Model railroad layouts plans

I have a collection of your model train layout builds today.

Do you know, after all these years, I still enjoy seeing what turns up in my inbox:

“Hi my name is Herb from Melbourne Australia I miss receiving your emails, so i will send a couple of pictures of my layout.

Not much too talk about, & i don’t model any spefic era as my son is austic.

But we get out there & have a great deal of fun & father son bonding time & i believe that’s what’s life is all about.

Plus we get out from under my wife’s feet well that’s all for now.

From Herb & Rick in the land down under.”

Now over to Rob:

“Alastair,

I am located in Up-State New York, USA, but my OO layout is the North country (imagined) portion of the West Coast, Scottish Border, portion of the pre-Nationalization LMS. As a result I have to scratch build most of my buildings from heavy card stock. I reference them from photographs from the mid 1920’s and there are a lot of stone cottages and farm buildings.

To give them the right look of white washed, rough cut stone, I have found that I can use a product called “White Out”. It is a correction fluid used to mask errors on written or typed materials. I use it to “paint” on the stone pattern, building up random “stones” to give the walls of the cottages the right look. This is then given an over all wash of white acrylic water based paint. Then I finish it by weathering it as would be done for any structure. I have tried using the embossed plastic sheets, but found them to not be to my liking, as they are too “predictable”.

To do the roofs and sides of farm and industrial buildings, sheds, and the like, that use corrugated iron sheeting. I lay down a thick coat of Elmer’s “Carpenters Wood Glue” on heavy paper stock. Let it start to set up (2 or 3 minutes) and then pull a fine tooth hair comb across it. The result, when fully dried, is a very useful representation of corrugated iron sheeting that is easily cut to shape, painted, and given proper weathering.

I suspect that these are not unique ideas about how to create specific effects for scratch built structures, but I thought I would pass then on, as they may help some other modelers with similar challenges.

In closing, I have followed your postings for a number of years now and found them to be both helpful and inspiring. I can not tell you how much I appreciate what you bring to model railway building…. THANK YOU!

Rob
Endicott, New York”

Next up, Frank:

“Lee I have been receiving your messages for over a year and really like them. Many tips have been very valuable.

In June of this year I started to build a new layout modeled after a small Connecticut town where some road work was going on. One piece of equipment is not to scale because I cannot find it . Finishing up a few scenery issues and fine tuning the running two trains. I might add a few smaller buildings but not now.

Notice your card structures in the background.

Also solving a few small electric issues .

Great fun.

Thanks for all you do .

Regards

Frank”

It’s always good to see the printable buildings on your layouts.

And now on to Bob:

“HI AL … plan to keep your layout flexible … do not make everything so rigid that it becomes too much trouble to make modifications …

allow for the rearrangement of some scenry (trees) and layout accessories and buildings … minor adjustments to track … maybe add a siding …

the whole concept being similar to rearranging furniture in your home to offer a new perspective … I have found that this approach gives me new incentives and extends the pleasure of the hobby by working the mind …

always have a theme in mind for your layout … give a function to different parts … city … industrial … rural … give the trains a place to go … for me it was the small town USA … along with coal, oil / gas and freight …

FYI, the Gulf oil tanks on my layout were made from coffee cans … 6 1/2″ in diameter and 6 1/2″ tall …

my layout is a 6′ x 18′ dog bone, 3′ wide in the middle … 90 sf of table top surface … runs two trains, over and under action with bridges … four sidings … fun to run

BOB”

A big thanks to Bob, Frank and Herb.

I so enjoy seeing your layouts – some love the scenery part, some just love running trains. There is no wrong way to enjoy this hobby!

Tootling along at your own pace is the best way to learn how to build a train layout. They are never finished – and the ones that are very nearly finished inevitably turn out to be the draft version for the next bigger and better one.

It’s all about making that start… remember it’s the start that stops most people.

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.

Allen is putting his retirement to good use and has sent in pics of his HO scale park.

