Hey guys, Im planning on “attempting” an HO build using the PRR from the 40s and 50s on probably 2 4x8’s in an L shape. Anywho - Id like to get a few opinions from you guys on some things as I go along in this process. Some real basics here! Firstly, what are your opinions on the bachmann Spectrum series locos and rolling stock - decent stuff for the price (discount not msrp)? Also, what about track types - is the nickle rail best? Ill have plenty more as I go along - I appreciate all suggestions/opinions/help!
yeah, go with nickel silver, and I HAVE a spectrum keystone, I like it!
I have a spectrum k-4 post-war on the way…the plan is for it to pull a passenger train.
Dream - Plan - Build. You’ve done the dreaming, now it’s time to plan. Don’t rush it. A good plan is just as important as good trackwork, locomotives and rolling stock. I spent about 4 or 5 months planning before I bought my first piece of lumber for the benchwork. There are a number of good computer programs for layout design, and there’s still nothing wrong with pencil and paper if that works better for you. Don’t get caught in “analysis paralysis,” but take enough time that you’re satisfied that the layout on paper will do what you want.
Pennsy is a good choice. You can model cities, rolling country and even some mountains. Oh, but have you taken a look at the GG-1? I suppose you could run those in the 50’s.
Welcome aboard. Nobody will come around to punch your ticket here, but there’s plenty of good advice and a lot of kindred souls.
Your absolutely right - Ive got LOADS of planning left to do - Ive got to come up wth a layout design so I’l; know what Ive got to work with. In fact, about all I have decided upon is that I want a pennsy line of the1940s-1950’s era. As for the GG1 - well Ive always found it to be a unique engine for sure, but Im wanting to stick with purely steam power on this.
The Spectrum steam locomotives are great for the money.
I know the spectrum passenger cars are really nice. I didn’t know they made Spectrum freight cars. The normal Bachmann brand (not Spectrum) freight cars are pretty poor quality.
I anticipate the next question being about the various types of track as EZ-Track, Power Loc, True Track, etc. I would recommend staying away from all those types that have the preformed roadbed on the bottom. The pieces are very limiting in what you can do with a track plan. The normal Atlas Custom Line is sort of the defacto standard. If you want to go beyond the sectional track, then Atlas also makes flex-track. Peco turnouts are also highly spoken of.
Plan from your industries and structures out. It is much easier to plan for them than to try to fit them later. Take a look through Walther’s catalog and find a few structures that suit you, get the dimensions and work them into your plan. There will be compromises, but the compromise you plan for is better than the one you didn’t.
Welcome to the world’s greatest hobby!
There is a large selection of PRR equipment available in HO, so your choice of scale and prototype is excellent. The fact that ‘The Standard Railroad of the World’ really had almost everything standardized makes it possible to get the Pennsy flavor by combining things about which information is readily available.
Some people will tell you that you have to have all of the latest and greatest gizmos to be a real modeler. That’s like saying that a novice golfer needs the most expensive clubs, membership at Augusta National and personal lessons from Tiger Woods. Take such ‘advice’ with a large grain of salt. It is entirely possible to have a simple, satisfying starter layout without taking out a second mortgage.
Be aware that, as your knowledge grows, you will want to make changes. If planned for, they can be fun and relatively pain-free. Don’t expect to achieve perfection on the first try. Do what you find enjoyable, secure in the knowledge that you will decide what to do and how to do it. Ask for expert opinion, but remember that the expert started off as a novice.
I’ll let Kipling have the final word;
“There are eight and forty ways of creating tribal lays, and every single one of them is right.”
Chuck (who LOVES the E6, G5 and H9, but can’t run them on the JNR)
Thanks alot guys…yea i wasnt figuring the preformed roadbed was a good plan - far too limiting. Anyway, is there any particular literature you guys would recommend to help me along as I go?
First, welcome Pioneer (sounds kinda appropriate, doesn’t it?)
Since you are into the planning stage grab a copy of John Armstrong’s “Track Planning for Realistic Operation.” I guarantee it will overwhelm you at first, but most of us still keep a copy around for reference. It is not an enormous thing, but describes how real railroads get things done and how to apply that in the model world. It is a good investment.
One thing I would recommend is taking some measurements of your train room and coming up with an “available space diagram.” Make sure you mark any obstructions (furnaces, water heaters, etc) in the room or places where access is a must (like doors). From that you’ll be able to figure out whether the L-shape is the best use of space or something else. The book I mentioned calls it the “squares method,” where the size of a square is your minimum track radius plus two times the track centers, which in HO will be somewhere between 4 and 5 inches. So, if you were going to use 22" radius curves, your squares would be 22+4.5 (say 2.25" track centers) or 26.5" Round it up to 27". Anyway, you take your available space, divide it into squares and often a track plan starts to emerge.
Again, welcome aboard. We are all willing to help out and answer your questions, well, most of us.
You know, all the advice you’ve been given is great, and I’d suggest you listen to it, BUT, one thing that should be in EVERY model railroaders library, and should be concidered required reading before beginning any layout, is John Armstrong’s book “Track Planning For Realistic Operation”. It doesn’t matter if you are making your own plan or using a prepublished one. That’s not the point. What this book shows you is the how and why of train movements , and the track arrangements that they use to do it. I’m planning my third layout right now and this book has been so helpful in all three of them that I’ve literally worn out the binding on the book and the pages are falling out. This is the type of book that you will not get it all on one or two reads through it. You’ll keep comming back. This may be some of the best money you’ll ever spend on your railroad, trust me! I’m sure the others will back me up on this too. (How 'bout it Mr. B, TZ, Mouse?)
