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O scale rail yard

Peter’s been in touch with his O scale rail yard.

(If you missed his stunning O scale post, it’s here.)

He’s been kind enough to send in a few more pics and a short vid:

“Thanks for posting Al, and such nice comments!!

Couple more pics here and, two short video clips of engines running at scale speed through a yard.

Usually in the real world, around 10 to 20 MPH tops.

The trick and tedious job is to get these brass engines to run smoothly with the Dynatrol system.

the narrow gauge bridge module I sent you before, will be along that back wall when it’s painted sky blue.

Peter”

“Hi Al:

Thought I’d send along some pictures of my attic n scale layout that is under reconstruction.

The Fairfield & Cheston Railroad is based on a railroad from Pennsylvania USA. It had operations that began in the 1800s in Gettysburg. Eventually it was merged into CSX in the 1970s. I am modeling the mid century period. This is a DCC system. The layout is 13′ x 5′.

My layout originally started as a 4 x 4 layout when I lived in Virginia. It grew every time I moved.

This is a husband and wife operation. My wife constructs buildings and does landscaping while I do the construction, track work and electronics. We both get what we want of this hobby. We are in the process of setting operations using computer control of the Zephyr DCC system.

Hope you find this interesting enough to post.

Yale”

A big thanks to Peter for sharing his O scale rail yard, and to Yale too.

All these years on and I still love seeing what is going to pop up in inbox.

So if you have anything you want to share, please do so! Just email me.

Lastly, the silly really is coming to an end now, so if you don’t want to miss this very silly sale, please don’t sit on your thumbs because you are going to miss it.

If you want to watch the full length version, with Bonkers John at full throttle, It’s here.

Next up, seeing as it’s nearly the last day day for the silly sale, I thought it would be fun to show you just some more scenes made from the printable scenery in the silly sale.

I’ve never given away so much for so little – just $9.

You get 33 printable buildings and the Beginner’s guide for just $9.

Even if you already have the Beginner’s Guide, there are still three brand new buildings.

What’s more, you also get the warm and fuzzy feeling of directly supporting the blog, which at the moment, is struggling somewhat.

Course, I’m biased, but the three new buildings on there own are worth $9 each – that’s what they sell for in the store.

So please don’t miss this offer – you are saving over $300.

What’s more, It will never, ever, ever be this price again.

Grab it right now before it disappears – it’s just $9 for the lot.

Are you really going to miss out on this crazy offer?

Here are some of the buildings on your layouts:

“Al, like you I have been retired for some time now.

I have gone back to my American Flyer, s Guage boyhood train.

I have had “n guage, HO, G scale”, and this American Flyer has been the most fun of all. I guess it takes me back to my parents basement where my 4 x 8 foot layout was back in the early 50’s.

I resized your wonderful old barn and had so much fun building it. Here are some pics. Hope everyone enjoys it as much as I have.

Jerry from Illinois, USA.”

“Al,

Great project and a lot of fun. The barn is on it’s way to the Railroad Club.

Charles”

“Al

I have enjoyed your site for a long time, since I have retired had to find something to fill the spare time, I purchased one of your bundles and printed out one of the Engine sheds among many others.

I have created my own version of the Engine shed as shown in the pictures.

Side walls have ventilation fan vents.

I have dreamed to set up a model railroad layout for a long time and when I started to make it a reality one thing came up after another, like kids, education, weddings and now I have time and room to finish the dream, but not much of a budget.

Best to all talented people like Hall of Fame Dave, talented hobbyists and their many beautiful layouts.

Ryszard”

And of course, there’s lots of the printable buildings on your layouts.

Here some pictures of them:

Mike has used a lot of the houses and grain elevators (not featured in the bundle – just using a print out example).

You can see his post here.

Rick’s has also made quite a bit of the printable buildings for his layout:

Here’s Rick’s post.

Rob has also created quite a few of the houses:

You can see his post here.

Cecil did a fab job on the Church:

Again, the church doesn’t feature in this bundle but you get the idea.

Lita has started the scenery with the houses.

Gene adds a light to his engine shed and houses.

Rob’s barn looks fab.

Bob’s low relief engine shed.

Rob adds a tunnel to his layout.

Nick’s simple layout looks fantastic.

Fred’s engine sheds

Lawrence’s barn.

Dana’s engine house (It’s on the bottom one of this one).

Peter’s Viaduct (it’s on the bottom of this post).

Richard’s layout has lots of the printable buildings!

Mike’s layout also has lots of the printable building on.

Stephen’s layout is another one with the Engine House.

Michael has done a great job on the houses.

Lots of the printable buildings on Bob’s HO scale

Bill’s houses.

