Model railroad layouts plans

Al’s been in touch – he’s sent in pics and a narrative of his stunning railroad, adding to the HO logging layout plans on the blog:

“Attached are some photos of my 4′ x 8′ layout for you to post if you desire.

I am 73 years old and retired from a career in commercial fire protection.

My layout is set in the northwest United States in the early 1940’s.

The buildings are all wooden kits with the exception of the saw mill and power house which are plastic.

I have two DCC steam engines with sound, a 3 truck shay and a 0-6-0 tank engine.

All of the buildings are lighted and I am going to install some street lights in the near future. The mountains are made of rigid foam which was shaped with a wood burning tool, knife and rasp.

I enjoy your posts and have gotten many good ideas from them.

Al

Lacey, Washington”

Whenever I get a logging layout sent in, I’m always reminded of Boy’s logging camp:

HO scale logging camp

And Richard’s too:

HO logging railroad.

Now on to Lester:

“Hi AL.

I read your email every time I get one. I enjoy them so very much. I’m not exactly a newbie as I have made at least 10 layouts since I bought my first train set as an adult in December 1963 for my two sons, then ages 3 & 4. I have made or helped make layouts in O gauge, HO gauge and N gauge and have had fun with all of them. I’m current in HO gauge and probably remain there for the rest of my life.

I don’t know what category in which to put this, but I’m a number cruncher in real life (accountant) and here are formulas for calculating speed of HO/OO gauge trains.

actual feet/time in seconds * 59.386 will give scale mph

actual meters/time in seconds *313.493 will give kph

I will derive the formulas for O gauge and N gauge in the near future.

Lester in Georgia, USA”

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“Beware of paralysis by analysis. It’s easy to use up too much time planning so that you don’t get on with construction.

Make a start and then you can make corrections as you go. (Some baic plan is of course required.)

Desmond”

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And lastly, something from Hall of Fame member, Dangerous Dave.

“Hi Alistair, just downloaded part 3 of the re build, shows my method for adding static Grass and a few other tips there for modellers building a layout.

Hope to get near completion within the next few weeks.

Regards.

Dave”

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

A huge thanks to Dave, Desmond, Lester and Al for adding to the HO logging layout plans.

I do love the layouts with a theme, for me, they stand out a mile and I thought Al has done a cracking job.

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 – he’s decided to make a small layout, a model train in a suitcase!

“Dear Mr. Lee

I mentioned my desire to build a layout I could fit in a suitcase.

I began this in late May or early June.

It is On30 (1/4 inch scale narrow gauge).

I mentioned to you a while back when your covered bridge was new that I saw an engine shed.

The shed you see here is my “proof of concept”, there are adjustments to be made, a lot of adjustments.

The water tower is made from a loo roll and is loosely based on the water tower that served the Edaville RR.

The yellow shed you may recognize also.

I do not have the model train in a suitcase named yet but I am thinking “Valise Yard” as the layout is exactly three feet long when unfolded.

In this picture you see some of the equipment I have built for this little layout.

The little A frame ore cars are made of card and sit on Bachmann’s On30 Passenger Car trucks -one carriage bogie per car.

The real purpose of this picture has been to show the capacities of each spur, a 2-1-3 Inglenook

For those with very limited space, the Inglenook shunting plan is a great way to have a model railway.

The Inglenook takes up little space and is very fun to operate.

It is also a plan that is thrifty on the budget!

I hope you have enjoyed my model train in a suitcase today,

Sincerely,

John from Cali”

“Al,

Really enjoy your site. Used to build model trains and many great memories. These days, I do dioramas.

Working on a method to creat realistic-looking explosions.

1. Creat a cage around what you want to blow up with the chicken wire

2. Take the cage off the model and cover with stretched cotton balls attached by applying glue to the chicken wire. Be sure to pull the cotton and not just stuff in cotton balls

3. When the chicken wire is all covered with cotton, stuff orange and yellow tissue paper (or cellophane) inside the wire cage.

4. Spray paint the cotton using florescent orange and yellow paint touches of flat black. Stand back and only give a misting over the cotton. Mix the orange and yellow.

5. Attach an LED light source to model at to fit inside the cage you have built. (Here, using a light from a headstrap)

6. Turn the light on and place the cotton cage over the model … you’ve got your explosion!

Here is the final diorama scene for the explosing RV.

John Fraim
New Albany, Ohio”

A big thanks to John for sharing his model train in a suitcase, and to the other John for his ‘explosion’.

It still amazes me what lands in my inbox every morning – hope you enjoyed today’s as much as I did.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide if you want to start on your layout (It’s all about making a start).

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

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

William has been in touch with his DCC N scale auto reverse loop:

“My layout is 4′ X 10′.

The railroad has a trestle and 3 other bridges crossing a stream.

It has 2 reverse loops and light sensitive switching to prevent the train from approaching a switch thrown the wrong way.

If the switch is in the incorrect position it will automatically correct itself and accordingly change the color of the LED on the control panel fascia. Because of the automatic switching the route is long as it travels behind the big mountain and the next time it travels in front of the big mountain.

It’s a Great Northern/Santa Fe layout. I have I have 4 Great Northern DCC Sound Engines and 1 Santa Fe DCC sound engine.

At one point the double track oval merges into a single track for a little while and then reopens to a double track…Because of the change to a single track, running two or more trains at once requires an attentive engineer to avoid a collision.(Just like in real railroading).

The big mountain was cast from a large piece of petrified wood. The DCC is Digitrax. The reverse loops are flawlessly controlled by 2 “Tony’s” PSX reversers.

The real railroading fun is the ability to program horns, engine start, engine stop, lights, bells, etc.

William”

(All pictures are clickable)

And now the latest from Dangerous Dave.

It’s wonderful to see videos of layouts with the trains running, but sometimes the videos can be slightly ‘wobbly’.

Dave’s bought himself a new toy – a gimble to stop camera wobble. And you watch the vid, you’ll see his camera following a train flawlessly:

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

A big thanks to Dave and tp William for sharing his DCC N scale auto reverse loop.

(There are lots more N scale layouts here.)

William’s layout reminded me of some print out scenery: the hotel/saloon.

Somehow, it never got put on the site, so I’m going to put that right this week.

It’s worth seeing again just for the bonkers video John did.

It’s all HO scale, so if you want N scale, just reduce the print by 54%.

Here’s the saloon – or hotel – depending on what sign you stick on it (you get both with the print).

And if you’ve watched the video below, you’ll also see that John used the same print to make this little shed:

And here are the fences – here the pics only show a short length of them – but of course, you can print out as many as you like and make the fences as long as you like.

The patios are included in this set of prints too – but I didn’t take any pics – you’ll see them on the vid though. John also made a wall out of one of the patio prints too:

Here’s the vid:

Right now, you can get all three for just $9 – that’s a $18 saving.

Just click here, or the button below, to buy them right now at the discount price, and save yourself $18. Course, I’m biased, but that’s not a bad saving at all.

You can more of the printable buildings range here.

That’s all this time folks.

Hope you enjoyed John’s video as much as me – I think he’s been on the coffee again.

Best

Al

PS Looking for the Beginner’s Guide? It’s here.