Model railroad layouts plans

John’s been in touch with his HO scale haunted house. It’s always a joy when I see his name in my inbox:

“Hi Al,

There may be a few universal truths in what’s required when building a model railroad layout, tracks, trains, and train stuff.

I have another one – every layout needs a haunted house. I added mine now as Halloween approaches (my birthday by the way) and finally got around to getting my haunted mansion in place.

It’s the old recluse Bartholomew Polesitter place, known locally as “Polesitter Peak” never sold after the old man died.

Potential buyers the real estate people took up there who wanted the place would leave after 10 minutes in it. They universally claimed cold hands were brushing their neck, or other body parts, always after they entered the study where ‘ol Bart’s carcass had been discovered by the three teenagers who went to the place on a dare.

Finally, the real estate people stopped trying to sell the place. It can still be purchased for $286.00 in back taxes.

It all started when one high school jock, a nerd, and a beauty queen in high-heels took the dare to explore the decaying mansion. And yes, upon entering, they decided to split up and explore – the high-heels finding the mummified remains. She, screaming so loud at finding Bart that a few hundred bats woke up in the top floor attic and chased the jock down the stairs. The high heels, on que, twisted an ankle.

The nerd waited for the bats to settle down and rescued the beauty queen, with he and she limping back to the jocks car where he had locked himself in, refusing to open the doors until sunrise, some 4 hours away. His jock title forever revoked once the Craig Mountain High School classmates heard the story.

Other than the twisted ankle, the only other injury was the embarrassing jock’s case of poison ivy so bad that the fuzzy seat-covers in the jocks car had to be trashed. The local sheriff, called after an attack of conscience by the nerd, found no foul play, and no relatives could be found. The nerd permanently replaced the jock as the boyfriend of the beauty queen in high heels.

Ok, this HO scale haunted house model is from Gold Rush Bay Goldrushbay and took a number of hours to paint, age, then partially destroy. This company sells 3-d printed models, completely ready to paint.

Finding a place to put the model was a challenge, finally ending up with the space over my pull-out work bench/shelf, which resides below the tracks which are below the new portion of mountain where the mansion ended up.

I cantilevered some braces to hold my typical screen wire hardshell up and away from the tracks. For interest I thought a few stone walls would add some detail and give a logical reason for terracing the scene.

The pictures follow the construction.

Regards, and again thanks Al for all you do for our hobby!

John”

A huge big thanks to John for sharing his HO scale haunted house – I absolutely loved it! It reminded me of Dan’s: Halloween model train.

If you want to see more of John’s stuff, his last post on his new layout is here:

John’s HO scale coal mine 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.

PPS More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.

Dan’s been back in touch – this time he very kindly answers your questions on his HO scale railroad crossing:

“I had a few questions about how I did some of the details and such. This instalment will address them.

I will begin with the individual pieces at crossings.

The tack board material looks more like a rubber type of material rather than cork. As I mentioned, my source was from cut off pieces of folding doors used as room dividers and tacking up posters and such.

You might find it a big box store or a DYI supply store as bulletin boards.

I used profile ties (sleepers) for the 10 foot and the longer 15 foot switch ties.

Profile ties are not square. These easily fit with wither code 100 or code 83 track.

I have code 83 track and have the thinner thickness as the flat side. I stained them after the work was done fitting everything in place.

I have prestained ties but wanted to do my own staining. My ties were from Campbell and the stained ones were from Clover House. They are not longer in business. Alas, the situation all around.

Here is a crossing for passengers at the station at Almost. Use 2 ties as the thicker part nearest the rail and single ties for the part between the tracks. Sand down the edges to make a smooth transition between the tie height difference. You don’t want the passengers to trip. Stain as you like.

A closer look.

Here is a crossing where the track is an an angle to the roadway. It is surprising how much material you will need when the crossing is not 90 degrees.

I used three and a half 10 foot ties and 2 15 foot ties for the outside of the track. You can just see the individual 10 footers. Be sure to bevel the ends at each end of the crossing. The prototype often has a sheet of steel to deflect dragging equipment.

This crossing is on a 30 inch radius curve. I used a nail file to profile the curve so the flanges do not scrape the ties. This was done after the ties had time for the white glue to set up.

I am a little crazy. I like to put crossings right through the switch work. It is more work but worth the effort. It is more interesting and it is prototypical.

You will notice that I used the 10 foot ties between the rails. I staggered them and trimmed the ends to fit. I pit in one set with the short piece needed. Then started the next row with a 10 foot one next to the short piece and so on.

I used the 15 foot pieces for the roadway between the tracks.

The larger gaps in the rail is for the power blocks. I used a “Y” switch to go from two to three tracks. You gain a car length using “Y”s at either end of the siding.

HO scale railroad crossing:

Another view of the crossing.

Here is a piece of the cut off tack board. The tack board material is on a hard particle board kind of material. The original panel was anywhere fro m 8 feet to 15 feet or more. They were room dividers.

A close up of the backing on the tacky material. I used a box knife to cut whatever shape I needed. Then pried up the tack material. This is flexible but not flimsy. I used white glue to hold it down. I also weighted it down overnight.

