“Hi Al , not sure if any good to you, but just been doing some changes again and testing the Bachmann Express points , which are a big saving on the price of Hornby.
Caroline’s added to the model railway layouts on the blog:
“Hi Al,
I’ve enjoyed receiving all the e-mails of other members railway layouts, the hints and tips I’ve picked up have been really useful.
The layout I’m creating is for my 13 year old son, though I started it when he was 10!
My husband helped make the baseboard for it, but that’s as far as his creative skills went, the rest has been designed and constructed by myself aided by a list of what my son wanted to be included in the layout. Namely, a viaduct, a modern suspension bridge, as many tunnels as we could fit in, a girder bridge, a level crossing, farm houses and most importantly all the coal mine buildings which his Grandparents had bought him one Christmas.
During construction, I found Lego had is uses, it came in very handy in supporting the track in places!
The viaduct was made from scratch from Wills plastic sheets, it has a plywood core and the plastic sheets were stuck to the plywood.
There are two tunnels and an incline, on which I have tested all engines and they all manage the slope easily pulling both wagons and coaches.
The tunnels were covered with ‘Modroc’ and the rocky sides were made with plaster of paris rock and strata moulds which I’m really pleased with.
The station and platform are both Metcalfe card models, as are the farm houses. The little signal box was a free Metcalfe model that came with a magazine.
It is still work in progress – all model railway layouts are! But at least the end is now in sight.
Caroline”
I think Caroline has done an excellent job for her son. Three years in the making too! If there’s one thing this site demonstrates, is that layouts take forever, and they are never finished…
Thanks to Caroline for adding to the model railway layouts on the blog.
I’m a first time subscriber to your site and would like to share my experience for what it’s worth.
Recently retired I decided to spend some of my newly required spare time building my first model railway.
I spent the first little while avidly reading and digesting the numerous articles etc. on your site and many thanks to all your subscribers for their fabulous contribution.
I started by devoting a spare room to the project.
Unfortunately the room is fairly small and allowing a bit of space to manoeuvre in, the layout ended up being 2.5m wide x 2.3 m deep(8 ft x 7.5 ft) with a cut out roughly in the middle 1.1m x 0.7m.
I would greatly appreciate any comments / criticism your readers might have.
Base constructed from 18mm MDF board with 90 x 18 stiffening planks around all edges. I next lined the base with 30mm polystyrene sheet and started thinking about track layout.
Preparing for the river.
Next came the background landscaping. The tunnels are lift off to enable track maintenance.
Started doing the ballast. Not my favourite part of railroading!
There is approx. 26m (85ft) of track with just the one power connection shown above. I use a Hornby digital “Select “controller which drives 3 locos and 8 point motors.
Alan”
A wonderful narrative from Alan on his OO scale. I love seeing the layouts from the very start. I think he’s done a fine job!
I particularly liked the step by step approach, which you can find in the just like this.
