After almost forty years I have the urge to get back into the hobby. I’ve pretty much decided upon HO. However I lack any real space for a large layout (London flats aren’t really designed with hobbies in mind), despite this I’m thinking of building a small (four feet by two) module. Not a layout per se but something to get me started that I can add to if I move to a larger place.
I’m thinking an urban scene from the 40s/50s, perhaps a harbour area (I’m thinking a rather seedy working area) on the East Coast. Given the space constraints it will probably be more a diorama and less a working model railway in the first instance.
I’ve ordered a couple of books “Modelling The 50’s The Glory Years Of Rail” and “Freight Cars of the 40’s and 50’s” to get me started. I know next to nothing about the prototype US railway networks of that period, or indeed anything really about US HO producers so this is going to be a fairly steep learning curve for me.
Any suggestions of resources online that I can look at?
Oh, yes. You can certainly have a great deal of fun crafting such an scene in a small area. If you haven’t already, be sure to look at the micro-layout ideas found at
For structures, a prime place to start would be to look at the buildings offered by a company known as Downtown Deco. Their kits can really capture the “down and out” look of an area near a waterfront or old rail yard, and they lend themselves to adding lots of detail.
2x4 is plenty for a streetcar or small interurban, or a small dockside switcher deal. Plenty you can pack in on that size. Study some trackplans for some inspiration.
Welcome back to the hobby. I can imagine cost in a big city like London doesn’t leave much space for a train layout. I was in London with my wife this time last year to visit the US embassy on behalf of her son, who was immigrating from England. I’m married to Brit. While we were across the pond, we visited a club in Sunderland and a modeler Jon Grant, who used to post on these forums often.
Those buildings were the thing that made me start thinking about taking up the hobby again (I also found a red light district by Foscale models). The big issue here in the UK is the cost of shipping from the States since the USPS decided to stop surface shipping + the UK taxes imposed on imports from outside the EU (18% on goods value plus the shipping cost plus $13 dollars for “admin fees”). Putting together a substantial order makes you wonder whether it wouldn’t be cheaper to just fly over and buy stuff in person!
I quite fancy putting together something that represents the area of town nice people prefer to stay away from. So for starters I’ve picked up a few DPM kits that I think I can distress and I’m thinking some of the European industrial buildings would work just about anywhere with new signage.
If it was me, I’d begin narrowing down to a specific area or interest on the East Coast. Maine had a lot of small fishing industry, plus narrowgauge. The urban areas of the New York City area are iconic, but may be more difficult to capture in your limited ffotprint. Get down to the Washington, DC/Norfolk, Virgina area and things shift to military installations. Further South and everything is more rural, less urban, so ports are also more laid back.
Doesn’t have to be an exact location, but the internet provides research opportunities unavailable in the past. A good place to browse to find something of interest is Shorpy, with one of their galleries linked here as just the start: http://www.shorpy.com/image/tid/13
Once you settle on a location, maybe narrow down the era in keeping with what you wish to model.
Are you aware of these chaps… https://rstower.wordpress.com/
… UK Freemo appears to be fairly active, perhaps if you’re so inclined, your module /diorama could be designed to fit into one of the various groups setups.
Although you are considering US prototypes, don’t overlook books on British model railroading. Many of them feature ideas and even layouts that can be used to fit a nice US prototype layout into limited space.
Iain Rice has some very nice compact layout designs, but I don’t think an (HO gauge) oval is going to fit in a 2ft x 4ft area the OP was thinking about?
When I traveled to England last December and visited a club as well as a private guys home, I was surprised at how popular US model railroading was in the UK. At one point my wife and I sat down with the club members in their break room for cookies and coffee and probably half of them had railfanned in the US, and several mulitple times. And this in an area where there isn’t alot of prosperity - northeast England is a largely poor area (Newcastle, Durham, Sunderland etc.) The club was in the top of a large warehouse with lots of space but 80% of the layouts were US type. Just sayin …
Nope! Not in a long shot. N-scale yes, HO, not without a “Honey, I shrunk the trains!”
Welcome aboard! You ought to find other modelers nearby who can show you how they model trains in London. They also can help you find the most reputable HO companies for your era.
There’s nothing wrong with starting small. Plenty of folks here have small layout and enjoy them greatly.
NMRA (National Model Railroad Association) is always a good resource including an NMRA-UK webpage with many links for all scales (N - OO - HO - O - etc.) for UK/US-based layouts. And, you may find a local club, too! Also, see the indispensible NMRA Standards Guages.
As to track, Peco is in “your backyard,” and readibly available.
Jon Grant is a modeler from the UK who has made a number of small layouts for display at train shows, and was an active forum member. We have not heard from him lately.
Yes, my wife and I visited him last December 2015 (and his cat!). He hasn’t been on the forums for quite a while but enjoyed the visit. He is way up north in Sunderland UK, not far from Newcastle which is near the border with Scotland. My wife was born and raised in South Shields which was a Metro Train ride away. Yes, she says “Aye” a lot, just like the Scots.
It was a pleasure visiting and got a chance to run Jon’s steam era Sweethome Chicago layout and do some switching - he did a nice job - very talented. He also had the Virginian layout featured in the (June?) issue of Model Railroader magazine from 2015 - it had a caternary and some very cool brass electrics.
Thank you all for your sage advice. I’d already thought of a modular set-up (although I had never heard of “free-mo” or their standards) and Jon Grant’s Sweethome Chicago is certainly something to aspire to.
I’m also hugely impressed by the number of “craftsman” kits available and i’m tempted to give one or two of these a bash!
So, I’ve been mooching around the internet looking for inspiration. The key problem of course is that railways by their nature are linear and a 4 foot by 2 foot board really isn’t. I came across this:
Looking at Belfast today it looks rather twee - not quite the den of iniquity I was looking for (I was also amused to see that the two most expensive houses for sale today in town are worth about the same as my little flat in the London suburbs). But clearly it used to be much grittier (or perhaps that is just the result of grainy black and white pictures!).
So I’ve decided to “cheat” a bit. My plan is to take the basic track plan and shoehorn it into a 4x2 board. I’ve done this in Anyrail software (which I highly recommend - it is very intuitive as even an old dinosaur like me can make it mostly work). However I needed to ditch the turntable - the space they take up is a big chunk of a 4x2 plan.
I did add a car-float apron - so this wouldn’t be a purely prototype model. My thinking is that the first module (see how this thing is already growing like Topsy) would have the bulk of the yard facilities seen on the map above. And then I could go either way - build another module with the large “bridge” and inlet (I’m thinking some of those waterside craftsmen kits along the edge) as a mostly scenery module, or add the car float itself (as an interchange option) and more “town”. As a short term measure for operating purposes the “bridge / embankment” would just be a bolt-on extension to the first module.
