Model railroad layouts plans

Barry’s been in touch with his model railway power station scratch build:

“Hi Alistair,

As an avid reader of your e-mails, I thought it was about time I added some material.

I have a high detailed sub station with transmission towers but nothing to feed it power, so I decided to build a power station, and what more iconic than the Battersea power station.

Couldn’t find any suitable kits, so I decided to scratch build one.

I got hold of a set of the original plans and proceeded to scale them.

After wasting a couple of days building the towers, I realised they they were way too flimsy even with reinforcing, so second attempt I used stiffer brick card and machined timber formers for the top of the towers to save all the cutting.

Then I started of the laborious task for marking the windows and cutting them out.

Then it came to glazing them all with some nice windows I managed to scam off Metcalfe Models. Dressing the top of the towers and gluing the front and rear walls to the towers. Then came to side walls completing the main building.

For the smoke stacks I used a suitable wooded dowel and tightly would and glued regular reflex paper.

I then found a suitable striped cement pattern on the web and printed that and glued onto the paper tube. Next I had to figure out how to make the conical bases for the chimneys. I tried making the out of stiff card, but a dismal failure, I really needed a lathe, so I went and bought one! I had all my old lathe tools from my engineering days, so turning them was easy.

Next was the final assembly and all went well. You can see all the progress photos in the photos along with the final finished model. It just needs some weathering on some of the edges.

It’s a large model, but pretty well to scale, and 400mm wide and over 400mm deep.

Just waiting on a couple of Heng Long smoke generators to connect to tubes going up the chimneys.

Enjoy the photos.

Regards

Barry”

A huge thanks to Barry – can’t wait to see the weatherd version of his model railway power station.

It’s wonderful seeing what you all get up to and how you overcome the issues of your layouts.

It reminded me of Allen’s power plant: HO scale power plant.

That’s all for today.

Please don’t forget the Beginner’s Guide is here if you want to get going on your own model railway adventure.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

I have a collection of your model train layout builds today.

Do you know, after all these years, I still enjoy seeing what turns up in my inbox:

“Hi my name is Herb from Melbourne Australia I miss receiving your emails, so i will send a couple of pictures of my layout.

Not much too talk about, & i don’t model any spefic era as my son is austic.

But we get out there & have a great deal of fun & father son bonding time & i believe that’s what’s life is all about.

Plus we get out from under my wife’s feet well that’s all for now.

From Herb & Rick in the land down under.”

Now over to Rob:

“Alastair,

I am located in Up-State New York, USA, but my OO layout is the North country (imagined) portion of the West Coast, Scottish Border, portion of the pre-Nationalization LMS. As a result I have to scratch build most of my buildings from heavy card stock. I reference them from photographs from the mid 1920’s and there are a lot of stone cottages and farm buildings.

To give them the right look of white washed, rough cut stone, I have found that I can use a product called “White Out”. It is a correction fluid used to mask errors on written or typed materials. I use it to “paint” on the stone pattern, building up random “stones” to give the walls of the cottages the right look. This is then given an over all wash of white acrylic water based paint. Then I finish it by weathering it as would be done for any structure. I have tried using the embossed plastic sheets, but found them to not be to my liking, as they are too “predictable”.

To do the roofs and sides of farm and industrial buildings, sheds, and the like, that use corrugated iron sheeting. I lay down a thick coat of Elmer’s “Carpenters Wood Glue” on heavy paper stock. Let it start to set up (2 or 3 minutes) and then pull a fine tooth hair comb across it. The result, when fully dried, is a very useful representation of corrugated iron sheeting that is easily cut to shape, painted, and given proper weathering.

I suspect that these are not unique ideas about how to create specific effects for scratch built structures, but I thought I would pass then on, as they may help some other modelers with similar challenges.

In closing, I have followed your postings for a number of years now and found them to be both helpful and inspiring. I can not tell you how much I appreciate what you bring to model railway building…. THANK YOU!

Rob
Endicott, New York”

Next up, Frank:

“Lee I have been receiving your messages for over a year and really like them. Many tips have been very valuable.

In June of this year I started to build a new layout modeled after a small Connecticut town where some road work was going on. One piece of equipment is not to scale because I cannot find it . Finishing up a few scenery issues and fine tuning the running two trains. I might add a few smaller buildings but not now.

Notice your card structures in the background.

Also solving a few small electric issues .

Great fun.

Thanks for all you do .

Regards

Frank”

It’s always good to see the printable buildings on your layouts.

