Model railroad layouts plans

“Good Day

I was a baker for 45 years. I found that using what is called a pastry bag or decorators bag to apply plaster or spackling compound, gives you a little more control in it’s placement. You can use the tips, they are the mental or plastic cone shaped fittings that are placed in the end of the bag. These items can be purchased at several stores, Michaels, Hobby Lobby and Joann Fabrics. Wilton is the trade name most are listed under, oh I forgot about EBAY. The bag can also be folded over and used to store unused material. You can color the spackling compound with any acrylic color. Using brown you can create a base for bushes and hedges, sprinkle some ground foam on.

You can also use the bag to fill in gaps and add material in your scenery.

Richard”

“Long ago I was taught to use denatured alcohol to lower the surface tension of the ballast before applying the glue. Works great and evaporates a lot quicker than soapy water.

I have found an easy way to create highway grade crossings. I use wooden shims, available at most hardware and lumber stores. Cheap and they work great. Just cut them to fit your layout.

Vic”

Lastly, I just got this in from Dave. Really shows you how he does his stuff!

And don’t miss the latest ebay cheat sheet. It’s here. Lots of good stuff at the mo.

Keep ’em coming.

Best

Al

“Al

As long as I can remember, I have always had a model train layout. When I was 4 years old my father built a 8 x 8 foot layout, and at 16 years old it had grown to 10 foot wide by 22 foot long. Then girls, college, marriage got in the way and the trains took a back seat, but not for long. Shortly after moving into my first house I proceeded to build a new layout, but was interrupted when I received a job transfer. These turn of events repeated itself twice over until my retirement in Maryland.

Most train layouts (especially from the north) were mainly situated in the basement, and for 20 years living in Maryland that’s where my Marklin layout was located. In 2005 while visiting my son in Georgia we looked at houses for sale and stumbled on this two story home that had a very large guest room on the second level.

I thought to myself, for 50 years I had to settle for my train layouts in the basement, now this is my chance to bring them above ground, and before I knew it, I was a Georgia resident. The layout in Maryland did not fit the configuration of the new train room so a new layout was required. Being retired, putting time in daily it took seven years to complete.

Now for the Layout.

The layout is a three (3) rail Marklin HO Digital Format System that has the capacity to simultaneously run 80 motorized units at one time. (That’s only possible is the layout is big enough).

There’re 44 turnouts controlled via digital decoders taking their command from a digital signal sent through the track. Uncoupling tracks, signals and most accessories operate on the same premise.

There are over 85 structures built from kits manufactured by Faller and Vollmer. Scenery (trees, shrubs, hedges, etc.) by Busch, Heki, and figurines by Preiser.

I hope you enjoy my layout and of course feedback would be appreciated.

Thank you

Richard”

My my! That’s one tidy room and layout. I’m deeply envious. Thanks for Richard for sharing, and thanks for the mails on the ebay cheat sheet too.

One last thing – not all heroes wear capes – a few of have been answering the questions on the modeltrain forum.

You know who you are, and a big, huge thank you for doing that. I really hope it grows into something really helpful.

That’s all for today peeps.

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 Alastair

Just thought I would share a few tips with you about scenery.

Being very green behind the gills when it comes to making scenery and especially rock formations I thought about how I could use household waste and free materials to get the basic out line etc. in my next email I will send you a photo of the result so far.

I used toilet roll holders to obtain height and basic out line of what I wanted to do. Next I used the free new diaper that gets thrown on my drive way every week and glued it around the toilet roll holders the rest if the newspaper was use for paper mâché around a long balloon for the ends. Before I fitted the ends I went yo my local masters hardware store (here in Australia ) where they have samples of wall paper plain white or cream are deal with a pattern on it – some even look like a rock face.

I then glued it over the paper and curled it round to form the rock and Rock face. For the top ( as I wanted it to be the village look out I used cardboard to form an even top.

So the basics were now all completed, to make the the parking area I used 1200 grade wet and dry sandpaper cut to size and to cap the end I use 80 grade course brown sand paper.

After that I painted it with poster paints and threw reptile grey/black sand at it whilst still wet. The end result I don’t think looks to bad, albeit thy instill have the fence, hedge and greenery to and. Over all to date it has cost me time an just $5 to make! That covers the cost of sandpaper, glue, and reptile sand used.

The rock seems happy enough because it has formed a face at one end which was totally unplanned.

Regards

Simon in Australia”

“Hi.

Just a couple of photos of my O gauge layout as it progresses.

I did make a neophyte mistake and tried to put too much of my dream into the layout initially. Pulled a bunch of peripheral stuff and extra track out, simplified, and am almost ready to glue and plaster-scape. The initial wiring shouldn’t be too terrible, as I’ve conceptually broken the layout into 3 blocks with 2 common sections…but then we’ll see, won’t we

I’ll take any advice for anyone who sees my layout.

Steve”

Big thanks to Simon and Steve. Can’t wait to see how Steve’s pans out.

Please do keep ’em coming.

Thanks for all the comments on the ebay cheat sheet. It’s on a roll at the moment. Latest one is here.

And if today is the day you get going on your very own layout, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al