Model railroad layouts plans

Dan’s been in touch with an excellent ‘how to’ on ho scale gondola loads.

But what made me smile from ear to ear is the other ‘how to’ at the bottom of the post. Clever stuff!

“I was asked to make removable scrap loads for a man’s layout for which I was doing the scenery. When finished I submitted an article to Model Railroader. They published the article in January 2009.

Here I will give a little more photo help than they published.

Keep in mind that these iron scrap loads were to his liking. I might have not made the steel so “rusty”.

Finished product. I have included a load of aluminum.

Parts needed. A piece of ply wood. One piece painted and one unpainted. Scrap aluminum. There is a place that makes specialized windows not far from me. I asked for a bag of scraps and they gave some to me. Later I took one of the cars to show them what I did with the scraps. The all important paper clip. You will also need white glue.

Cut the plywood to just slightly under sized of the gondola. This will make it easier to lift out the load. One could use foam. However, we wanted some mass to simulate a load.

The messy part. Don’t try this on you kitchen table WITHOUT waxed paper or you might be sleeping on the couch. Make a nice layer of white glue. Sprinkle on the scraps. Lightly press down the scraps. * When nearly dry, drizzle on a little water to draw up some glue. You might drip on 50/50 mix of white glue and water. Set aside at least a day. Then scrape away any of the scraps sticking to the sides and ends so the load will clear the gondola.

* The paper clip! Cut off an end to make a small loop. Insert this in the mix near the middle. This will be the handle to lift out the load.

The finished load. Choose colors you want. This is the color he wanted.

I don’t have photos of pulp wood loads I did for another fellow. In this case, I used a foam insert sculpted to conform to the way the loads look. Slightly wavy.

I made the top of the foam about 1/4 inch below the car’s top. I used white glue and sawdust for the wood pulp. In the middle of the load I buried a bolt. Using a magnet the load was easily lifted out.

Have fun!

Dan”

A big thanks to Dan for sharing his way of making HO scale gondola loads – there’s quite a few on the blog now and it’s great to see the different ways you do things:

Mark’s afternoon project.

HO train industries

Weathering gondola.

And these model railroad skills can be useful you know.

Dan also sent me this and it had me beaming from ear to ear so I thought I’d post it too.

Hope you enjoy it as much as me.

“Al, here is the project I have been working on for the past two weeks.

When the paper is put into the paper box, it is hard to see if the paper has come or not. Short of actually going down stairs and outside we can’t see in the box.

After early January I will not be aloud to go up or down stairs more than twice a day as I recovery from a fusion in my lower back.

This solves the problem…..a one of a kind.

Dan”

A big thanks to Dan – please do leave a comment below on either post, I’d love to know your thoughts.

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.

John’s been in touch with his HO scale haunted house. It’s always a joy when I see his name in my inbox:

“Hi Al,

There may be a few universal truths in what’s required when building a model railroad layout, tracks, trains, and train stuff.

I have another one – every layout needs a haunted house. I added mine now as Halloween approaches (my birthday by the way) and finally got around to getting my haunted mansion in place.

It’s the old recluse Bartholomew Polesitter place, known locally as “Polesitter Peak” never sold after the old man died.

Potential buyers the real estate people took up there who wanted the place would leave after 10 minutes in it. They universally claimed cold hands were brushing their neck, or other body parts, always after they entered the study where ‘ol Bart’s carcass had been discovered by the three teenagers who went to the place on a dare.

Finally, the real estate people stopped trying to sell the place. It can still be purchased for $286.00 in back taxes.

It all started when one high school jock, a nerd, and a beauty queen in high-heels took the dare to explore the decaying mansion. And yes, upon entering, they decided to split up and explore – the high-heels finding the mummified remains. She, screaming so loud at finding Bart that a few hundred bats woke up in the top floor attic and chased the jock down the stairs. The high heels, on que, twisted an ankle.

The nerd waited for the bats to settle down and rescued the beauty queen, with he and she limping back to the jocks car where he had locked himself in, refusing to open the doors until sunrise, some 4 hours away. His jock title forever revoked once the Craig Mountain High School classmates heard the story.

Other than the twisted ankle, the only other injury was the embarrassing jock’s case of poison ivy so bad that the fuzzy seat-covers in the jocks car had to be trashed. The local sheriff, called after an attack of conscience by the nerd, found no foul play, and no relatives could be found. The nerd permanently replaced the jock as the boyfriend of the beauty queen in high heels.

Ok, this HO scale haunted house model is from Gold Rush Bay Goldrushbay and took a number of hours to paint, age, then partially destroy. This company sells 3-d printed models, completely ready to paint.

