Hello,
Years ago when I was a kid i had model trains. Of course I destroyed them. I’m thinking about building a layout. Where should I start? I have some HO scale stuff that made it through my childhood. Thanks
Andrew
Welcome back, I returned from about a 45 year hiatus about 10 years ago and boy, how things had changed! It’s a different and better world now if your earlier years weren’t in the DCC era. Don’t start spending on hardware and scenery until you’ve really figured out what you want to do. Spend your time and a little money on research, get a subscription to Model Railroader and pay the extra $$ to have access to their archive. There are lots of good resources on the web indluding Model Railroad Hobbyist among others. If you’ve got a club with a layout nearby, stop by and pick their brains, maybe even consider joining. Also, consider joining the NMRA. If you’re in an active region, you’ll no doubt have some great opportunities to attend meets, clinics and shows.
Welcome aboard. To build a layout, you need to find the space to put it. Then you want to start simple, get some trains to run, and expand from there. You have a choice between a 4 by 8 standalone table, and an around the walls layout. Around the walls will get you more layout in the same sized room. A 4 by 8 table makes the least demands upon your carpentry skills. You buy a 4 by 8 sheet of 3/4 inch plywood, support it on sawhorses or those little two drawer file cabinets or whatever. You can try out various trackplans with sectional track (snap track) until you find something you like. For extra class, buy a 4 by 8 sheet of Homasote, a paper based insulation material, and lay it on top of the plywood, the Homasote takes track nails far better than plywood. Lay your track on the Homasote. Paint the homasote a natural ground color, or a grass green.
Buy and read some Model Railroader and Rail Model Craftsman magazines. Get John Armstrong’s “Track Planning for Realistic Operations”. Go to some train shows. Build some kits. Read this website. Have fun.
IMO;you already started,
My thoughs; Decide on what space you have, get a sheet of plywood or 2in foam to fit said space. You will need some kind of table,be it a spical built bench or saw horse, or any thing in between. My nephew built a N scale layout on foam and stored it under his bed.
Get a hand full of track,flex or sectional and a couple turnouts. A decent engine, and power supply DC or DCC, and a few better pieces of rolling stock. I wouldn’t put a lot of faith in what you have from way back when.
Lay some track even if its just a ovel and a few sidings, start running trains.
At this point ,do not spend a lot of time and money on track plans,benchwork or the latest and best whatevers.After you get your feet wet,you can narrow down what you really want;prototype,time frame .switching,passenger,ect,ect.
‘‘I’’ would not spend a lot of money on books and magizines,to be thumped tru and tossed aside.There is more info here and the on the web then you will ever use.Be prepared to ask the right question and able to disregard what you don’t need to know.
Its a hobby, fun enjoyable not stressful
The biggest problem I have is SPACE. I dont really have a spot in my house to build a layout. I work with a guy who is big into model railroading and i could get some tips from him also. I would have to build a very small layout and maybe make it so i can build onto it later since my wife and I are planning to move to a bigger house in the future (next 2 or 3 years). Obviously i need to start with benchwork. Do i use a plywood base or do I put foam board ontop of the plywood? What should I lay under the track? Cork? Foam?
Since you have space limitations, you might consider a small switching layout. If you can find an area 18" x 6 to 8 feet, you can start honing your skills, track laying, wiring, scenery and structure building. You can plan the track so it can be incorporated in a larger layout when you have more space. Many modelers have used a hollow core door topped by one or two inch thick blue foam board. Welcome back to the hobby and have fun!
You can do a fair amount of RRing on a 8-12in shelf along the walls.A 2x6 plywood,foam or hollow door could be stood up in a cornor when not in use.
Your first[and perhaps 2nd 3rd] layouts will most likely be tore down at some point, so don’t get too carrired away.
You can use plywood or foam, You do not need both, same for hollowdoors.
I do not use a road bed,track is guled/caulk right to foam.
Two inch foam insulation is strong enough as to not need a plywood backing underneath it. Major drawback to foam is that fasteners (track nails, sheetrock screws, anything) won’t hold in it. To fasten down your track you have to use stickum, usually acrylic caulking compound. Which works, but it’s hard to ever get the track up, should you need to relocate it. Plain plywood works, but it doesn’t take track nails well. The glue layers in the plywood are so hard that the nails bend over rather than going thru. I used to drill holes for the nails. Best material for laying track is Homasote. It takes nails well, and it deadens sound nicely. It isn’t very strong, you need to back it up with plywood to prevent sagging over time.
Road bed is largely for looks. The prototype railroads laid track on a bed of crashed rock ballast so the rainwater would run off and not rot the wooden ties. The cork roadbed they sell looks about right, but track nails don’t hold well in it. The best roadbed is wood, soft pine. I used a bandsaw to make all the roadbed on my layout. If I was doing the layout over and lacked a bandsaw, I might use commercial cork roadbed, and glue the ties down with acrylic caulk, and drive in all the track nails I could to keep the track in pl
Lots of good advice so far, a lot I agree with a little bit I don’T. But that’s me and you can learn from others but sometimes you will get conflicting ideas and opinions.