And now on to Bob:

“HI AL … plan to keep your layout flexible … do not make everything so rigid that it becomes too much trouble to make modifications …

allow for the rearrangement of some scenry (trees) and layout accessories and buildings … minor adjustments to track … maybe add a siding …

the whole concept being similar to rearranging furniture in your home to offer a new perspective … I have found that this approach gives me new incentives and extends the pleasure of the hobby by working the mind …

always have a theme in mind for your layout … give a function to different parts … city … industrial … rural … give the trains a place to go … for me it was the small town USA … along with coal, oil / gas and freight …

FYI, the Gulf oil tanks on my layout were made from coffee cans … 6 1/2″ in diameter and 6 1/2″ tall …

my layout is a 6′ x 18′ dog bone, 3′ wide in the middle … 90 sf of table top surface … runs two trains, over and under action with bridges … four sidings … fun to run

BOB”

A big thanks to Bob, Frank and Herb.

I so enjoy seeing your layouts – some love the scenery part, some just love running trains. There is no wrong way to enjoy this hobby!

Tootling along at your own pace is the best way to learn how to build a train layout. They are never finished – and the ones that are very nearly finished inevitably turn out to be the draft version for the next bigger and better one.

It’s all about making that start… remember it’s the start that stops most people.

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.

Allen is putting his retirement to good use and has sent in pics of his HO scale park.

I can’t wait to see the rest of it, he’s off to a flying start:

“Hi Alastair,

First I want to thank you for all you do for our hobby. Please keep it up.

I recently retired and relocated to be closer to our kids and grandkids.

That being said I have always wanted to have an HO layout and had inherited a large amount of vintage track, trains, building kits, etc. but life kept getting in the way.

So after retiring, moving into our new residence and getting settled in I really started planning and looking into what I wanted to do with this. I hope the pdf attachments go through so you can see the start of my upcoming “empire”.

So after several (dozens) of simple sketches I invested in the SCARMS program to pull my ideas together (sort of). The layout will cover many of the different things I love about model railroading like scenery and mini dioramas throughout.

I plan on having a middle divider to separate the fictitious cityscapes from the country hills (with tunnels) and moving pedalboats on the local park waterway.

I am going old school DC as the main power is mostly steam locomotives from quite a few years ago. My Dad liked B & O so there are a number of them and “Chessie” with some other styles I personally liked.

I am trying to have the steam age represented but know there will be some older and some newer power being engaged at times.

I am also going to have an elevated tramway in the city that will also be on the main level in the residential area after traversing through the “rural” area by the park and waterway.

The playground is my first attempt at scratchbuilding but I am pretty proud with how it turned out. Kids have a play castle with a two story slide, a rock climbing wall, jungle gym, cargo net and swing set to amuse themselves. The area is fenced in with plenty of places for guardians to “keep an eye on things”

This scene will be located in the park area next to the waterway once I start putting in the terrain.

I took some pictures of various items I have been working on (for detailing my layout after laying the tracks out).

Sort of stockpiling people, vehicles, etc.

The construction equipment will go on the “new” roadway shown on the trackplan.

Other vehicles will be placed throughout all areas and these are just a sampling.

I try to add details to vehicles like handles, turn signal lenses, some interior details (and drivers if they are going to be “active” on the roads).

The boats are scratch modified inexpensive decorations that were the right size for me to add the outboards, wind screens and boaters for the waterway.

The outboards are shaped balsa wood that was sealed and painted with acrylics.

The windscreens are salvaged packing acetate, carefully cut and scribed, then attached with cyanoacrylate.

The service station is an old kit I put together and weathered, “Jake”, the owner is chatting with his customer “Pam” about some upcoming work on her older car to keep it running well.

The Deluxe Ice Cream Van is an old Matchbox model that I opened up so I could paint the diamond plate floor, stainless steel cooler doors, ice cream cone stacks, etc.

I also added “Bill”, the ice cream man in his lavender uniform (with a couple of cones in his hands and one in a holder on the counter).

Last is the pool and a 1932 Seagrave fire truck.

I used a Krylon primer to get the concrete look around the pool walkway.

I put several thin coats of gloss varnish to give the water a reflective look.

I then added a family of figures I painted to give it some “life”.

Thanks again Al, I will send updates with pics as I progress on this adventure.

I am also planning on using some of your paper scenic buildings as well on this layout.

Anyway, that is my getting started post, I hope you can get it into the blog.

All the best to you,

Allen (retired in Indiana)”

A big thanks to Allen for sharing his HO scale park – really looking forward to seeing this one progress. It’s a fine way to spend a retirement!

His play park is also a great reminder on how the people in a scene bring a layout to life.

(Dan recently did a post on this: Model train people.

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.