Model railroad layouts plans

Lucian has been back in touch, this time with his n scale trestle bridge plans:

“…For now I’m sending bridge photo that I have made from phone cards glue together. In a picture you can see a part of the chip card which is still built into bridge structure.

Lucian”

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“I can relate to your concept of being selective and taking your time. Some people like to be fast and get up and running and add a little bit here and there while others work at it a bit at a time, but consistently.

All good ways to go at it, but when you have limited funds, time and space, the slower approach can provide more involvement, greater development and hopefully more “fun time” for the hobbyist.

Frank”

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“Edison said something to the effect that invention is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Model railroading fits this nicely. I have experienced many shortcomings and so I have developed some simple rules to be guided by:

#1, Buy one manufacturer, I use only KATO tracks, switches, locomotives and rolling stock, quality makes a difference.

#2, I dry run every “planned” layout section before adding anything in terms of scenery, buildings, etc.

#3, Every building, track path, road, path, shrub, tree is removable. I often change my mind and “adjust” things. I glue down very little, so changing a curve, switch or hillside can be picked up and moved or modified without major surgery.

#4, I use ANY Rail software to plan the addition in detail down to the sections of track by model number. It is a pain but time spent upfront saves hours of frustration later. Still things don’t always work as expected but cutting down the variables enables me to solve more issues quickly and have time to run the trains, Why i do this to begin with.

Happy Railroading and thank you.

John H.”

I had to do a double take when I first read Lucian’s mail. A bridge, made from phone cards? Wow! Stunning stuff.

A big thanks to him for sharing his N scale trestle bridge plans.

But do you know what? Tomorrow’s installment from Lucian is nothing short of genius. And he’s documented is so well with lots of pics. It’s scratch building at its finest.

Until then, here’s the latest ebay cheat sheet.

Keep ’em coming, folks.

Best

Al

Lucien has been in touch with a great example of what you can use for N scale scratch building materials:

“In Romania hobby trains are few. This passion should be funded. In Romania it costs a lot to have a hobby because salaries are lower in the rest of Europe.

Now I am working as a TV journalist Romanian Television. I have not forgotten, but my old profession. During dictator Ceausescu I worked as a designer and I even made some of the elements of the models that explain dictator construction plans.

I still have some of the elements of a model ever since. It was a hall of large plants. equipped with an industrial railway.

My father gave me the passion for trains. When I was a child I received from him the first train on the 16mm kit. Later, when we had more trains, I realized that I can not build a diorama.It would be to occupied the entire apartment, unthinkable thing for my mother. I have risked everything to sleep outside with my trains and layout.

At 25 I bought an apartment, so the girls were thrilled. I took off with all the trains and the mother was also happy.

The first diorama I built for a priest. The guy did not really believe in God, but instead was fond of trains.It was the kind of guy who entrain if you have gone to the Railway station. He was carrying a crazy passion, and money. So he took his 9mm diorama

Later I realized that occupy space dioramas and women not much took place, so I switched to gauge Z (hi, hi, hi, just kidding!)

I’ve used, at the beginning, plastic material from phone cards. I have made the first bridges. Unfortunately in Romania there is no stores for Z format, so I chose to build them one after original plans which we have reduced to scale 1/220.

And then we used a plastic material particular whom we use for television blends

To amuse myself, I started to use and toothpicks in combination with various other materials

Romania has developed much in real estate and developers will show customers mock-ups after plans. I had a contract of buildings near a stations, so we’ve done, along with a Buddy, to 1/ 200th scale.

To amuse myself, I started to use and toothpicks in combination with various other materials”

Lucian”

N scale scratch building materials:

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“Hi Al,

When I first installed this modified ‘N’ scale to HOn3 Heljan turntable, it worked perfectly for about a day.

Then it twisted the drive shaft underneath, after it had a bind above and bent the drive shaft to about 2 degrees off vertical, then would only rotate 180 degrees and bind.

I left it for a couple of months (to regain my sanity) and then removed it carefully (I had allowed for a certain amount of lifting in case anything went wrong) and sorted out the problem. Got the drive shaft vertical to the underside of the pit again. Tested it and replaced it in the cut-out on the layout and hey presto, working like it should.

I used a 1 RPM 12 volt motor (ex Walther’s in the USA) underneath and run it on 1.5 volts to obtain a nice slow steady speed.

I am now able to turn the locomotives again and the roundhouse gang can get get back to work.

All the best

Brian”

Thanks to Brian and to Lucian for showing us how you really can use anything for N scale scratch building materials.

I have a whole load of stuff from Lucian. I can’t wait to show you his bridge – made from old credit cards believe it or not.

Please keep ’em coming folks.

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

And the Model Railroads Guide for Complete Beginners is here.

Best

Al

Mark’s been in touch with another useful tip, this time on model train photography:

“Hi Al.

Here is another quick modeling tip.

One of the greatest pleasures of model railroading is being able to capture our work in photographs to share with family and fellow modelers.

With most scales, noticeably HO, a longer train (or even a large engine) will be in sharp focus at the front with the rest of the model blurred.

To overcome this problem, a number of photos (or “stack”), can be taken at different focus points along the train and then combined into just one single photo.

The key is to keep the camera on a tripod for stability and have a remote shutter release so ALL photos are stable with just different focus points.

This “stack” can then be used by any good photo program (I happen to use “Helicon Focus”) to convert the stack into one single photo.

The attached photo was accomplished in less than two minutes using my iPhone, a remote shutter release (such as the Camera 360 IOS) and the Helicon program.

The front of the engine is about 4 inches from the camera while the sky line at the rear is about 14 feet away.

The photo would be in even sharper focus with 10 to 15 focus points to work with but that would have taken another minute of two and I’m lazy so I used just 7 points for this photo. 😉

There are some very minor drawbacks to this procedure and I’ll be happy to address them if there is any interest in this type of model train photography.

Keep your rails shiny!

Mark <><"

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Now one form the archives:

“I have been watching and enjoying and learning from you emails for over three years now.

I signed up to get them when I was in the planning stages for my layout.

I spent three years working on it when I could and had some money to spend.

Now it is coming down so we can downsize to a smaller house.

So I asked my son to help me make a movie of the layout so I could remember it. I don’t know what space I will have for it in the new situation but I will build another layout.

Well the video turned out to be a great father and son project.

We had a great time making it while he was home from college this summer.

I saw that you don’t get many large guage train videos so I thought this might work for you.

Thanks for all you do.

Greg,
Sanford, Florida, USA”

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here – and still going strong too.

I did wonder how Mark got his pics so crisp and sharp. Now I know!

And it got me thinking, if there are any more model train photography tips out there, please do send them in.

And don’t forget the guide if you haven’t taken the plunge yet.

Course I’m biased, but it’ll save you a small fortune and many, many hours of mistakes.

Please keep ’em coming, folks.

Big thanks to Mark and Greg.

Best

Al