Model railroad layouts plans

Hugh has been in touch with some proper nostalgia – his Pre war lionel O gauge train engines

Have a look at Hugh’s O gauge – and his fantastic poster too:

“Hi Alastair, Enjoy looking at your site.

I like pre war lionel o gauge train engines, tin plate mainly. So I built this layout for my Great Northern Railway trains. It is based on the 1956 Marx Rocky Mountain Express set and modified to represent the Glacier National Park area.

Most everything is from 1939 into the WWII era when tin toys stopped being produced. All the buildings are card board or wood.

The trains are custom painted Marx plus a set of wooden kit passenger cars that look like the trains GNR operated circa 1939. It is on a 71” x 40” coffee table.

We live in a Victorian house built in 1890 near Glacier Park. So I built a small table top layout that is like the ones Lionel sold in the 1920s and 30s. It is part of the living room furniture.

I some times run Ives, Hornby and Bing tin plate on it. The blue train is a Dorfan 53 with a Lionel motor, an AF mail car and 2 607 type Lionel coaches.

Some of the buildings are tin copies of German ones. I made them smaller to better fit the overall 0-27 scale.

This is one small loop and works good for clock work trains, too. It started out fairly simple and grew.

Hugh, Montana.”

Loved seeing the poster and the actual layout!

(Hugh’s reminded me of Bob’s: Lionel prewar layout.)

Now on to Fred:

“My son has helped me make a backdrop image on my computer. It is 12″ by 144 inches. Where can I get it printed as one long sheet???

Fred”

Next, on to Bill. Track cleaning is a subject that always pops up on the blog.

And Bill has thought of something I haven’t seen before:

“HI Alastair,

Came up with an interesting method of cleaning debris and especially bits of foam.

Plugged my keyboard vacuum which runs on the USB into my cell phone aux batter (morphie). Now I have a portable vacuum to clean my layout. It is still incomplete but coming along!

Regards,

Bill”

Who can help Fred? Please leave a comment below, I’d love to know too – backdrops are another subject that always pop up. There have been some cracking ‘how-to’s on them over the years.

Lastly, if you’d like to share anything, now’s the time to get in touch. It’s all getting a bit thin on the ground this end. And you HO chaps have definitely all gone to sleep.

That’s all for today folks.

A big thanks to Bill, and to Hugh for sharing his .re war lionel O gauge train engines.

Please don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide if it’s time for you to stop dreaming and start doing. It’s a sensible first step, whether you haven’t picked up some track in years, or you’ve never stopped dabbling.

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 with his model train crash – looks nasty!

“No one was reported injured a few folks in the motor court shaken up.

Milk and egg production was off for a few days did not seam to bother the rabbits.

Grandpa came from the outhouse at a quick step. Mom was unhappy about the dust on her fresh laundry

Motor court not motel trying for late forties early fifties. Someday I may list everything on this layout starting with over five hundred pine trees.

Not real big, takes up a nine by twelve room, four feet eight and one half inches off the floor.

You may like to check out the barb wire fence, the bright part is caused by reflection from the flash, posts are tooth picks, the wire is silver metallic thread.

John”

John’s post did make me smile – we’ve all had a fair share of ‘crashes’.

Whenever I see a train like that, it always makes me think of Malcom’s excellent post on derailments:

How to stop derailments.

And now a correction…

It’s not hard to see what Bill G has been doing since his last post, because it’s below.

But I wrongly called HO last time, it’s not, it’s N scale.

I have no idea why you HO chaps have gone so quiet. Had quite a run of N scales at the mo.

“Here are 3 more to follow after the last 4 days work.hope you like em.

Bill”

That’s all this time folks.

Thanks to Bill and to John for sharing his model train crash. Great fun.

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 in touch again, this time with his model train cliffs.

(His last post is here – bottom one).

“Hey hey hey its Bill G. Again.

Been really hard at work on the cliffs of Gerskyville. I’ve gotten the carving done , applied the pigments to the cliffs, put the undercoat in the lake and river and sealed it all.

Next it’s time to work on the falls and water features that are around and on the cliffs.

Oh yea the track arrived today , next gotta order all switches then install.

Enjoy pics.

Bill G”

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“Hi Al,

I know its been sometime but I have seeing correspondence and pics from other modelers .

All is very interesting and informative , i will be sending some pics on Fedex trucks that I modeled for HO scale.

Got the decals on line and just cut and pasted , getting as close as possible to scale.

Also a kitbashed model of Mcdonalds out of card stock and plastic pieces

Thanks,

Peter”

(Peter’s last post is here – the last one on the page. Quite a layout!).

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Looking for the latest ebay cheat sheet? It’s here.

A big thanks to Peter and to Bill for sharing his model train cliffs.

It’s also great to see some more of the printable buildings on another layout too – really looking forward to seeing this one spring to life.

If you have anything you’d like to share, please do mail me your pics. All these years on and I still love seeing what lands in my inbox every morning.

And please don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide, if you want to make your next layout the best one yet – and that goes if it’s your first one too…

Remember, it’s the start that stops most people.

That’s all for today folks.

Keep ’em coming.

Best

Al