DARN IT!!!
Beat me to it!!!
We were both typing at the same time!
CHIP, You started this the other day! It’s your fault! [:D]
Hey (southern for hello) Pioneer, welcome to the forum and the world of the sane and not so sane. Me?-- I’m somewhere between lost and found! Anyhow, the above replies are good sound advice. May I suggest looking at the website www.atlasrr.com and looking at the layouts there. Just remember that any layout plan can be modified-changed to satisfy your own needs. I have several brands of locos and rolling stock and Spectrum and Athearn are at the top of my list but I don’t rule out other brands as I shop for Items. As far as track goes, since your are modeling steam era, I would recommend Atlas or Peco code 83 flex track. Code 100 is great track, but code 83 is better looking for steam era as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, good luck and enjoy, Ken
I’m another big supporter of Track Planning for Realistic Operations. I’m pretty new at this game and it took me three full readings to get it. And I still think there’s more for me there.
I am also a proponent of looking at published track plans–but I am not a proponent of building them. They are someone else’s dream not yours. But study them, see how the trains move on them. Run trains in your mind in both directions on them. Figure how you’re going to get each of the industries switched. It will help you decide what you want on your layout and give you more tools for solving problems.
Another thing to consider. It you are using two sheets of plywood in an L shape, you have about a 12 x 8 layout. But the footprint of the layout, the space you need to use it and operate it with walking room around it is larger–16 x 12. Perhaps if you looked at space usage, you could come up with plan that yielded more options and was easier to work on and operate–maybe a 30" wide U, G or O shape.
[#welcome]
Try this
http://www.prrths.com/PRR_Default.html
Look at the modeler section and you will get TONS of great ideas. I wish I had found the Cental Jerest site in my planning stages [:(]
Take Care
George P.
Below is HO
Track: Tried all brands, using Atlas
Turnouts: After some REWORK using Atlas and Walthers
DCC: Digitrax (you will think about this!)
Rolling stock: EBAY, trains ahows. using Atherns blue box, Rounhouse, AHM, Bowser, Varney, Mantua and some modified Bachman.
DITTO, on John Armstrong’s book.
WELCOME!!
guess my two cents would be use the biggest curves you can they make trains look better and run better, there are lots and lot of track plans out ther so take some time . But most of all have fun
ray
I add my welcome, and my agreement with all of the sage advice above. We too often get a load of confidence and jump into a half-baked plan before our learning matches the plan. SpaceMouse and I are in the same boat in that we are learning at a great rate of knots, not just about what to do, but about what we too early did wrong. So, when newcomers ask, we tell 'em like we know it from the wonderful school of hard knocks. The more you rush into this hobby, the more you will have to undo.
Fix in your mind what you want from a toy train layout. A good plan would be one that you had someone else go over and point out some of the more serious boo boos.
Then, make sure your layout will work with what you want to run on it. No sense having a great plan, approved by all, only to reveal that you will be running long trucks and chassis items through very tight curves. As stated above, time spent on getting the widest curves will pay handsomely if you ever want to run large items and not have to rebuild.
Do small mock-ups to learn the skills where you are new and unsure of yourself…or enlist the help of a local club member. Come to think of it, visiting and even joining a club to learn from the experienced folks can be a huge benefit and safety net for you.
No matter what, when you start to get frustrated, you are not having fun…time to give it a rest. If I could only learn that little bit, it would be much better for me. (sigh)
fear not, I will be bugging you guys the whole way through this potential debacle, LOL. But I will do plenty more research and planning before I start trying to build this thing! And probably be buying lots of literature as well. Im just really anxious to get things moving along - too bad my bank account will be lagging behind!
Ah, the hidden inferential question about how much you will be soaked…and, oh, how you will be soaked!!! Of course, to what extent depends largely on your learning…neat how it all comes back to taking a deep breath and asking around first.
I will lift my hand to the question, “Who here paid top dollar for their first locomotive?” I probably didn’t do a heck of a lot better on the second…I was still on the curve. But after that, and listening to the snickering from the other members, I learned to cool it and look around for good prices. Ebay is a good bet for the savvy shopper online, but the hobby shops online also have good discounts if you can be patient. Walther’s heavyweight passenger cars are very nice, but go for about $35-$45 if you want them last week. Recently I got them for $19 during a sale online. Many fellas will tell you that they routinely get good deals at swaps and train shows.
So, yes, the hobby is not for the faint of heart in so many ways. The truly creative get themselves what they want the old fashioned way…they make it! For the rest of us mere mortals, we have to pay what the asker expects or we get in line for the next run.
For now, if you know more or less what you want to run, get a good loco and some track, and play while you plan. If only it were that simple…but you must also decide if you will go the old Direct Current way of controlling trains, or would you like to modernize and go digital with all of its advantages? More costly, but so much more realistic and fun…at least, the yay-sayers think so.
You can see that this all entails yet more learning. The cart really should not try to get ahead of the horse, and that means more self-discipline. What type of layout, how to control what types of trains on what trackplan to do what you think they should do on your trackplan that is matched to a theme and time-frame for the history of railroading…yadda, yadda, yadda.
I don’t mean to lec