I am a Lance Mindheim follower along with many others and he publishes his own books available at Amazon and others. But his focus is on attainable/achieveable layouts. He writes for the big 2 paper magazines, MR and RMC and the ezine MRH. His business website is shelflayouts.com and he has a clickable blog there. He has a great FREE article about Preparing for the day you finally have a model railroad. IMO absolutely worth reading. He is an advertiser for all 3 mags so there is no favoritism towards any of them.
The late great John Armstrong is another great writer along with Pelle who mainly writes for MR. This is a hugely diverse and interesting hobby no matter the scale you will model in. Google can be a friend in your search efforts to start. But start something, it is a great hobby.
TomO
Welcome. Obviously a loop of track will take more space than a straight shelf. Since you have some HO stuff from years past, you’ll probably want some sort of test layout just to run a train, even if its just back and forth slowly. And frankly, something small can be thrown away, so I wouldn’t get too caught up in trying to make it useable into a future layout. A simple layout will will also allow you to test any new stuff that you might want to buy.
As far as other questions about type, techniques, etc., search the internet for Q & A. Oftentimes the questions you ask the google search gods will lead you right back to a thread on this forum.
Thank you all for the great advice and ideas so far! How do I replicate a railroad line and what locomotives and cars they would have pulled? I’d like to replicate something local to me in Pennsylvania and is there a time frame where they used steam and diesel at the same time? how Do I find the name of the line/loop in order to look up pictures from back in time to see what it actually looked like? Hopefully I’m not being too confusing here. Thank you!
The “Transition Era” (post World War II through the late 1950’s) was a period when late steam and early diesel locomotives shared the rails. If you’re looking for info on railroads in Pennsylvania, you should check with the Pennsylvania Railroad Historical Society. Also, Wikipedia has a lot of information about various locomotives.
Youtube has lots and lots of videos for beginners, and a lot of Model Railroading 101 type videos.
Very true, but also a lot of silly,stupid,and useless videos. Be prepaired to spend/waste alot of time. There are as many ways to do something as there are folks doing them. I don’t believe there is any ‘‘only way’’ for any thing, more of what works for you.
As to what and where, research ! Like they say goolge is your friend.
On my RR, I have but two rules; nothing made after Dec.31 1959, and its must look believable. Any thing else is fair game.
It will be YOUR RR what ever you want
For Pennsylvania, of course the Pennsylvania Rail Road served nearly every part of PA. The Reading, the Lackawanna, the Maryland and Pennsylvania, and some others whose names escapes me were other important rail roads. Strasburg Rail Road, near Lancaster still operates steam. For that matter, there is a fine Pennsylvania Rail Road Museum right next to the Strasburg RR well worth visiting. Public libraries usually have illustrated books about the area’s railroads. Real rail roads kept equipment in revenue service for 40 years so a train operating in say 1960 might well have a lot of 1920 cars in it.
Although you’re chomping at the bit to get started on the layout of your childhood dreams, I recommend you start small and get a feel for how to work the materials (layout base, track, scenery materials, etc.). Your childhood trains may also need some maintenance to get them to work properly, but the “vintage” stuff is still a great way to get re-started.
I think your most important consideration at the start is whether you want to do a full loop or just a point-to-point. For an HO scale loop you need a surface at least 40" wide for popular 18" radius track, so a hollow-core door won’t be enough since they tend to be 30" wide. 15" radius track is available, but even that will overhang the edge of a 30" door. Using 18" radius track, a sheet of plywood cut to 40"x48" will give you just enough space to create a single loop with some simple inner sidings. That size is quite manageable and can easily be tilted on it’s side and stored. If you want to build something with crossovers (e.g. figure 8s), you’ll need a full sheet. I recommend 1/2" thick plywood as the minimum since thinner sizes will easily warp.
In addition to visiting local clubs, look for any train shows in your area that have operating layouts. Trainshow.com lists the big ones - Greenberg, World’s Greatest Hobby, etc. Railserve (https://www.railserve.com/events/train_shows.html) lists local shows too. The layouts displayed at the big shows are generally quite a bit larger than most of us have room for (OK, they tend to be huge) but you can see what interesting things can be done with a few trains and some readily available scenery modelling materials.
And, of course, the best source of advice is Model Railroader! (no I didn’t get paid to say that - but I’d like to [:D])
Craig
Everyone has some great advice on here already. Research and plan is the most important for you right now.
Also, as much as I live HO, dont get hung up in it. Chances are, the stuff you do have is going to be outdated and might not be great or good enough for a quaility layout. Consider which scale you want, and what scale you will be able to fit more of into your space. For me, HO matter first, then room for track came second. You might be the same or opposite. Nevertheless, don’t get “hung up” in a scale because you have a little already.
Lastly, whatever scale you go with, I would use flex track. Don’t get the E-Z track type, as it really doesn’t look great or allow you complete control for track planning.
I’m having trouble determining what structures and locomotive/train cars would have been true to certain eras on a layout. I’m thinking about doing something modeling the transition era which I believe would be the 50’s. Correct? How do I determine the correct locomotives and structures etc.
What makes one scale better than another other than overall size? I just thought HOnwas most available. What’s your thoughts?
https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/product/book/12663
You can run really long trains in not much space, compared to HO, if you go with N scale. HO is much more detailed, especially todays models.
I grew up with American Flyer and then HO. N scale just looks too small to me.
While you are buying books, I always recommend John Armstrong’s Track Planning for Realistic Operation.