Model railroad layouts plans

Cal’s been in touch with his 4×8 HO train layout.

“Alastair;

People have been asking about my track plan on a 4×8 plywood base HO scale. I found it finally on my computer hidden where it was hard to find.

I’m not sure if you recall my pictures, but as you can see, the building placement and road are completely different from when I designed the plan and what it actually turned out to be.

Originally I had the station designed for the back of the layout with buildings along the yard and sidings.

I think it turned out better than my original track plan.

Thanks

Cal”

(More 4×8 HO track plans here if that’s what you’re after.)

A huge thanks to Cal for sharing his 4×8 HO train layout – you can see his layout is really coming along now (his last post is here).

It also goes to show it’s okay to deviate from a plan…

If it’s 4×8 layouts you are after, here are some more: HO train layouts 4×8.

Or if it’s just any size of HO scale layouts, here’s a collection of them.

In fact, ther are hundreds and hundreds of them on the site.

Don’t just take my word for it, though, here’s another whole page of them.

If you like what you see, there’s only way to see them all.

If you’re not already on the newsletter, you need to jump on! You can do so here.

That’s all today folks. Please do keep ’em coming and don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide if you want to get going on your own layout.

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.

Gerry’s been in touch – he’s kindly done a video update of his HO layout, which talks about the smallest HO scale curve radius.

As you’ll read below, your engines may run smoothly on the layout you have, but what about when invest in large loco that you’ve always wanted?

As Gerry found out, it could be troublesome!

Now, I know what you’re all going to say:

“record the vids with your phone held ‘landscape’… ”

Well, we can’t have everything.

I’m just happy to have this to post, it’s getting a bit thin on the ground this end, so if there’s anything you’d like to share, just mail me with your pics.

“Hello.

Thanks to your blog I have used many ideas building my HO layout over past 5 years.

Now it is time to upgrade and expand some more! Thought I would share it…!

Thanks for greasing this blog Al!

Gerry in Florida”

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

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Thanks to Gerry for sharing the thorny issue of what is the smallest HO scale curve radius.

He’s man of few words – but the video made up for it, so I thought I’d post.

I found it really interesting listening to folk talking through their layouts.

Gerry is changing his because his large trains won’t run through his tight curves – amd that’s something that comes up quite a lot on the blog.

The locomotives you have now may run fine, but there’s nothing worse than spending on a small fortune on an engine you’ve always wanted, for it to derail on every turn.

There’s quite a few posts on this that are helpful:

Track curve radius.

Minimum HO scale track radius.

How to stop derailments.

And don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide if you’re feeling left out – why let everyone else have the fun?

That’s all for this time. Keep ’em coming, folks.

Best

Al

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

Warren’s been in touch with his 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive HO scale:

“Hello, Alastair;

I have attached pics of a Mantua HO gauge 4-6-2 Pacific loco and tender I have restored.

I bought it on eBay for a few dollars, and I liked the way it’s built, so I decided to “fix” it.

It had started life as a C&O unit, painted blue. There were a lot of miscellaneous problems with it, and I had to find valve gear for the left side.

I grew up in a little town on the Louisville & Nashville railroad in Alabama, so of course I’m modeling the L&N.

I found the red/gold L&N heralds on the cab from a gentleman in northern Minnesota. His company is Northern Scale Models, and he’s a pleasure to deal with.

Once I had all needed parts, I started by rebuilding and reworking the drivers and trucks.

All the driver rods have been bushed to eliminate excess movement, and the valve gear rivets have been tightened to prevent the gear flopping around.

I removed all flash in the driver wheel spokes and used gunmaker’s liquid blue to darken them.

I made the front truck from brass stock, and used brass wheels on it I bought online. I found the brass trailing truck spoked wheels online too, and had to rework the axle to fit the truck.

After finishing the chassis, I removed all mould marks on the boiler, polished out flaws, and added the details seen, including Sunbeam generator, brass bell, pop-off valve, boiler feedwater heater, class lights, air and signal hoses, pilot steps, & coupler lifter.

The paint I chose is Badger Engine Black, and it’s a great product. All handrails are handmade from .020 brass wire, and the throttle linkage is .020 steel wire.

This is my first effort at restoring (aka kit bashing?), a metal loco, so I hope you will cut me a little slack on this one.

One area I haven’t tackled is decals. I’ve tried on another loco, but they just look like decals. I can’t figure a way to seal edges and blend them into the paint without ruining the paint.

If anyone has ideas, I’d sure appreciate your help.

Thank you for all you do, Al, I read your blog faithfully each morning.

Warren”

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“Hi Al Another view of the log train shown previously. Scenery finally getting there along the shelf towards the yard.

Ballast and roadwork is next on the to do list at the town and yard.

All the best

Brian.”

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

A huge thanks to Warren for sharing his 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive HO scale, and to Brian too.

Some impressive stuff there – I do love seeing the different scales, scenery, styles and my inbox each day. Please do keep ’em coming folks.

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.