I can’t wait to see the rest of it, he’s off to a flying start:

“Hi Alastair,

First I want to thank you for all you do for our hobby. Please keep it up.

I recently retired and relocated to be closer to our kids and grandkids.

That being said I have always wanted to have an HO layout and had inherited a large amount of vintage track, trains, building kits, etc. but life kept getting in the way.

So after retiring, moving into our new residence and getting settled in I really started planning and looking into what I wanted to do with this. I hope the pdf attachments go through so you can see the start of my upcoming “empire”.

So after several (dozens) of simple sketches I invested in the SCARMS program to pull my ideas together (sort of). The layout will cover many of the different things I love about model railroading like scenery and mini dioramas throughout.

I plan on having a middle divider to separate the fictitious cityscapes from the country hills (with tunnels) and moving pedalboats on the local park waterway.

I am going old school DC as the main power is mostly steam locomotives from quite a few years ago. My Dad liked B & O so there are a number of them and “Chessie” with some other styles I personally liked.

I am trying to have the steam age represented but know there will be some older and some newer power being engaged at times.

I am also going to have an elevated tramway in the city that will also be on the main level in the residential area after traversing through the “rural” area by the park and waterway.

The playground is my first attempt at scratchbuilding but I am pretty proud with how it turned out. Kids have a play castle with a two story slide, a rock climbing wall, jungle gym, cargo net and swing set to amuse themselves. The area is fenced in with plenty of places for guardians to “keep an eye on things”

This scene will be located in the park area next to the waterway once I start putting in the terrain.

I took some pictures of various items I have been working on (for detailing my layout after laying the tracks out).

Sort of stockpiling people, vehicles, etc.

The construction equipment will go on the “new” roadway shown on the trackplan.

Other vehicles will be placed throughout all areas and these are just a sampling.

I try to add details to vehicles like handles, turn signal lenses, some interior details (and drivers if they are going to be “active” on the roads).

The boats are scratch modified inexpensive decorations that were the right size for me to add the outboards, wind screens and boaters for the waterway.

The outboards are shaped balsa wood that was sealed and painted with acrylics.

The windscreens are salvaged packing acetate, carefully cut and scribed, then attached with cyanoacrylate.

The service station is an old kit I put together and weathered, “Jake”, the owner is chatting with his customer “Pam” about some upcoming work on her older car to keep it running well.

The Deluxe Ice Cream Van is an old Matchbox model that I opened up so I could paint the diamond plate floor, stainless steel cooler doors, ice cream cone stacks, etc.

I also added “Bill”, the ice cream man in his lavender uniform (with a couple of cones in his hands and one in a holder on the counter).

Last is the pool and a 1932 Seagrave fire truck.

I used a Krylon primer to get the concrete look around the pool walkway.

I put several thin coats of gloss varnish to give the water a reflective look.

I then added a family of figures I painted to give it some “life”.

Thanks again Al, I will send updates with pics as I progress on this adventure.

I am also planning on using some of your paper scenic buildings as well on this layout.

Anyway, that is my getting started post, I hope you can get it into the blog.

All the best to you,

Allen (retired in Indiana)”

A big thanks to Allen for sharing his HO scale park – really looking forward to seeing this one progress. It’s a fine way to spend a retirement!

His play park is also a great reminder on how the people in a scene bring a layout to life.

(Dan recently did a post on this: Model train people.

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 is that’s your thing.

Ken’s been in touch with some good advice on model train derailment:

“Al,

Thanks for sharing your followers’ updates so we all can benefit and gain inspiration.

In that vein, here is a video I put together about a problem with derailments that expands on one of your previous posts from Mal from North Wales.

How to stop your trains derailing

How to stop derailments part 2

He gave a very thorough treatise on derailments.

I wanted to provide some insight from this side of the pond with video footage to illustrate.

I had a specific problem with derailments, mostly at one spot on the layout, but found out it was repeated many times due to poor turnout construction.

