Model railroad layouts plans

“Best tip…I experienced the negative side of this lately.

No matter what level someone is at, don’t put there work down. Encourage them.

I was helping a very beginner out, and we came across a problem.

I took the problem to some very experienced modelers, all they could do is say negative and horrible things about how stupid and basic the layout was, and that we should start over from scratch.

I know what I am doing, and this beginner I am working with, this is the way he wanted the layout. No one was helpful, all comments were negative, and never addressed the initial problem.

They decided to bring up 20 other problems instead. I understand that they are only trying to help with what THEY think is right, but I am doing right by the beginner.

You get too technical, and the beginner is scared away. But again, they only made negative comments, and never helped with the initial problem. Likely I won’t be talking to them again about anything.

Stephen”

“Alastair,

Just thought I’d like to share what I’ve been doing.

Your posts have kept me motivated for the past year, from renovating my shed to laying track and detailing my scenes, every time I loose momentum I’ve gotten a kick in the pants from one of your emails. Thanks to everyone that contributes to make this such a wonderful project.

My train house is six by twelve feet and my N scale track plan is basically a double track “mainline” L shaped loop with local tracks in the middle.

There’s a harbor branch off the west end and eventually there’ll be a mountain on the east end.

Jim”

Dave’s also recorded this after our recent flurry of lighting posts. He describes the three ways to add lighting to your layout:

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.

“Hi Al,

I was overwhelmed with the number and content of responses to my recent submission on my nighttime LED lighting project.

As I have no way of directly responding to specific inquiries from within your website, I was hoping you would allow me the liberty to address some things on your posting.

There you can see many of my layout videos and send comments, suggestions and questions directly to me. I would be more than happy to answer any communications I receive.

But for now, I want to thank all who responded for their great, supportive feedback. I am humbled by your comments and the sense of inspiration that many readers feel to go forward with developing their own layouts and projects.

And thanks for the suggestions made by Deano, Scott, Glenn and others.

To answer a few points: Bill I apologize for the incongruous McKinley Explorer cars; I was eager to video lighting effects and so I just used what I had at arms reach to run through the station. But you can see my Alaskan McKinley Explorer on my layout on Youtube.

As for the layout itself, the video only centered on the south side of the layout; the valley side.

However, the layout, despite its impression of greater size, dimension and depth, is only 8 feet by 5 feet. I’ve attached some layout overview photos and a track plan of the SV&GS layout that readers requested.

As for the vehicles, while I customized the buses with LEDs myself, the cars were purchased from a merchant in China.

The LEDs in the cars a very bright despite there miniscule size (1.8mm?). This causes light flaring and bleeding through the plastic bodies. So I had to separated the bodies from the undercarriage and paint the interiors with flat black paint. Then where light still shone through, I touched up the exterior paint. And lastly I painted the perimeter of the lights to make the lenses look smaller and more to scale.

And again my thanks to you Al for making possible this forum for all to participate and enjoy.

Arnie”

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.

After Arnie’s wonderful video and pics on his lighting, I thought it fitting to post this sent in by Craig:

“Al: I have been getting your e-mails for some time now. They are great and I look forward to them. But up to now, I have been a taker, not a giver.

I found an inexpensive way (OK, cheap) to make yard lights. I wanted to share.

Street lights cost upward of $10 each. I did find some that were about $10 for 2 lamps on posts. Still expensive if you need several of them.

I want to share a new way to get street lights with the guys. I ordered 20 of these building lights. Peel and stick type. They were $18+ for 20 of them and they had Grain of Wheat sized LED’s.

I used the light that came in the peel and stick lamps and they were good for yard lights but a bit too big for outside building lights.

So I used the Grain of Rice LED’s in place of the lights that came with the peel and stick fixture and came up with some good building lights for a service station or grocery store loading dock, for instance. Here’s the process:

Take the peel and stick lights and remove the sticky pad. The light slips easily out of the housing. Cut off a portion of the housing as shown on the photo.

You come up with a funnel shaped thing and a straight collar shaped thing. There is an inner collar in the light housing.

Either use a large drill bit and rotate the drill bit by hand to slowly shave away this inner collar, or use a #11 blade and rotate it until it trims this collar down to a fine edge so that it will accept the lamp and thread the light back in the opposite way it came out and glue it in place.

Paint the housing inside white or silver to reflect the light back, or leave it black.

Paint the outside a color that would go good with where it will be mounted: maybe gray for an industrial area, green for a store loading area or maybe silver for residential street lamps.

I drilled a hole in a skewer (saw this in a recent issue of Model Railroader Magazine) and threaded the wires through the hole, painted the skewer to look like a light pole and mounted one outside a line shack. The one pictured with three lamps will go in the train yard.

I also cut the funnel a little shorter and mounted it to the outside of a service station off of a piece of styrene channel I had left over from a project. It passes.

Just a note about the post with the three lamps: I cut the wires off two of them and wired them to the third set of wires. I used tape and don’t like it. Maybe shrink tubing would work better to hold them together??

In any case, the wires that come with the peel and stick lamps are long enough to run them to a nearby building then down to wherever you are going to connect them to your power source. The grain of rice LED’s only have a few inches of wire with them.

Be very careful when trimming the insulation from these lights. There are not many strands of wire and it is very easy to cut these small wires, and you need them all.

I have been a rail fan since I was a boy, and recently got into model railroading, HO scale. I bought a cookie cutter benchwork and have spent the last three years adding terrain and scenes. I’m a first-timer, but if you are interested in seeing some of my mistakes, I can share the photos.

Craig in Utah (That would be the USA: I see from looking at your layouts that many of you are driving on the wrong side of the street) :)”

A big thanks to Craig.

That’s all for today folks, except a few of you have asked for Gary’s link again, so here it is:

Gary’s model railroad journey.

(It is one of my fave posts.)

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if you want to make that start – just like Craig and all the others did – the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

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