You can paint it and sand it where needed. It turned out that the pieces matched the code 83 track exactly. I would guess that a thin shim would let it match the code 100 track.

A close up of a typical HO scale railroad crossing.

Close up of that crossings end at the edge of the layout. I used cork roadbed to get the road up to level with the track. The tack board material is flexible enough to not have to do that. This represents a main highway and a hump would not be good.

For the town of Almost, I used a large sheet of the tack board material that for the town shape. This made it very flat. Everything is on a base of plywood and then Homasote.

I used Walther’s sidewalk pieces to make up the “block” sidewalk. The buildings were kits that were modified to fit together as one building.

I am modeling 1958 to 1961 or so. To set the era there is Nixon headquarters and a lair’s bench out side the office. There is other signage to help set the era.

As I have said before, it is the little things that bring the layout to life. Everyone likes the sausages in the window.

Early evening at Almost. I rarely run at “night” however, I can make it evening if I want.

That is all for this time around. Next I will show how rainbow canyon came to be with the long trestle.

Thanks again,

Dan”

A huge big thanks to Dan for taking the time to post this post together on his stunning HO scale railroad crossing.

His previous post on roads is here:

HO scale roads.

And there’s also his stunning scenery post here:

Model train Santa Fe scenery.

There’s also Rob’s excellent ‘how to’ on signals: Model train crossing signals.

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 More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.

Need buildings for your layout? Have a look at the Silly Discount bundle.

George has been in touch with his excellent ‘how to’ on a model railroad crossing:

“Big Al:

This diatribe is how I am providing crossing signals at roads crossing tracks.

There are IR sensors to sense incoming trains and the gates go up & down with flashing red lights. All gates are scratch built.

Commercial products ( very hard to get ) that do the same thing cost at least $180 a crossing with all the electronics and at 9 crossings this amounts to $1600 that I aint got.

First I cant thank John Frye enough for his submission to the infamous Al Lee site regarding IR signals because I would have never been able to do this without his brilliance.

The materials are available on Evil bay and Amazon and I figure it costs about $20 per crossing plus wiring and a lot of labor and swearing.

I am now looking into 3D printing the actual crossings because they’ll look & work better than the shop built prototype.

IR detector: Arduino PIC AVR IR Infrared Obstacle Avoidance Sensor Module Object Detector- about $2.00 ea.

Relay: 1 Channel Relay Module 5V Optocoupler LED for Arduino Pic ARM A. About $3.00 ea

Servo testor 3CH -about $3.00 ea. MG90S 9g Servo Motor Micro Metal Gear- About $4.00 ea. (2 rqd). Female ended 3 wire cables for servos.

This pic is of the prototype that actually works when I pass my hand between the IR bulbs.

The servo motor is under the foam, has a piano wire connect to it and the arm of the signal above.

The signal was made from wooden stirrers, hard maple for the base & turret & 18” ply for the arm. The lights will come later. Again I’m not content with the look and planning to 3D print this.

Below is a wiring diagram.

The three wires are cables made for servos and the squares are female connector ends.

The basic operation is: all servos are connected with a positive, a negative-, and a yellow signal current wire.

In this case we use the testor to provide the signal and the servo will revolve 90 deg back & forth in response to the testor input.

The IR detector senses a train then sends a signal to the relay, the relay turns the testor on or off and then the servos rotate to move the crossing gate up or down.

Each testor can work up to 3 servos and we have 2.

Model railroad crossing wiring:

This is a pic of the Servo testor. You remove the knob & blue cover and solder two wires as per the following
pics.

Right hand pic shows the back of testor with 2 wires soldered.

This pic is of an IR detector out of the box. We have to cut the white & dark LEDs and wire them so the bulbs will be placed on the layout facing each other, on each side of the track and hidden in the scenery.

This pic shows a test rig with the rewired IR bulbs and a functioning setup.

Put 5 V dc to the TB and all devices will show lights and if you place something between the IR bulbs the servo will rotate 90 deg.

There is a micro switch attached to the servo that will turn the blinking red lights on & off. The servo arm pushes the switch arm.

There are 2 servos below and 2 crossing signals above but only one servo needs a micro switch to work the lights on both signals.

This endeavor might seem daunting but it really is not bad once you built one.

It is time consuming, tests your soldering skills, and is fiddly connecting that piano wire from the servo to the crossing signal.

Because I dabble in S scale my crossings are to scale, look right, and except for a too quick action are my answer to proper crossing signals.

Now I just have to figure how to connect a clanging sound and I’ll have it just right. The criteria is it must not be pricey.

Best

George from LI NY”

A huge big thank you to George for sharing his excellent ‘how to’ on his model railroad crossing.

As George says, some projects may look daunting, but broken down in to steps, they are too bad at all, and as George has shown, they can save you a small fortune.

There are quite a few posts on signal wiring on the blog now, and I’m pleased it’s helping a few of you out.

Here’s the post George mentions above on IR detection:

Model train IR detector.

Also, these may help:

Model railroad signal wiring.

HO scale railroad signals.

HO scale signals.

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 More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.

Need buildings for your layout? Have a look at the Silly Discount bundle.