John’s printable building street.

There are many, many more on the blog. It really does make my day when I open my inbox and see some on a layout.

Also, they are a great way to make that all important start – and that’s what it’s all about.

Right now, until Monday, you get 36 free printable buildings with the Beginner’s Guide for just $9!.

Here’s what you get:

And these are the buildings made from them:

All of these buildings are made from the same print.

And in the one below, a different building has been dropped in to make a back drop:

This building has been added to the free bundle too:

So you get 33 printable buildings and the Beginner’s Guide for just $9 – but only until Monday.

And here are some better pics of what you get – all for $9.

The prints make up a ‘scratch build kit’, and you are only limited by your imagination.

Here’s an example of the backdrops you can build.

(Watch on youtube here.)

But don’t forget – it’s not just the printable buildings you get – it’s the Beginner’s Guide too:

Of course, I’m biased so here’s what others say about it:

“Al,

I really like the Beginner’s Guide. As a true beginner it helped me quite a bit. The Guide answered questions I didn’t know enough to ask.

I haven’t gotten to the building prints yet, still working on my terrain.

Bruce”

“Hi Alistair,

Your print out building kits have saved me hundreds of dollars on buildings and they provide the unique option of being able to customize the builds most any way I desire.

Until I came across your kits, I was very limited on what I could add to my planned N-scale layout. Commercial building kits are way too expensive for a retired person’s budget.

I now have the ability to not only build nice scenes, they don’t require weathering. Something I’m not terribly adept at accomplishing. Also, as a 70 year old kid, working in N-scale can be challenging for clumsy arthritic fingers. Your kits eliminate most of those issues. All I need is a sharp blade, scissors, glue and my imagination.

Also, your beginner’s guide is invaluable. I’m a retired network systems architect, so tech is not scary to me yet surfing the web for information can be tedious. I was a pre-teen the last time I played with model trains, and a lot has changed in the hobby since the early 60’s. You’ve solved all of that by providing one source for virtually all my basic needs, plus your daily email blog covers it all. What an incredible resource you are to this hobby.

Thanks for doing all of what you do.

Best Regards,

Ken”

“Hi Al

I really enjoyed the beginner’s guide book. I’m new to the train world. I have just retired and trying to make an attempt to start a hobbie with HO scale trains. You and your followers have encouraged me for the last two year’s. I Thankyou and your followers for sharing their train world

Sam”

Of course, I’m very biased, but I think the Beginner’s Guide and all these printable buildings bundled free are a real steal – just $9 for the next day or so.

I think Ken’s quote above puts it best:

“Your print out building kits have saved me hundreds of dollars on buildings and they provide the unique option of being able to customize the builds most any way I desire.”

You get 25 printable buildings with the Beginner’s Guide (although with a bit of imagination you can make, many, many more).

You’ll see these buildings sell in the store for $9 each or more.

And the Beginner’s Guide sells for $27.

So you are saving a massive $342 on this deal.

You’re also getting the track plans PDF too.

What’s more, have a look at throught the store and you can see it’s a real, genuine, saving.

But please bear in mind, this silly sale is only for a few days, and then it’s all goes back to normal.

I do like to think that when I have a sale it’s genuine, and there is real value.

So if you fancy this bargain before it disappears like a shadow in the night, grab it right now.

Or, I know some of you good people just buy it to support the site. God bless each and every one of you.

Whatever your reasons, the Beginner’s Guide for $9 and the free printable buildings make it easy for you to make that all important start.

And that, my friends, is what it’s all about. Making that start.

If I can help you do that for $9, this sale will have been entirely worth it.

And whatever start you make – have fun.

Best

PS This offer will end abruptly – please don’t sit on the fence if you are mulling it over.

PPS There is also a 60 day money back guarantee, you have nothing to lose!

Model railroad start – Pat’s

Pat’s made a model railroad start :

“Alistair,

Here are some pictures of my first try at a layout.

It is HO scale and I built the 4’x8’ train table myself from a Michael Gross narrated video available on YouTube. (If anyone recognizes the table and wants to build one as well, please read all the comments under the YouTube post before getting the components and starting. There are several mistakes that they made.)

I just got into model railroading this year. Our family has a history of working on the Lackawanna RR in our area.

When completed, this layout will hopefully recreate an area that I patrolled on foot when I first became a police officer.

For the finished bridge, I used Stoney Mountain Weathering Kit to achieve the look.

I will send more pictures as it progresses. Keep your fingers crossed that I can do it.

Thanks,

Pat, NY USA”

Pat’s made a model railroad start – and that’s what it’s all about.