I have been using Atlas N Scale #6 Custom Line turnouts for over 20 years and never had a problem until I started buying more in the last 10 years or so. (The newest I purchased very recently seem to be much better)

You will see in the video how I figured out the source of the problem and how I went about fixing it. Along with some description of the issues causing this to happen.

Trains derailed…

Troublesome spot…

Trains running…

Thanks and keep sharing the inspiration!

Ken from Halfmoon, NY”

A big thanks to Ken for sharing his model train derailment vid and pics.

I know it’s something that blights us all at some point – patience and persistence is the key.

(In fact, thinking about it, this whole hobby is patience and persistence.)

Ken’s post reminded me of Brian’s, which also concentrates on derailments:

Track curve radius

Then there is Jim. He was blighted by derailments, so decided to rebuild the entire track layout. It’s a story we can all learn from:

Track layout rebuild.

And then on the other side of the coin, have a look at Ernie’s layout.

He forgot he left his Atlas N scale layout running and went away for 3 days.

When he got back, it was still running, no derailments!

Dean’s recent post come to mind too – because the weight of the cars can also be an issue:

As anyone who follows the progress on my layouts may have guessed, I tend to be cheap, buying low priced cars, then fixing them up.

All my freight cars were bought in two parts: a Bachmann train set (the Bachmann “Golden Spike” set with two engines, four cars, track and a DCC controller—no longer available) and two sets of multiple freight cars from overstocked dealers.

I’m not a prototypical modeler and the only visitors to my trains are grandchildren who don’t care how they look, just how fast they run.

But with the low-priced freight cars, I’ve had lots of trouble keeping the rolling stock on the tracks. It was more a question of seeing which set of cars could make up a train that could make it around the layout without derailing.

I decided to do something about it and to tune up my freight cars.

The first thing was to use a consistent set of couples and wheel sets.

Here is a photo of some of the couplers and wheelsets that were on the cars. As you can see, they are all different and some don’t even couple consistently.

Although I prefer metal wheels, they tend to bump over turnouts, so I’ll stick to plastic wheels for now.

Here are the couplers and wheel sets, bought from China, that I’m standardizing on. They come in a box of a dozen sets which for around $15 can be purchased on eBay (search for “N Scale 1:160 Roller bearing Truck Coupler 33″ Plastic Wheels”). I’m with time converting all my stock to this wheel set.

Next, I correctly added weights to my cars. The NMRA (National Model Railroad Association) sets the standard weight of an N-scale car at 0.5 oz plus 0.15 oz for each inch of car length. Here is a table with the results for various car lengths from 2.5” to 5”

I bought a small digital scale (from Amazon) and started to weigh my cars.

A 50-ft boxcar weighed 0.56 oz; it should have been 1.06 oz. This is typical of all my cars, way underweight. I’m mostly using ¼-20 nuts as weights. This car took five nuts to increase its weight to the correct value. The nuts are attached with a few drops of super glue.

When done, the car was actually right on.

I don’t recommend buying tin-lead solder now, as it’s much more expensive than in the older days, but, if you have a roll of solder in your toolbox, you can melt a blob of it until you get the correct weight.

The same number of ¼-20 nuts was needed for a 40-ft boxcar, coming in close to the recommended value.

My set of open gondolas each took four ¼-20 nuts. I attached them with super glue to pieces of cardstock so that I could remove them if needed.

The long tanker is a problem. It’s grossly under weight (0.4 oz rather than 0.99 oz). Any place I put it on a train other than the rear car would lead to derailment.

Other modelers have suggested that you can snap the bottom of the tank apart from the top to add weight, but I haven’t been able to do that.

I’m trying to come up with some kind of liquid that I could squirt into the car then allow it to set up—maybe liquid epoxy. Any ideas from readers would be appreciated.

The caboose needs one more nut to make the correct weight.

Thanks, Al, for all you do and thanks to my viewers! I appreciate all the support.

Dean”

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.