Model railroad layouts plans

Gavin’s been in touch with his LMS model railway. It’s an impressive track layout to say the least:

“Dear Alastair,

I have been receiving your hints and tips for some time now and thought you might like a peek at my model railway in Gauge 00. It is my first model railway and I started it 5 years ago when I was 3 score and ten years young.

I wanted to re-create some of my home town of Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire UK during the 1950`s when every building was covered in industrial pollution and the L.M.S. railways were still operating as I always liked their crimson colour scheme.

I also wanted to try and create the contrasting countryside and hills and moors which surround Halifax and Sowerby Bridge so I went on location and did panoramic photos for the backscenes.

All the shops and house are lit up inside at night and the shops are complete with interiors. A lot of the buildings are scratchbuilt and the rest are from the excellent Metcalfe card range. These will be replaced in time with the authentic buildings in their right locations.

The hills are from scrap Polystyrene hacked to shape with a breadknife and finished of with course sandpaper to the right kind of “shapes” befor plastering with normal household filler brushed on nearly dry and tainted with black powder paint as a base colour.

With experience and experimentation you can get some very realistic contours and geological features with this method. As the plaster is drying I dipped the almost by now dry 1″ paint brush into green,orange blue or black powder paint as I went along until I had the topographical and colour effect I was aiming for. Just practice as you go!

Buildings were from picture mounting board or balsa wood etched like the sandstone buildings, walls etc of this area.

I drew the buildings on the computer from original on site photos that I had taken, scaling them as I drew them. The railway bridge was made from a high density pizza base which is round and comes on some makes of pizza. It has the surface finish of the sandstone and looks quite realistic.

There is still a lot of finishing work to do, more people and balasting etc. but I have been buiding a 1/12 scale Colin Archer radio controlled cruising yacht in between which is a replica of a full size version I built in Sydney, Australia 35 years ago and which is still sailing out there to this day.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin”

A big thanks to Gavin for sharing his LMS model railway. I think his work is superb.

(It also reminded me of Peter’s layout: Model railway village.)

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if you want to roll your sleeves up and get back in to this fine, fun hobby, 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.

Here’s a great video of Barry’s completed model railroad layout:

Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

That’s all for today folks – don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide if it’s your time to start your layout.

Best

Al

“Hi Al,

I imagine several people have problems (especially in N Scale) getting longer trains on the track. The worst for me is a 10 car TGV that simply refuses to keep the wheels I’ve already managed to get right on the track whilst I sort out the rest.

I’ve found a solution. In my favourite train shop in Zurich (Züri-Tech) there is an extensive second-hand/pre-owned section and I found a few pieces of Trix part number 4974 (see picture A) for 1 Swiss Franc each (about 75p).

As you can see they taper down from a thickness of about 4mm in the centre to 1mm at the edges. Their real use is as re-railers but my problem was getting the train on the track to start off with.

Picture A

It occurred to me that with a bit of modification (see picture B) I could put one of these at the end of a siding. Then, once the power car was on the track, I’d let it haul the rest of the rake on.

It works! As the engine draws forward (you have to keep the speed down, and it helps if you line things up as well as possible) the remaining coaches and trailing car are guided onto the rails. Now, after months of cursing I can get the TGV, Thalys, ICE, Ave,  and just about anything else on the rails in seconds.

Best regards,

Paul”

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Wow – that’s smart! A big thanks to Paul.

And now on to Barry:

“Al,

Here’s my story about the basement train layout – Barry Palmer (age 62).

This layout is in HO scale. I purchased these trains and supplies almost (20) years ago. I had just started building a layout back then but then went through a divorce and since then have never had enough room to build another layout.

My Grandson Porter is almost (6) years old and is absolutely fascinated with trains. I asked him a year ago if he would like my train and help me build a layout in his parents’ basement for his Xmas and birthday present and he didn’t even hesitate with his answer.

My daughter Nikki (Porter’s mother) has also taken an interest in the building of this layout which we started in mid January and just completed it last week.

I mentioned before that they live 1-1/2 hours from me so I would travel to their house and stay 2-3 days maybe twice a month to work on it.

The total hours spent on it were approximately (140). I’m retired but have both a (30) year engineering and an (11) year General contractor (construction) background so I am quite detail oriented and have all the required to do this kind of project.

I designed the entire layout and track plan based on the buildings that I had from my collection over the years. I made the trackplan basically an upper and a lower loop with a couple of sidings and spurs with mechanical turnouts and analog controls to keep it simple as he’s only almost (6) and mainly enjoys the trains travelling around their respective loops. I put an MRC sound system on it so he can make the appropriate sounds to add realism.

The layout is designed with the ability to add at right angle to the farm end another 4 x 8 portion that would include a double helix to get from one level to the other. The outside will have stained door casing at the top edge and black or gray curtains to the floor to hide the under part and make it look like a piece of furniture. The street light are functional but we haven’t installed the interior building lights yet.

Many of the items are scratch/scrap built. The gas station canopy and gas pumps I created from all scraps.

The asphalt road and sidewalks are made from residential roofing products with the sidewalks painted gray and the road lines are yellow and white tape cut down to strips approximately .040 wide.

The signage my daughter made on the computer.

The chainlink fencing is created from window/door screen cut on the diagonal and I use air gun nails from my construction tools for the posts.

Most of the trees are made from real tree branches with Woodland Scenics’ clump foliage applied.

Most of the mountains and there’s a lot of them are made with cheese cloth from a crafts store and boxes of Plaster of Paris to keep the budget down in-lieu-of plaster cloth.

Once again, I thank you for all your interest and publishing our various stages of development. My Grandson, when he gets older will have theknowledge that his train layout was published and seen by modelers all over the globe.

Regards,

Barry”

See the finished version of Barry’s layout here.

A big thanks to Barry. I do enjoy reading all your narratives and particularly the backstories of your layouts. I thought it would be fun to put his together – it’s the ideas behind some of your layouts:

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide if you want to stop dreaming and start doing.

Best

Al

Here’s how to make Smokey Joe’s lock-up.