Model railroad layouts plans

“Hi Al

Thanks for all the great tips.

Picked up a bag of sand-blasting material from my local building supply store for free because it was broken.
The fine black glass material makes excellent roadbase sprayed with mate medium and sprinkled over the first coat of paint layer on mountains and rocks gives it great texture.

Put a spoonfull on a folded cardboard piece and you can blow it controlled into cracks and under overhangs to get some depth to it.

Regards

Matt”

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“My Background/trade is printing and I used image resizing quite a lot.(old Reproduction Bellows Camera) Now with computers this is sooo much quicker.

I find this formula useful when resizing drawings to suit the scale I wish to work from – eg scratch building.

The formula is simple and I use it on printing from the ‘puter or scaling on a photocopier.

On the ‘puter the “File” “Page setup…” has a value there that can be changed.
If the “File” “Print” has a “Scale to fit paper” set to None.

On a photocopier use the input panel – Scale – varies from make and model.

The formula is:-

New Size divided by Old Size times 100 equals the percentage to use

ignore the decimals

Depending on your equipment there may be a variance of a percent or two but as a rule – works most times.

Sandy”

 

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“Experiment my ho telephone pole made from scrap radio parts and food containers but not finished yet.Easy easy to make oh i plan to use my poles for real power. 6 or 12 volt.

Kim”

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“If you want to make the windows of stores, passenger cars, cabooses opaque, just take some clear page covers from an office supply store, cut oversize, and spray with a flat clear spray. (Do a whole page at a time. The little pieces will blow away if you cut first.) It has enough stiffness to stay flat when attached. CA glue will hold in place on the inside of the car or the building with just a drop on the corners or a thin line on all sides. It masks the lights inside of buildings and railroad cars so they give a glow rather than the bright spots of light. Also you can’t see the individual bright bulbs. It sure looks better than a hole where the glass should be too if none came with the original car or building. This way you can use the original fitted clear plastic parts or replace with squares or strips of the clear plastic page cover.
This also works if the cars or buildings have a clear plastic covering the windows when new. Just remove and spray with the flat clear spray. Do it on the inside so the outside will still be glossy as glass would normally be.
For buildings, use a Elmers Painters Opaque Paint Marker in white, black, or brown to mark off the panes of glass (plastic) The point is sharp and a fine line can be drawn.

Gaines”

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“Hi Al,

I found that the corrugated paper sleeves that you get with a cup of coffee on stations etc.can be quite realistic “ploughed feilds” or corrugated metal sheeting

Regards

Ray”

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A real mix of tips this time.

Thanks to everyone. Keep ’em coming.

All the best

Al.

Michael’s been in touch with his industrial HO scale.

Best of all are the construction photos at the end – you can see how it did it from start to finish:

Just superb isn’t it? A huge big thank you to Michael for sharing his industrial HO scale.

Doug has also been in touch with a tip on inlclines, which looking at Michael’s pics is very relevant:

“My first try I did some reading and unfortunately found too many references to 4 (and higher) percentage grades. If you only want a really short consist (5 cars) you can do this, but a five-car train isn’t very impressive to watch running. Drag freight is 100 or so. I’m building #3 now and trying not to exceed 2%. Unless you’re modeling logging or mining areas, brief bursts of 3% exist but are rare.

You can still have multi-levels, just don’t do it all at once. Or, use a helix at 2% to go up and make the higher grades down-only.

The Big Boys were made to single-head Sherman Hill, the big climb in Wyoming for the UP, with 100-car drag freight consists. The grade: 1.55%.

Raton Pass, built near the original Santa Fe wagon trail, hit 3.3% on the early switchback route before they tunneled through the mountain.

Cajon Pass in southern California maxes for a few miles at 3%, the newer segments were lowered to 2.2.

The steepest mainline grade in the U.S. is probably Saluda, North Carolina, at a bit over 5%.

Unless your layout is tiny enough that tiny trains are all you can run anyway, you’ll be much happier with your options if you keep the grade to 2.

Doug”

A big thank you to Doug, there’s quite a few posts on the blog now about inclines and multi level layouts. Here’s a few of them:

How to make inclines

N scale multi level layout.

Multi level train layout.

Model train incline construction.

That’s all this time folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if you feel like you’re missing out on the fun, 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.

“Al,

Just one tip, Dip your track ends into IPA (isopropyol alcohol) makes for a nice clean connection when building your layout.

Brian”

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“Just one tip today. I eat cheese triangles, so when the round container is empty I use three glued together, cover the rounded area with lolly-pop sticks, then I used four round dowell rods (minature) stain with walnut stain, paint the top & bottom off white. They look great as silos. If you do the same thing with pringles (empty) containers they are just taller & thinner. Love reading comments on this page.

Gordon”

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“I scooped up a 5 gallon bucket of “road base” from a local highway project. I made a series of 5 sifting screens ranging from 1/4″ hardware cloth down to very fine screen wire that just passes dust. I sorted the “road base” into 6 grades from dust to larger than 1/4″. The larger “rocks” are used as boulders in scenery. The remaining sizes are also used in scenery or as loads in gondolas and hoppers. The dust is sprinkled on scenery and locked in place with diluted white glue as ground cover. I live in Texas and the “road base” is very light in color and matches the west Texas area I model.

Bill”

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“Al,

Just getting into the model railroading with a small budget I don’t have a lot of money for scenery. With that being said using simple flour, water and junk mail, yes junk mail, you can make amazing things. I really wanted a tunnel for my train to pass through so I made on out of paper mache,cardboard,toilet paper rolls and styrofoam then painted it white with simple house paint. I believe even if you don’t have a lot of money to invest a little paper mache, junk around the house, a little patience and a little imagination can go a long way. I have included a picture of my Life Like Sante Fe train HO scale going through my home made tunnel. It’s under my Christmas tree right now but when Christmas is over I hope to make my first train table.

–Christina”

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“Hi Alastair,

II’ve found that fine ‘wet and dry’ sandpaper makes excellent station platorm tops, parking lots, etc. You can get it in any grade you want. If the coarser grades are too sharp and could cause abrasions, just lightly spray paint it before cutting to shape.

Still trying to source good looking furniture and artefacts for N gauge – most of the plastic stuff looks to chunky to be real.

AND where can I get pre-war cars and trucks in N gauge?

Thanks,

Don, Australia”

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And here’s a response to Dave’s wiring problem (that’s here):

“I had that problem once, and learned that it was due to a pair of contacts, where one strand of a stranded copper wire, had worked loose, and made contact with another connection; which caused several switches (turnout), to open or close, in opposite of what I wanted them to do.

I don’t remember how many times my trains derailed due to that short; although I do recall I spent four hours tracking the wiring, line by line, to find the problem.

Deranged Dragon 99”

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Hope you like them. Keep ’em coming. Still getting the boats emails by they way. So if you’re in that camp, boat stuff is here. Uboat pics are amazing – take a look at the gallery.

Best

Al