Finding a place to put the model was a challenge, finally ending up with the space over my pull-out work bench/shelf, which resides below the tracks which are below the new portion of mountain where the mansion ended up.

I cantilevered some braces to hold my typical screen wire hardshell up and away from the tracks. For interest I thought a few stone walls would add some detail and give a logical reason for terracing the scene.

The pictures follow the construction.

Regards, and again thanks Al for all you do for our hobby!

John”

A huge big thanks to John for sharing his HO scale haunted house – I absolutely loved it! It reminded me of Dan’s: Halloween model train.

If you want to see more of John’s stuff, his last post on his new layout is here:

John’s HO scale coal mine layout.

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.

Dan’s been back in touch – this time he very kindly answers your questions on his HO scale railroad crossing:

“I had a few questions about how I did some of the details and such. This instalment will address them.

I will begin with the individual pieces at crossings.

The tack board material looks more like a rubber type of material rather than cork. As I mentioned, my source was from cut off pieces of folding doors used as room dividers and tacking up posters and such.

You might find it a big box store or a DYI supply store as bulletin boards.

I used profile ties (sleepers) for the 10 foot and the longer 15 foot switch ties.

Profile ties are not square. These easily fit with wither code 100 or code 83 track.

I have code 83 track and have the thinner thickness as the flat side. I stained them after the work was done fitting everything in place.

I have prestained ties but wanted to do my own staining. My ties were from Campbell and the stained ones were from Clover House. They are not longer in business. Alas, the situation all around.

Here is a crossing for passengers at the station at Almost. Use 2 ties as the thicker part nearest the rail and single ties for the part between the tracks. Sand down the edges to make a smooth transition between the tie height difference. You don’t want the passengers to trip. Stain as you like.

A closer look.

Here is a crossing where the track is an an angle to the roadway. It is surprising how much material you will need when the crossing is not 90 degrees.

I used three and a half 10 foot ties and 2 15 foot ties for the outside of the track. You can just see the individual 10 footers. Be sure to bevel the ends at each end of the crossing. The prototype often has a sheet of steel to deflect dragging equipment.

This crossing is on a 30 inch radius curve. I used a nail file to profile the curve so the flanges do not scrape the ties. This was done after the ties had time for the white glue to set up.

I am a little crazy. I like to put crossings right through the switch work. It is more work but worth the effort. It is more interesting and it is prototypical.

You will notice that I used the 10 foot ties between the rails. I staggered them and trimmed the ends to fit. I pit in one set with the short piece needed. Then started the next row with a 10 foot one next to the short piece and so on.

I used the 15 foot pieces for the roadway between the tracks.

The larger gaps in the rail is for the power blocks. I used a “Y” switch to go from two to three tracks. You gain a car length using “Y”s at either end of the siding.

HO scale railroad crossing:

Another view of the crossing.

Here is a piece of the cut off tack board. The tack board material is on a hard particle board kind of material. The original panel was anywhere fro m 8 feet to 15 feet or more. They were room dividers.

A close up of the backing on the tacky material. I used a box knife to cut whatever shape I needed. Then pried up the tack material. This is flexible but not flimsy. I used white glue to hold it down. I also weighted it down overnight.

You can paint it and sand it where needed. It turned out that the pieces matched the code 83 track exactly. I would guess that a thin shim would let it match the code 100 track.

A close up of a typical HO scale railroad crossing.

Close up of that crossings end at the edge of the layout. I used cork roadbed to get the road up to level with the track. The tack board material is flexible enough to not have to do that. This represents a main highway and a hump would not be good.

For the town of Almost, I used a large sheet of the tack board material that for the town shape. This made it very flat. Everything is on a base of plywood and then Homasote.

I used Walther’s sidewalk pieces to make up the “block” sidewalk. The buildings were kits that were modified to fit together as one building.

I am modeling 1958 to 1961 or so. To set the era there is Nixon headquarters and a lair’s bench out side the office. There is other signage to help set the era.

As I have said before, it is the little things that bring the layout to life. Everyone likes the sausages in the window.

Early evening at Almost. I rarely run at “night” however, I can make it evening if I want.

That is all for this time around. Next I will show how rainbow canyon came to be with the long trestle.

Thanks again,

Dan”

A huge big thanks to Dan for taking the time to post this post together on his stunning HO scale railroad crossing.

His previous post on roads is here:

HO scale roads.

And there’s also his stunning scenery post here:

Model train Santa Fe scenery.

There’s also Rob’s excellent ‘how to’ on signals: Model train crossing signals.

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.