artistic tank painting.

I added a few pictures of overviews of the layout, some have been seen before, some new. Of note is the lighting I’ve added. One picture is of the whole room, another of the lights over the bridges. I get the string LED lights designed for car/van lighting, they run on 12 volts and have sticky backs and are available as little squares or ovals.The light is white, but can be compensated for with the colors used on the layout. One challenge these strip lights conquered is thew shadow the bridges cast on the back-drop when taking pictures of them. The lights positioned directly over the back-drop fixed that problem.

My next work will be to fill in on the right side of the mine, and then the tedious wiring starts in earnest (sigh) slow work. One part of modeling that I like is seeing what has been done at the end of the day, wiring kinda looks like it did when ya started.

Regards, and keep up the great work you do!

John from Baltimore”

A huge thanks to John – absolutely stunning stuff.

Love the theme and the back story he’s put together, it really does help to bring a layout to life.

It reminded me of Brian’s post: Walthers HO scale.

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

And why not make today the day you take the plunge with the Beginner’s Guide? Why should everybody else have all the fun? It’s all about making that start…

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet here.