Model railroad layouts plans

Cameron and Rob have been back in touch with more on their model train buildings:

“Dear Al,

Yet another instalment.

The third building constructed for the layout was a provender store located at the end of the siding. This most likely would have been used by private feed suppliers for the surrounding dairy farms. There was little in the way of photographs of this building available other than in the background of a few grainy black and white photos.

I looked for photos of similar structures to fill in the gaps and filled the shed with feed sacks which more than likely would have been stored in the prototype.

Like my other buildings this is also made with plastic card except for the stumps which are timber dowels. I always keep an eye out for plastic card sheets at the second hand stalls or buy/sell events organised by my local clubs.

I got some comments on the weathering on the previous posts so I thought this might be a good chance to share my method for this. In the past I have tried all sorts of weathering techniques including weathering powders, acrylic paint, real coal, talcum powder etc.

These all work well but there is a lot of trial and error before you find the right combination. For these buildings I have just used a few basic enamel colours (gun metal, orange, dark grey and yellow) combined with some dirty turpentine to get the desired effect. I like this method because there is less to remember and it is easy to move between one effect and the next. As with any weathering it is important to work of photos of real weathered objects.

Cameron”

You can see more of Cameron, here.

Next, Rob with his model train buildings too:

“Hello Mr.Lee:

My name is Robert …a 75 year old Ho scale modeler.

The intent of this email is to share an alternative method of building model railroad structures.

I started modeling HO scale almost 50 years ago. Back then Campbell Scale Models was one of the key manufacturers of Ho scale kits.

These kits…as well as…other manufacturers required a lot of time to build.

Start to finish could be as much as a month depending on the complexity of the kit…ie: Fine Scale Miniatures.

Fortunately…a number of major improvements have made the Ho scale scene.

Pre-cut parts…plastic detail parts…and currently laser kits.

Even the latest technology requires a lot of time to fabricate a kit.

Specifically…reinforcing the cutouts with bracing…set aside to dry…and then assembling the various braced components into a basic structure…making certain that all is square and true.

At my age I am on the short end of the stick and time is valuable.

I cannot afford to spend more than a day or two building a structure.

Hence…I am sharing my process for speeding up the building process.

I now build solid balsa cores that I veneer with the type of finishing materials required to complete the model.

Attached are some photos of my process and I no longer have to anguish over bracing…drying time…combining components hoping that all is square and true.

The structures that are almost complete took me less than a day to build from start to finish.

Best regards,

Robert, USA”

Model train buildings:

Now on to Dave:

“I’m new to your great site. I’m 66 years old, retired, and lucky enough to have my first Lionel 027 set from 1951. I’ve added to it past few years. Theme is Des Plaines, IL where I lived as a child.

Time frame is 1949 to 1961. The train set, layout, buildings, scenery, etc. sort of defined itself because Plasticville buildings from then look just like Des P looked then. Train station, bank, first McDonalds rstd., O’Hare airport which was in Des P until Chicago annexed it, and lots more. Des P was known as “City of Roses” back then and was primary local industry, so of course I have greenhouses. Lots of little touches. I find inspiration in your postings.

Thanks,

Dave”

Now on to Bern who sent in this fab layout:

“This project started in July and at last I think I have sorted out the track as I want it, now the big task is to fill in the scenery.

Because of the spacing between the tracks, organised that way to get the longest running time, I am limited to what I can fit in so decided against buildings, choosing to give a more country look.

Trees have been bought on price at an average of £2 for 3, given the quantity I needed to give a “woodland look”.

Most of the grass area is made up with sawdust dyed with green food dye, it does lose its colour, so I am now going over it again adding commercially bought scatter of different colours which seems to be working.

The outside running track is fitted with crossovers giving four circuits of the board to return to the starting point, at an average speed this takes 2.25 minutes.

With planning and quite a bit of luck I have run three trains at one time but a watchful eye is needed to avoid a crash at the crossovers.

With this in mind I fitted three sets of points allowing to change between tracks.

There are five sidings for passenger trains and seven sidings for freight all installed on two 8 x 4 foot boards fitted together in an “L” shape.

