Model railroad layouts plans

Dan’s been back in touch with his HO scale switcher:

“Alastair, this will help answer some of your readers questions.

This set is the Woburn switching local area of the layout. I will use the locals to help readers see more detail of the layout. All names of businesses are from Walt’s family or local model friends.

Overall look at Woburn. The RDC may or may not be in the mix when the local works the job. This complicated the switch job.

Switching activity at the mill.

Work in the yard.

General view of the town and the RDC (rail diesel car) leaving Woburn.

The last of the arrivals getting a taxi.

All industries and switching locations have cards like these on 4×5 cards to show what can be spotted and in some cases the order the cars can be spotted.

This is an example of the switch list each local has when they leave the yard. They have the railroad’s reporting letters, car number and what to do with each car.

We use car cards for all of the cars on the railroad. These car cards have info as to where they go next . (The cards have a pocket for the destinations.) Either to a local when arriving from Boston or to a train to go to Lowell at the opposite end of the layout. Each local has the cards for the train and then bring back the cars and car cards from the work done.

Between sessions two or three of us change the card’s destination (There can be 2,3,or 4 possibilities as the destination pieces can be filliped end to end or over and end to end.) We then make up the trains for the next ops session.

Once you do this a few times it is not a confusing as it seems.

The Woburn Local is the most difficult local. As you will see later, each local has it’s own set of issues.

This area is from Wilmington to Bellirica. A local is assigned to this area. There are 6 industries. Rake’s Rock Works, monuments. Swift Packing, Brenda’s Ice Cream, Knorr oil, Goins Lumber and supplies, and the Bellirica Freight Station.

This local has facing and trialing turnouts and must get clearance from the dispatcher to enter the mainline for a run around to get the cars in the correct position. We have over the line trains running while the locals work.

The over all view from Wilmington to Bellirica. The town names are from Boston to Lowell in the correct order. The industries are fictional for Walt’s wants.

Part of the town of Wilmington.

Morning activity in town.

Partial view of the locals job.

The Swift packing house is in the background. Doing research, Walt found out that meat was shipped from Chicago (VIA Canada) and then locally cut up for the various cuts of meat to be shipped locally.

The rock works. The green board along the edges is for the car card work when we are sorting the cars for switching. This way we don’t put the cards on the layout or cars.

The oil facility.

Engine service area.

Engine service office.

Winchester yard. This is where the locals are broken up and made up.

Over view of the Winchester yard and passenger station.

Winchester Highlands commuter stop. On the B&M Time Table this stop is just about 1/4 mile from Winchester.

Approaching Winchester Highlands stop.

Passing the lake by a park.

The park.

The underpass to the other side of the tracks for the grocery supply business and the city of Winchester.

Our version of Winchester.

Brenda’s Ice cream.

The service station and Diner.

Goins Lumber and Supply. For some unknown reason there is an industry with my name on it on all of the layiuts I have worked on.

The Bellirica Freight house.

BA tower and a Brill rail car.

All of the B&M towers and stations except Winchester have the same basic colors. This makes it uniform as many railroad practiced.

That is it for this local… more to come.

Dan”

A huge big thanks to Dan for sharing more of his HO scale switcher layout.

If you missed his last post, it’s here: HO sale Boston and Maine

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.

Scott’s been back in touch with his HO scale module layout.

(If you missed his first post, it’s here: Modular model train layout.)

“Hi Again Al!

Following your post of the Warwick and Western there were several questions in the comments section.

The first group of photos are taken of the under side of the layout. All of the layout section bases are built entirely of sanded Birch 3/4″ plywood.

It is just about the most expensive plywood you can get. But in framing you get what you pay for. If one has access to a good table saw the cut pieces will fit together like a piece of furniture. Not terribly heavy and zero chance of warping when braced.

The cross bracing is all 3/4” plywood. However, I use 1/2” sanded birch plywood for the top of the benchwork. Much lighter than using all 3/4” inch and just as sturdy.

I rip all of my cross bracing at 3″ wide. Pieces are then glued and screwed together with carpenter’s glue and 1-5/8″ coarse threaded drywall screws. No pre-drilling required.

Note that there are simply two carriage bolts holding each of these modules to the next module. I teach a theater scene-building class and due to our sets needing to be 100% portable I use this method for all of our set pieces large and small.

I then attach 3/.4″ steel pipe legs using 3/4” floor flanges. I have included pictures of these on Amazon if you would like to show them. You can’t beat them for portability.

