Model railroad layouts plans

Bill’s been in touch with his narrow gauge model railroad.

He’s more than made a start – he made a purchase. Still counts! It’s all about having fun:

Some people like the scenery side. Some people like just like running trains. Some like both.

The point is, it’s your layout and your rules…

“Al,

I am just back from attending the excellent Narrow Gauge Model Railroad Meet held at Harrisburg, PA. This is the second one I have attended and both were instructional and inspirational.

I have been a long time subscriber and reader of your daily blog and have found them to be both entertaining and informative.

Your mantra has always been “Take the first step and get started”. Well, I took my first step albeit a bit larger one than you may have intended, I bought a completed On30 modular railroad at the Meet.

At 75, I have neither the manual dexterity, the eyesight or the ambition to learn the skills necessary to build a layout for myself. This purchase allowed me to have a layout which I can, sooner or later, adapt to my purposes but that I can enjoy and operate in the now.

In the vein of showing pictures, I am enclosing some of mine.

Having this layout has enabled me to take my accumulated On30 equipment off the mantle-piece and put it back onto the track where it belongs.

There are still a couple minor things remaining yet to be completed on the layout like completion of the electric service to the track sections and getting the buildings on the layout to be sceniced into their surroundings but, that will come.

Here are a couple pix taken after I brought my new “baby” home from Harrisburg.

Thanks for being the “Still, Small Voice” that inspires us all every morning.

Bill McCourt
Dover, DE”

And now on to George (who always puts a smile on my face with his post comments)

“Big Al

This is the start of the big guy in the garage and I thought I’d offer a few nuggets for the gallery of train fans to ponder.

I am creating (2) spiral helixes on the left half of an approx. 10 x14 donut shaped layout that will have S scale on the bottom & ON30 on the 2 mountains with the helixes. I am constructing the helixes first on the left half of the donut and see how they run.

The space in the middle is access/operational space and the top of the baseboard will 4 ft off the floor. This is a CAD drawing that is tough to read but I know what’s in it.

While creating the helix, I experimented with a roadbed for HO and S scale that I like and it is Armaflex, 2” wide, 1/8” thick, black, insulating tape at approx. $.60/ ft instead of $1.00/ ft cork.

It has an adhesive back, you stretch it to make the curve, and you’re done. I don’t like cork for some reason. The yellow roll is the tape and is available at Home Depot in the States. If you look carefully the helix track is on it with no thought of how it looks since most of it will be in the mountain.

I made a spiral helix in order to keep the distance between levels the smallest and be able to have a high smokestack loco.

Starting with a 4 ft dia helix and 4” height between tracks you get 2.65 % slope which is more than I like but I cant change the parameters.

You make a spiral by using a spool of thread nailed to the center, a loop at the end of the tread to hold your pencil, and that’s your unwinding compass.

The sketch below- not to scale- exaggerates why I did it that way.

The ON30 theme will be lumber, freight, and ore cars so there will be short and light consists.

We start at elevation 0” and the first crossing must be more than 4” clear for the stack then we keep a steady helix height of 4” between levels to the upper level of 7” elevation.

This old coot with a bum back is taking forever but God willing I’ll send updates.

George”

A big thanks to George and Bill with their narrow gauge model railroads.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing George’s layout unfold over the months (years?), he’s got off to a fab start with a well researched track plan.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you stop dreaming and start doing, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

Brian’s been back in touch, this time showing us his modifications to his HOn3 turntable:

“Hi Al.

Some time back, someone on the blog asked how I modified my Atlas turntable to be powered from underneath it.

Here are two modifications that I did to two separate Atlas turntables. Below is the actual Atlas turntable.

Below is a photo of the Tamiya Gearbox that I used. (purchased from a radio control shop) part number 103 – universal type, mounted onto the underside of the turntable.

A very quick and simple mounting with a metal shaft supplied with the gearbox through to the top side where the plastic shed would be placed.

I replaced the supplied plastic corrugated shed with the turntable to a more fitting shed that suited my era. Happened to be the exact size. Photo below shows it in place on the turntable.

The new gearbox is less noisy than the existing one and more reliable with gearing instead of a rubber band drive.

I am very happy with the result.

The shed can be seen on the left hand side over the original drive plate as shown above.This one was added to the upper level of my layout many (about 12 – 15) years ago.

A surrounding ring was cut from plastic card to cover and hide the original track placement guides and will be covered with ground cover eventually.

Next, I decided that I needed another of the same type turntable on the lower level of my layout beyond the harbour to be able to have the locomotives running in the forward position. The lower level being point to point and has a turntable at the other side.

That one was a modified Heljan ‘n’ scale one as seen below.

One of my friends in our WhatsApp group had a spare Atlas one which I obtained from him for the new location on my layout as seen above.

