Hi Everyone! I am working on my first layout and i thought i would show you some pics of it to see what everyone thought… any addvice on what i could do to make it better would be great… i am not modeling a particular time… i do know it is going to be somewhere in the 50’s anyways ( or at least i will try too)… if you have any question about it i don’t mind answering them… the link is http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=8558777&uid=3764347&members=1
thanks for any addvice or comments…
Looks like a nice bit of work, Michael. You have lots of room to do as you please, it seems, and appear to have mapped it all out with a painted rendition right on the table surface before-hand…is that correct?
Could you fit in at least one more operational setting…as siding, maybe, with the points facing in the “wrong” direction for some challenging manoevers? I have found that the key to a “successful” layout is interesting operations, apart from watching trains swoop past on a nicely laid curve. Variety will keep your interest, and therefore your layout, itself, young.
Looks like a good start Michael. It is hard to tell from the pictures, but it looks like there is a kink in the track on the left side of the inner loop in the first picture. This might cause some operational problems with de-railing. Run the heck out of the track work before doing too much scenery as it is a lot easier to fix an issue now than later.
thanks guys… i didn’t paint anything on there… all of that stuff is from the track that was on there the first time… see my grand father past away in 1995 and i inherited the table and trains… i didn’t get the tabel though untill about 2001 i think and then i couldn’t set it up untill last year because we moved into a bigger house with room for my table… in the first pic if you look to the left on the out side loop i am going to add turn that will lead to a 2 foot section for a coal mine and some switching…
there isn’t a kink in the track… it looks like it but it is just the picture… thanks though…
i just made it like a tabel with 2 support beams in the center.thanks you guys
Put some ties under the areas where your track sections join and anybody looking will have to look hard to find the joins. Other than that, it looks good. You should have no problem finf=ding stuff on the market to give it a '50’s look and feel. I’m convinced the MR manufacturer’s think almost everyone is going to model that era. Can’t imagine why! Keep up the good work.
[8D]
ok i did that all the way around but i guess i forgot to do that right there… i had to redo the inner right hand side part of the track because turn was too sharp… the minimum raidus is 18 because of the space… in the big open area in the middle is going to be a forest… does anyone know of a cheap way to make trees… i don’t have a hobby shop here so i cann’t buy any (my parents don’t like to buy things off the internet)… at the other end i am going to have a small town… the buildings there are not going to stay there… its is temmperary(*sp)… well thanks for any advice…
I’ve bought a couple things off ebay with no problems. I think the most important thing about using ebay is checking out the seller’s feedback, a high feedback rating is a good indicator. Sometimes buyers give negative feedback even though the seller delivered as they should. There’s just no satisfying some people. Otherwise, there are a number of reputable online hobby shops that have excellents reputations.
Anyway, to make some trees, try this. Get a bag of bamboo skewers from the grocery store, a bag or box of furnace filter material from Home Depot or Wal-Mart (the cut-to-fit type of blue material), some grey tree trunk colored paint, some dark green spray paint, some elmers white glue (or equivalent), and (most importantly), a bag of green ground foam, mediun or fine consistency (woodland scenics or equivalent) from a hobby shop or craft sore. First cut the furnace filter into small irregularly shaped pieces (sorta roundish, but not too perfect), and glue to the skewer. Repeat until the skewer has mateiral all the way to the top. Cut the skewer for smaller trees. Now, lightly spray paint the filter material from top, sides, and bottom, and sprinkle groud foam from top, sides, and bottom while the paint is still wet. Do this over newspaper so you can re-use what doesn’t stick the first time. The wet paint should hold the foam just fine. Now paint the bottoms of the skewers grey to represent tree trunks, and plant on the layout. Somewhere on the forum, someone had described this in detail with photos, and they looked great. I’ll see if I can find it and post a link here.
If you do not want to make every single tree in a forest, you can make just enough trees to go maybe 3 deep, then get a piece of backdoor screen and put the insulation clumps on top of that. Put a lot of painted toothpicks in where the middle of the forest will be and then put the treetop-laden screen on top of them. Plant trees along the edges. You may want to take a picture of a real forest as a reference when you put the toothpicks in.
Adjust heights &c as needed; this tip is supposed to be an effort-saver not a recipe.
It may look better if the forest goes up a small hill or against the backdrop or something else that would prevent you from seeing clear through it and out the other side.