Though I will eventually attach the back braces to a wall when more permanently installed for rock-steady stability.

My current modules are resting on 36″ legs due to the fact that these modules will ultimately sit 4″ lower than the rest of the lower level modules. I will, of course, use 40″ legs for the rest of the lower level.

I am also including three photos of the master layout plan. At this point I must give a big shout out to Bart at Dubai Trains on Youtube. For a very reasonable fee Bart helped me tweak my design through a three-month period earlier this year with an eye toward operations. There are a number of his great design suggestions throughout the layout plan.

I think the line divisions in the layout plan are self explanatory as being the individual module outlines.

However, there are bound to be those who look at the helix and sawmill modules and wonder how they are transportable. In short, they really aren’t. Those two sections will probably be the last two that I will construct after the layout reaches its final home.

I will add also concerning the helix module that that entire module will be disguised as a large mountain. I have exposed a couple of runs around the helix so that it is not so much a “black hole” into which trains disappear for an extended time. It also serves as the mountainous region that my logging operation had to traverse as well.

I hope there are some Andy Griffith fans in the audience. If you are a fan of that great television show the towns of Mayberry and Mt. Pilot and their associated industries and landmarks on the second level will hopefully bring a smile.

And finally, some questions answered about the carfloat. It is a model by Modeltechstudios.

The model comes in two sizes and represents a wooden carfloat that I felt more accurately captured my vision of the laid-back third-class disposition of the Warwick and Western in the 1940s. I have included a few closer pictures of that piece. Astonishingly there is NO paint (except for the rust accents) on the model. It was such a richly detailed and deeply wood grained model that the entire effect was achieved using only weathering powders.

The carfloat apron is the Walters version that is so popular. However, I had to do a bit of kitbashing to shorten it and to remove the third track in order to fit the Modeltechstudios carfloat.

Once again, thank you for this service that you provide connecting us all and making us all better modellers!

Cheers!

Scott”

A huge big thanks to Scott for taking the time to responsd to the comments on his HO scale module layout.

Here’s the link to his first post again Modular model train 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.

Sam’s been in touch with a wonderful ‘how to’ on model train interiors.

I thought it rather good – simple but effective:

“Thanks to many useful posts on your site I have been encouraged to experiment with many aspects of model railway systems.

Due to the expense and often the lack of realism with white plastic carriage interiors in Hornby stock I have been experimenting with low cost options. Hope you find it useful.

The type of Hornby carriages In my collection have two long screws holding the roof on. Once these are undone the roof can unclipped and the sides fall away. The interior can now be lifted out.

I’m working on several Mk1 coaches with different livery (Great Western, and BR blood and custard)

First stage is painting all the ‘wooden’ panelling with brown paint. (I have used wood effect self adhesive stickers in the past but I can hardly notice this and it’s really fiddly to apply, cutting around all the windows!)

While the paint is drying I printed some self adhesive seating detail. I used online photos as a guide and then just experimented with a paint program – duplicating the seats over and over again to fill a sheet. The flooring was just a green carpet image from the web.

For added realism, and while the carriage was in bits, I removed the wheels and applied a rust effect with a pen that I bought to rust my tracks. Much easier than painting the wheels.

Stickers are now cut to size and carefully applied. I found it better to apply the seats and backs first before the carpets as the carpets cover up and hold the kick plates in place.

One interior now complete with carpets applied. Make sure you trim any excess off to ensure the sides and roof fit snuggly and cut away the holes for the two brass screws.

Next are the people. I bought a 100 painted seated people from a well known online auction site quite cheaply. These are glued in position to fill up the carriage. Notice the two wires – I have built my own carriage lighting system that picks up from the rails (instructions to follow!!)

When the glue has dried just carefully reassemble the carriage ensuring the sides and roof clip into place fully. NOTE – I have found that due to the added weight of the people, paint and stickers it’s better taking the weight out. I found that with several coaches (7 on my 125) it’s just too heavy.

The BR Mk1 coach had a different colour scheme – blue stripy seats and blue floor.

The Mk III coaches seats were just painted blue with a grey painted floor.

First class had orange painted seats with a brown floor. Fiddly to do but no stickers needed.

Sam”

A huge thank you to Sam for this wonderful ‘how to’. Hope you like it as much as me.

It reminded me of Ivan’s post: O scale passenger car interiors.

That’s all for this time – please do keep ’em coming.

And don’t forget there are a gazillion more like this in the Beginner’s Guide.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.