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

Now on to Eric:

“Hi Al.

I thought of a catchy title for the start of my new N gauge project, so I’ve called this.

The Making of Smeedle 123 … sounds almost familiar doesn’t it?

This is Part One, a brief snapshot of the track configurations as I perfected my plan and the start of the town layout of Smeedle so far. This is just a twin track on the level for a change for me, I can’t remember any other layout where I haven’t had multiple levels or at least two.

You can see the station went from a three platform to a basic two platforms to allow me to add the goods and engine shed areas. The station building is kit bashed, two small stations merged into one. You can see the start to finish of the station area as it progressed, just more people and fencing to add there.

Most of the layout will be in the open with only the rear section hidden, I have goods yard and engine shed linked by a third controller DC of course, even though I have only concentrated on the seen areas up to date there is the engine shed area and a whole townscape to start on next. I still have managed to have 26 lights already wired and working.

You will see a hint or two on the pictures of how to. One, to raise platforms when you use underlay, Two, I use cling film for protecting the rails when adding grass etc. The third is the most simple. I use ballasted underlay so just spoon in the loose ballast between the two tracks without using glues to stick it all down, this means if you alter things you can reuse the ballast filling and no gluey mess to clean up. I do this mainly due to using Sundeala board, compressed newspaper, as it is best not to wet it too much. The track is pinned not glued.

Around the goods shed I have blended winter, spring, summer, and darker summer grasses as well as earth mix and rocky sand sprayed over with hair spray to hold it down.

I will try keep you updated as I progress as I think I am going to enjoy taking it a little more leisurely, hopefully providing greater detailing if my hands and eyes can cope.

For the ones that want perfection, well this is out of my head, based on any small Yorkshire town. The board at best 7’6” by 5’.6” with a wall and hatch. I don’t do weathering, I don’t do plans as they say on Facebook I invoke rule 1. (Do things as you like them, not what others think you should do).

The control is all by DC as I prefer it after watching all the problems others have with DCC and decoders. I have upgraded my Gaugemaster controls to 2 * Q, 4 track controllers, 4 will be for the lighting for adjustments so they can be dimmed or brightened as required.

Keep up the good work Al.

Happy Modelling

Eric (Leeds) UK”

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

A huge thanks to Pat and Eric for sharing their model railroad start.

You all know I’m a fan of seeing the updates, but I also like seeing folk making a start – because without that, nothing happens…

That’s all this time folks. Please do keep ’em coming.

And if you want to make a start on your layout, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

HO scale paper bridges

John has very kindly made a short vid on the HO scale paper bridges.

(They are part of the printable buildings range.)

Here’s some pics of HO scale paper bridges:

It’s now in the store for $9.97 – so if you like the look of it, grab it now.

For HO scale, you don’t need to do anything, just print it out.

For N scale, reduce the print size by 54%.

For O scale, increase the print by 143%.

I have say, I can’t wait to see one of these bridges on a layout. They are a lot of fun to make too.

Now on to another John, who is doing a grea job of keeping us posted on his layout:

(his last post is here).

“Hi Al,

Well after a few months I’ve been back at work on the Appalachian railroad.

The benchwork for the second module is done and in, and attached to the bridge module, all the tracks laid so far are in and tested, and the buildings are just roughly placed.

By the way, the Under-Cliff restaurant is a real place near Joplin MO, really fun, actually in a cliff, and nice people. I found it doing inspection work for a railroad out there, anyway, I’ve started on the scenery, working from the bridge module counter-clockwise toward the end of the module.

This is going to take some time, lots of buildings to place and get scenery around. Can hardly wait to have a loop done so I can actually run trains more then up to the tunnel openings and back.

Probably not until November of this year though!

Man, it doesn’t take long to fill up a space when you start nailing down the track! I may thin out the buildings some, depends on if I can get reasonable roads, power lines, and details to them all.

The tracks on the original plan have grown some, because I wanted more and different switching problems to figure out IE. placing cars at the various businesses. The basic wiring is going in, I’ll be using a straight DCC system, and the one I’ve selected is Rail-Pro, so the actual track wiring is straight forward.

The power-pack in a few of the photos is just for testing the track and elimination places where those pesky de-rails happen. My tried and true test is to back a train of 10 or more cars all over the railroad. Seems like any problem areas will show up faster when backing the cars than when pulling them through.

I’ve decided to build my own switch machines, and will have an article on those for you in a few weeks. I’ve not found any switch machines that have spare poles for lighting signals, which I intend on having on the railroad’s main line.

Thanks for your web site, I always get new ideas and inspiration from modelers all over the world who send things to you!

Regards,

John”