Model railroad layouts plans

Lester has been in touch with his model railroad HO double crossover:

“Hi Al,

Here are some pix of one of my layouts.

I have two, this one and a larger one in a shed in my back yard.

This one I call North Division because it is north of my outside building.

What gives me fun is to see trains running around my track. Scenery is my dread !!

This layout table height is 42 inches and is HO scale.

It is a private road name some where in the USA with both steam and diesel with no particular time period. I call it a Miniature Rail Transportation System.

I don’t model any area, time period or railroad.

Pictures are:

1. Track plan

2. Mine

3. Other side of mountain

4. City of Emmaville. (Emma is one of my great granddaughters). The back drop that you see here used to be a piece of cardboard only 5” tall. I had it there because a couple of cars went to the floor and of course the cardboard stopped that from happening anymore. Anyhow it is made with paper buildings glued onto a piece of cardboard painted blue.

5 Another view of Emmaville.

6. Sidings around Emmaville.

7. Sidings around Emmaville.

8. Sidings around Emmaville.

9. More sidings

10. Back of residential

11. Emmaville residential street.

When I learn how, I’ll send a video of this layout.

Lester,

Georgia USA”

A big thanks to Lester for sharing his model railroad HO double crossover layout.

I get lots of mails from folk who say they love running trains, and scenery isn’t their thing – just like Lester.

And unsurprisingly, I also get just as many saying they love to take hours and hours over their scenery and are not bothered at all about their trains.

I think what’s important is that enjoy it, what ever that may be. After all, without that, what’s the point?

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you get started on your layout, just like Lester did, 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.

Bob’s been back in touch with an update. He’s added a HO scale track platform to his layout:

“Alastair,

I am sending updates to my HO layout.

Some changes are forced on us. When my Son and Daughter-In-Law saw my layout they sent me a Walther’s Passenger Platform.

I told them Thanks now I’ll have to get passenger cars.

The only place I could see adding a station required me to rework my roads. Before the station there was sort of wye intersection. I changed that to a “Tee” intersection and added the station.

Picture 1 is before the station. Picture 2 shows the Station.

I decided to use the station to run an excursion, so I acquired two 1860 cars and 1860 steam engine.

Since it was going to be an excursion and not running all the time I needed a siding to store the excursion train.

Since it is a wood burning steam engine I built a water tower and a wood shed for the siding to service the engine. The first picture shows the eight inch addition to the layout with the siding and the water tower.

The second picture shows the wood shed with the split and stacked logs.

HO scale track platform:

The first picture shows the siding with the two coached and a pile of logs next to the wood shed. The second picture shows a head on view of the engine on the siding.

After completing the siding it looked like something was missing, so I expanded again. The first picture shows a passing siding connecting back to the main. Picture 2 shows the sidings and the switch controls.

Always looking for more I decided to extend the first siding and make a ladder. Picture one shows the platform extended and the ladder in place. The second picture shows the extension painted.

After extending the siding it still looked like something was missing, so I added a switch to the passing siding to give me three tracks on the ladder and a fourth track off the passing siding. The pictures show the result from two directions.

I can not expand or extend the layout any more and still be able to reach everything. After the recent discussions about kit bashing and scratch building I decided to try my hand at building a locomotive shed for one of the siding. I got out the balsa wood and framed up a shed based on a picture I had seen. The beginning is shown in picture one. Picture two shows the framework on one of the sidings.

The next stage of building the shed was to make the doors and paint the framework before putting on the roof. Picture one shows the shed with the doors. The second picture shows the shed with the roof on.

The final two pictures show the side of the shed and a front view with a locomotive in the shed.

That is all the updates for now. I planning on getting a 1940’s steam locomotive as my next acquisition but until then I will just be adding scenery to the layout and enjoying run trains.

Bob”

And now on to Dave:

“Hi Al, just uploaded Part 6 of my re build, in this one it shows how I add lights to buildings, a few more trees, and a few tips using old fencing, and card from kits that are left over…

Regards

Dave”

Wow! A huge thanks to Bob for taking the time to put his HO scale track platform update together.

Who would have thought a gift would have caused so much trouble? Well, that’s the fun of this hobby.

I do love reading the narratives, you really do get a feel of how much someone is enjoying their layout, just like Bob!

Great to see so much of the printable buildings on there too.

Thanks to Dave, too.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming, just hit reply to any of my mails if you’d like to share something.

Or perhaps you just want to comment on something you’ve seen? Commenting is easy, just scroll down, fill in the box and send.

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.

Mickael’s been in touch again, this time he’s added to the model railroad waterfalls on the blog.

(his last post is here.)

“Al,

Enclosed you will find 1 of my tunnels with a waterfall that I designed to be taken apart in case of a derailment inside the tunnel.

The top lifts off on both tunnels to allow access in case of derailment. My hands and arms are to big to fit all the way into the tunnels when I designed them so an alternative had to be designed.

Got bored with the layout design and wanted to add an additional underpass for the trains.

Put simulated ivy growing up the wall except underneath the rock overhang. Some pictures that I found in real life had nothing growing under the overhang (shadow of the rock) while others had some dead plants.

Went back and placed Ivy growing on the wall all the way down.

Again, thank you for all that you do to help all Railroad modelers from old to young.

Mickael”

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Now on to something completely different.

Not long ago I created my first backdrop.

I thought I’d have a go because they seem so expensive to me, and I wondered whether I could create a range that was much more affordable, just like the print-out-scenery.

Here’s a small pic of the first one (just click on it to enlarge it):

Anyhow, turns out there are a lot of helpful folk out there – the comment that came up most was a better size would be 18″ by 144″ (the first one was only 12″ inches high). So I have changed that now.

I never realised how easy they were to print. Just put the file on to a CD or memory stick, take it to any office stationers (Kinko / Office Max) and print it out on a smooth, self adhesive, vinyl with UV inks and a matte finish.

Anyhow, there you go, if you’d like to grab this back drop, you can grab it here for just $7.

If you’d like to comment on it, or give me ideas for the next one please do let me know.

That’s all for today folks. A big thanks to Mickael for adding to the model railroad waterfalls on the blog.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you get bored with being bored, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

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