I know there are threads somewher on this topic, but they aren’t easily found and many are expired. Could someone provide me with a logical order in which to build my model railroad? I already have the track down on a 4 x 8 with a 3 x 8 side. So, my track plan is done as is laying the track. So, what is next?
Ballast on the tracks, earth, grasses, installation of structures, water areas???
I don’t want to end up tearing out something later on because I didn’t do something that had to come first. Also, what should my order of purchases be? I have locomotives and rolling stock. But, what next? Scenery, buildings, or some other things?
Please help so I don’t make logistical and finacial mistake. I am so glad to be new new model railroader and want to do things right. So, I am asking first to avoid paying the price of getting ahead of myself.
If you have all of your trackwork done and are satisfied with it and your engines perform well without derailing, you are ready to put down your structures. Line up the structures the way you want them, then draw a rough outline around the perimeter of each structure on the surface of your layout, then remove the structures so that you can landscape the layout. If you are creating water areas on your layout, do this next. Then add the earth, grass, bushes, trees, etc., taking care not to landscape where the structures will be placed. Lastly, ballast your track.
weather the track, make sure it works perfectly, add tunnel portals, add walls, hills, mountains etc that are close to track. make sure the track works perfectly once again. then you want to add the other rough contours and roads. then figure out the placement of your buildings and build the foundations into the contours. after that comes your base coloring. in the “real world” all that stuff would be in place before the ballast. now you are ready for ballast, then trackside junk and foliage.
Just remember you don’t have to build the structures, in many cases you won’t want to build them first, you might want to see how they fit and kitbash them to fit a particular location.
Well, my way is #265 in the Book of Model Railroad Layout Building. I liked some of the other ways, but this one really hit home for me, and it works…for me.
First, self-education.
Then, planning.
Then building the bench.
Next, building the sub-roadbed along a defined centerline.
Following that, lay the tracks, power it, and test it with trains.
If the track plan works well, wire it up and cover it with masking tape for the next step.
Then build the scenery. Gulleys, hills, bridges, ground foam and bushes, rock cuts and faces…
Then I situate my buildings on spots where the finer ground foam looks like living areas…lawns and such.
Final step but one (placing power lines or telegraph/telephone poles), is ballasting.
Thank you for your replies so far Basically, you have a common pattern which ends with track ballasting. As for the building footprints, I do have some structures that I bought pre-built, so I can footprint them. With the other kits, maybe I can use the base of the structure for the footprint instead of building it beforehand.
I do plan on creating somesmaller hills as my “location” for my railroad is near Buffalo New York with the NYC as my main railroad. My great grandfather was a conducter and my great uncle a dispatcher.
I really appreciate your advice—all of you. What a great community to be a part of!
I gave a lot of thought to where my roads would go before I even built my benchwork. Otherwise, you’ll end up with roads that cross your track on turnouts, which is almost impossible to model, and certainly is not a prototype practice. If your layout is still just track, you can lay out roads by simply drawing them on the surface with magic marker or chalk. Then see how the buildings work. The roads will connect your scenes. And, you’ll find that by selecting era-appropriate autos and trucks for your layout, non-train people looking at your layout will be able to place your pike in time much better from the autos than from the trains.
Don’t worry about “connecting” your roadways. It’s fine for them to run off the edge. You aren’t building a complete world, only part of one, so if the roads don’t meet and connect, you can argue that they will somewhere else.
I made paper “footprints” of many buildings when I was setting up my towns. This helped with the placement. Walthers, by the way, shows the footprints of many structures, so you can use that as a guideline. All the structures I’ve bought are on my layout now, but if I had it to do again, I would not buy anything until I knew exactly where it was going.
Mr. Wingman - SHAME ON YOU!!! Structures first, then lay track, then, figure out if you have enough space and MONEY to do what it is you’re looking to do to satisfy your “givens & druthers” list. OK?
We need to THINK about what we want before we do it. Trust me, I have been down this road before and I ended up with a lot of stuff I didn’t need or WANT because I DIDN’T have a plan, but I bought it anyway, be cause I WANTED it!?