One of the next things, do I ballast the tracks ? As you can see there is a lot of it, around 90 metres, and I am a little concerned that I will end up with something totally immovable.

Living in rural France, near Mont St Michel, I have been unable to find anyone interested in model trains, the shops that do have any trains are very expensive and extremely small amounts of stock and tell me no one had been interested for the past 12 years.

Is there anyone out there near me ?

Regards

Bern”

Just loved the busyness of Bern’s layout. I think it’s superb.

A big thanks to Bern, Rob, and Cameron for sharing their model train buildings.

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.

“Hi Al,

Just uploaded this How To video showing a easy way to fit interior lights to coaches , not cheap but very effective and as I show very easy to fit …then also how to make some of the cheaper Railroad stock coaches look a lot better with painting the roofs .

Regards

Dave”

And if you’ve not seen the ebay cheat sheet recently, you’re missing out. It’s here. Have a look.

Best

Al

“Not much of an idea but it works well.

Take 2′ piece of 6″ smoke pipe not seamed and bend it out to what may look like a tunnel.

Cover it with wax paper, and wax paper a huge piece of cardboard underneath it and spray foam seal on it in a thin coat or base as i would describe it.

Give it a day to cure it will keep growing for at least 24 hrs.

It will expand right off the mold but thats ok, apply your next can of foam sealant to get the mountain look over the tunnel.

Again this will expand beyond what you may think, but now only on the out side, so prepare your self.

Make sure you give this 48 hours in house temp because it will continue to expand.

When dry you can take a hole saw bit to trim out the inside of the tunnel then take a huge magic marker, lay it flat on the work table and work it along the base level cutting of at the mark till you get the base level and to height desired.

Brown base paint, green scatter paint looks awesome.

If you want winter look, hold the white spray paint can from above like snow would fall……….its just so easy and so cool.

If you want to do it for HO use 4″ smoke pipe to start.

Keith”

And Tony’s been kind enough to send in these answers (his post is here).

“Hello Al. This is Tony again.

I sent in the pictures of the toothpick trestle. I see you have several people with wiring questions.

I have experience wiring on multiple club layouts as well as the four layouts in my basement.

The most complex of these is a 5000 square foot layout with over 600 blocks.

It has five large yards with a total of eight dispatcher/yardmaster panels and 16 cab control all performed in standard dc.

The information in this how to will work for any scale dc layout. It is diferent for dcc and for ac layouts.

I use fixed 20v power supply for turnout control and four variable voltage power suplies for train control. I will start very basic and hoefuly this helps someone.

The first thing to know is a block is an elrictical isolation of one section of track from the rest of the layout.

For relism of operation i ussualy break these on both legs of every turnout and occasionaly on long straight runs of track. When you break a block you only need to cut through one rail. I leave one rail completely uncut all the way around the layout.

The other rail I break up for blocks. This changes when I get to ocupancy detection.

Track work is really important. I operate trains with an average length of seventy to eighty cars but on ocasion I go over one hundred.

The longest I have run was one hudred thirty-five with four engines and two pushing helpers.

I lay my turnouts first and work from there out to ensure the track lines up perfecly.

I use flex track and on the loose rail I cut half of the first one out. This alows me to slide the loose rail of the second piece in and ensures that my joints are never right beside each othe. I then go through and solder every other joint on both rails every solder joint gets a wire soldered to it for track power.

I then go through and make my block cuts. I drop black wires on the “inside” rail and red on the “outside”. It is importantthat these are the same all the around the layout.

Next is conecting into power. I run one wire from each power supply including the twenty volt dc supply to a bus bar. The other wire from each variable power supply will go to a single pull double throw toggle. Then from the toggle to the outside rail of the block. The inside rail will tie entirely back to the bus bar all the way around.

The next time I will share wiring the turnouts in and discuss reverse loops!!!!!

I have pictures I will send you to go with this but I still have some editing to do.

Thank you,

Tony”

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Big thanks to Tony!

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

Don’t forget, the Beginner’s Guide is here if you wan to roll your sleeves up and have a go.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here. Still updated daily.