I did a lot of thinking about this one and decided that it needed to be an “Armstrong “ type which with be manually operated. (By hand)

I did not want to cut a hole in the layout for it to fit in as a jig saw (or any saw) would have caused too much vibration and jolt all the surrounding buildings and details.

A start was made by adding HOn3 track over the HO standard gauge track and short wires would be soldered from the track below to the one above it. Here, the motor base has been removed (right hand side) and all the associated gears. In doing this, the turntable no longer uses the “Geneva “ system of locking it in place.

Below I added wood side supports for the “A” frame that would be over the track.

Below I added a wood deck over the existing plastic one.

fter a bit more thought, I figured that the outer circle would have to be removed to lower it into the cork roadbed.

After carefully scribing the under side of the outer ring, it popped off and minimal cleaning was required to the table itself. This is the outer ring cut off shown below.

The photo below shows almost everything in place ready to be placed on the layout. Note the NBW castings added. Still need to add more. The cables to keep it level will be installed next.

Cables installed below

The last item to be installed is the arm on one side of the top the turntable next to the track to be able to push the table around. I used 14 mba brass nuts and bolts which look pretty neat.

With this modification, it spins nice and freely.

Very pleased that it has worked out as I was very apprehensive about cutting up a new Atlas turntable.

The new turntable is right at the front of the layout therefore easy to operate without knocking any of the surrounding buildings and detail.

Once it installed, I will post some new photos of it in situ.

After biting the bullet and listening to other modellers about the colour of my facia boards, I changed the colour to a medium grey. (Don’t know what I was thinking way back then) with the green.

Once again, big thank you to Al’s excellent work on the blog.

Brian – the HOn3 guy in Knysna RSA”

A big thanks to Brian. Some clever stuff going on there with his HOn3 turntable. If you want to fast forward and see how it panned out, it’s here: HO turntable conversion.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming – it’s still very thin on the ground this end.

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.

Dean’s been back in touch with his latest missive – plaster cloth mountains – and they look great:

“Al, from Dean from New Mexico.

Here is the next installment on my Conejos Valley Railroad layout construction in which I continue the scenery and build a mountain. I’m using a slightly different construction technique compared to how I built the hill in the last installment.

But first, some history if you don’t mind. When the Spanish moved into the new world, they quickly populated Mexico, then moved north to as far as central Colorado (as evidenced by place names such as Alamosa, Salida, Buena Vista, and Pueblo). Towns such as Durango, Antonito, and Chama were named by the Denver and Rio Grand Railroad when they came through and set up the towns as railroad towns.

I picked the name, Conejos Valley Railroad, as it is a real river valley in southern Colorado and is a conceivable place for a real railroad.

What’s in a word! Conejos, means rabbits, and people like me pronounce it conehos, although the Spanish j is more uvular. In an earlier blog, someone (with tongue in cheek) noted a similarity between conejos and cohones. Spanish is all about vowels and here are some examples:

Conejos — rabbits

Cahones — drawers (in cabinets not pants)

Cohines – cushions

Cohones – look it up!

On to important things.

I started building the mountain using layers of cut and glued Styrofoam. But as it got higher, I wanted more internal space, so I switched to an alternate method using plaster cloth over tape and wadded newspapers.

In retrospect, I should have used more strips of tape as the resulting hill was too bumpy. Tunnel entrances were cut from the Styrofoam.

The formed mountain was covered with two layers of plaster cloth soaked in water.

Rock castings (using Hydrocal) were placed into the mountain and plaster mixture was placed between them and carved to form more rock formations.

Incidentally, I waited too long, and the set plaster was very difficult to carve.

I painted the areas representing dirt with my usual paint mix, and then spotted the rocks (with Yellow Ochre and Burnt Umber) and colored all the rest of the rocks with Black.

All stains were acrylic artist’s paints highly diluted in water.

I then coated the surfaces with dilute White Glue (1 part plus 1-2 parts water) and spread ground cover somewhat randomly over the wet glue.

I used my usual Earth, Yellow Grass and Green Grass Fine Turfs (all from Woodland Scenics). I used minimal Green mostly along the river bed.

Finally, I glued (with White Glue) Light Green, Medium Green, and Dark Green clump foliage (Woodland Scenics) to represent trees and bushes.

I’ll add deciduous trees along the river when I form it and the waterfall through the valley.

The stained tunnel portals were fastened in place with Joint Compound. And here is the final result. After cleaning the tracks, I ran some trains which you can see below.

Next, I’ll add a small central hill, streets and roads for the towns and industries, and finish the river and waterfall.

Thanks, Al, for all your support.

A big thanks to Dean for sharing his plaster cloth mountains step-by-step.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming I’m nearly out of stuff to post…

And if today is the day you get going on your layout, just like Dean, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.