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Frank’s superb railroad layout

Frank has been kind enough to send in a video of his superb video.

If you missed the pics, they are here.

Here’s what he sent in with the vid too:

“Ok here it is, I finally got some time to sit down and wright something out.

First thank you Al for posting my pics.

And thank you to everyone who commented on them. I cant enough about the kind words you all had to say. It speaks volumes to a rookie.

Ok the layout is on a 4×8 and a 4×4 in an L shape its pulled out from the wall about 2 ft in witch I added a raised platform for the back part of the HO scale. Oh by the way the top is HO and the bottom is O 27, Lionel.

The Lionel I’ve had since I was about 7. Through the years its been up only temporary. I’ve always wanted to do some sort of layout. But never got the chance.

The Foam board, I lucked out with that. We had some construction where I work and I plucked scrap out of the dumpsters and I was surprised at how much there was. I originally was using it to insulate a crawl space but there was so much I decided to start on my railroad.

I first laid out a track platform for the Lionel Train. I wanted to keep it simple, (no switches and no branches). Not ready for anything too complicated. I knew I wanted mountains, It got a little out of control.

But anyway its construction foam its different and better than styrofoam.

I stacked it up where I wanted and glued the layers together.

After they dried I carved them. (Tools) Drywall saw. Shark tooth saw.

Screw driver. Glazers putty knife.

I’d jab a screw driver or a drywall saw or the glazer tool into the foam and break off a piece then another. Where the foam broke off made nice rock like formations, I also would take a pointed edge and scrape it causing the foam to chafe and break off also with good result.

Then I would take the big shark tooth saw and made horizontal

Shallow cuts one inch apart all the way across to simulate layers.

I then took a spray bottle filled it with eggshell white latex house

Paint added a little water to thin it and spry’d a base coat on the foam.

I bought a cheap airbrush witch turned out to be a great choice.

Bought small latex paint samples at Lowes. For a couple of bucks.

And started painting light layers and just go over the same area a few times to get the effect you want.

Light coats first you can always put more on but you cant take it off. Use earth colors and flats.

The O gauge tunnel entrance is actually HO that some one gave me after I had it done but I put it in anyway. I made it work.

The HO tunnel at the right of the bridge goes through the mountain and loops around and comes out behind the upper spring.

Two big mistakes I made:

I didn’t think about making the bridge open in the middle so you could see thru it.

And I should have put it back farther because the lionel bridge is behind it.

3 rd mistake was I forgot to put the rail wood beams down the length of the top of the tresell. (Not sure what there called). The Bridge is made from round and square doll rods.

I made a jig to make each trestle. I laid the vertical legs in first Measured and cut each cross peace and then used a dremil to nutch each one as to glue each one across the uprights. I was trying to anchor them in a foam base but found that a peace of wood worked better. I measured and spaced each one where I wanted it to be on the board making a grid.

I drilled holes into the board where the legs would line up inserted the trestles in place. I put the hole thing on the layout where I wanted it and then adjusted each trestle so they where all level then I glued them in.

After they dried I Then cut and glued in all the horizontal joining peaces.

Frank”

Don’t forget the very latest ‘Ebay cheat sheet’ is here.

Now on to Barry:

I started this project the middle of January but I only work on it 2-3 days every 2-3 weeks and they live about 1-1/2 hours from my home.

I have about 110 hours into the total project so far and will probably require another 30 hours to finish the rest of the scenery and then I will send you a complete set of photos showing the development from beginning to end.

Thanks for the compliments.

Regards,

Barry”

Please leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

A huge thanks to Barry and Frank for sharing.

That’s all for today folks. Please do keep ’em coming.

And don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Frank’s amazing layout

Got this in from Frank.

The pictures are a bit small – but it still looks impressive. Frank, I know what the posts will say: “We want some video!”

It’s an amazing layout. I think the bridge is a work or art.

Big thank you to Frank for sending theses pics in.

“Hello: here are some pics of my layout. I’m new to all this but I have had good luck with some of the result of my hard work.
Thank you Frank”

Impressive stuff from Frank. Let us know your thoughts by posting below.

Best

Build a HO train layout – Bob’s latest

Bob’s been back in touch – he’s had the itch to build a HO train layout again.

Looks great too:

“Hello Al,

Last week a neighbor came over and I showed him around my train layout.

He said ” I didn’t know you played around with toy trains”. I told him that if model trains were good enough for Frank Sinatra,Tommy Dorsey,Rod Stewart,Jay Leno,Tom Hanks, etc., they were good enough for me.

His only comment was” I didn’t know Sinatra played with toy trains!”. Oh well….

Anyway, I have attached some shots of My Last Layout. About 1/3 of the layout is in final form and the rest I have just sitting on the base. I still move things around a bit.

On this layout I painted the top half of the walls flat black and then bought a cheap piece of cotton drop cloth, cut it in half, stapled it to the wall and painted it blue. It kind of draws your attention directly to the layout.

I laid this one out in vignettes that allow me to get a little creative, avoid everything being in the same period and style and provide me with places to put more stuff.

I am pleased with the mine operation. I wasn’t sure how it would look with the structure above and the actual mine below but I like the way it turned out.

I built the ore boat and ore tipple out of my usual bunch of sticks and wood scrap but no matter how I tried I could not build an acceptable tug boat from scratch.

I finally bought a boat kit and made a tug boat out of it. The tires on the hull are rubber washers, most of the superstructure are bits and pieces from my junk box. The main cabin is a cut-down toilet paper cardboard roll, the door is a piece of tongue depressor (my favorite) with a grommet for the porthole.

I wanted to try lighting my structures so I bought a string of LED Christmas lights and use them to light the building interiors.

They look good in the dark but it was kind of a pain to wire all the buildings.

After seeing what the talented Dave has done with his lighting I have decided to add some street lights to my town. Got the lights but haven’t put them in yet.

Speaking of buildings, can you see anything familiar about a couple of the houses in my town (hint-they are made from paper)?

I removed the gable on one of them and covered the roof to look like cedar shake and on the larger house I added wood trim to the doors & windows and added wood trim to the outside corners as well.

I have also added signs to my businesses named for my family members. Unfortunately, with 6 brothers and sisters and 10 grandchildren I have more names than buildings and some of these folks get a little testy if they don’t see their name on something.

I still have not added the water to my waterfront, just painted the base blue for now. Same with ballasting the track. I always do that last after I finally decide where all my structures will be placed.

You must be careful to not glue down your structures so that they block your track when it comes time to ballast. I learned this the hard way.

Just an idle thought, the more I see the track without ballast the more normal it looks …..hummm!

Most of the structures are now scratch built and I buy a few damaged ones on the internet and fix them up and/or use the parts to build other things.

The more I build the better I seem to get at it. For example, I got a building front, cut it in half and used the bottom to build a store and the top to build a fire station. Hands still shake a little at the most inopportune times. Seems mostly when I’m trying to glue something.

Bob”