You are an orderly, efficiant person who knows what he wants, BUT
If you are like me, the order does not make much difference since you will change you mind later anyway. The purpose of this response is to say that his is a hobby and if you do what you want, when you feel like doing it and then fix it later, when you feel like fixing it, you may have more fun. I have no problem with organized folk, there are days I envy them, but for those who, like me, are not organized, you can enjoy the hobby as well.
For me it takes less time to do things out of order than it does to figure out what order I should do them in.
Besides the basics such as track plan, bench work, era, control system DC or DCC,etc.
Two of the biggest things I think most of us over look is the back drop and room lighting… It always get shoved aside and becomes an after thought. Even if you don’t know exactly what kind of scene is going where I would suggest first paint the wall of the room blue of course for the sky and at least paint the clouds. If you cover up clouds with a structure or land mass later on no big deal but try and paint one in when you have track and scenery in place it ain’t fun trust me.
As far as room lighting goes it may be possible to do this once your bench work is up but in most cases it’s a lot easier to work in an empty room, One of my biggest regrets is not putting in a new ceiling in the train room beofre I started working on the layout. The former home owner was a Bob Villa wanna be and his work left a lot to be desired. I listened to a so called friend a retired carpenter who told me it’s a basement it’s no big deal, yeah until I have a problem in the ceiling some day. (praying that day never comes)
Next step would be to get all your track down and where you want it and make sure it’s trouble free long before you consider gluing or fastening it down permanently, make sure you have trouble free operation as if you don’t you have a nice looking diorama and a lot of frustration. As Tony Koester said in the new Realistic Reliable Track book and I’m paraphrasing but we have to fight the urge to start building structures and do scenery on the layout way before we’re ready. Track operation is probably the most critical thing we have to pay attention to.
Crandell presented #265, and IIRC the book has far more than that number of ways to build a model railroad. The others have presented what is more or less the traditional way of doing things - and it works well for a lot folks.
Personally, I prefer the progressive approach. Build a section of benchwork, lay some track, wire it up, put in some scenery, structures, and detailing. The follow-on sections don’t have to have the same order, because I already have a section of layout relatively finished for operation. In the second and subsequent sections I actually prefer to have some rudimentary scenery in before I lay track. This was done on several of Model Railroader’s project layouts in the '50s and '60s. The 1st phase of track would be laid, and the scenery done for that phase of track. Then track would relocated and/or added to, and the layout would be re-scenicked for the photos.
In the June 1962 Model Railroader, there was an interesting article about a fellow who took the idea a step further and built a deliberately changeable railroad. The track an
Mark, one thing I have learned is do the hardest section to reach first. Nothing like smashing what is all ready done while trying to reach the center.
Far as ballast, if you are going to have bridges that go over other rails or heavily wooded areas I would move the ballasting up. I have one section with a lot of tress that hang over the rails. They will have to come back up to ballast that section.
I’ve been playing with trains (& layouts) since the mid '50s. I’m currently building another HO layout - two level, DCC, 11x15 ft in a spare room. As I’m 65, this is likely the last layout I will build, and I’ve given it a lot of thought and forward planning. I demo’d my previous layout (lasted 14 years) last winter, and started on this one in January. While my sequence of building it may not work for all, it has been great for me.
After taking down the old layout, I cleaned the room from top to bottom, and painted the walls & ceiling a bright white.
The next step is probably the most important - in my opinion. I gathered up all my doodlings and schematic drawings from years past, and after a month or so, ended up with a 1/4inch = 1 foot scale drawing. I took great care to make sure the curves and turnout dimensions were as accurate as possible, so that the end result could actually be built to those dimensions. The final design called for a main level that filled the room, with a duckunder (not desireable, but made a huge difference in my situation) allowing access to the center. There is also a lower level with 6 staging tracks, that feeds up to the main level via a 2 % incline. Oh, I also decided to go DCC, my first attempt!
Next, I painted on the 28 inch backdrop directly on the walls with masonite in place to curve out the walls. The only lumber I salvaged from the previous layout was the 2x2 legs and 1x2 lateral supports, and I laid them out to match the footprint of the layout.
At this point I put in the cross braces for the lower level & incline, put in the roadbed, laid the track, and wired for DCC. Next came another hugely important task - that being testing. I’ve talked about this on other postings, but cannot say enough about its importance and fo