A sort of split off from the idea of the hobby is expensive comes this thread
A number of ideas…one being Industrial Switching layouts. How many locomotives do you need to run this?
I have one in my home office…with 4 locomotives…but you can get away with only one…
a few boxcars, flats and such…for a few industries…
What other ideas are out there?[swg]
Buildings made from various materials - like currugated cardboard. The second story on the engine house below is from two empty Blue Box boxes placed side by side, with some wooden lists for the ceiling. That steel plant in the background from various bits and pieces - like shampoo bottles for the big round ovens.
The water outlets under the power plant is a bottle cap sawed in two.
Fuel barges made from planks - piping is sprues, Grey containers on leftmost barge are pried off from dump trucks, turned upside down, painted and glued to barge. The orange house on the rightmost barge is a cutoff from an old wrecked switcher bought at a garage sale.
Crushed cars made by wrapping tin foil around hotwheels cars, painting and crushing.
Elevators made from shipping tubes.
There are many ways of saving money on a layout. These pictures are from a layout belonging to a fellow model railroader that I visited while on vacation in the Twin Cities this summer.
Smile,
Stein
LION builds on a shoe string. If you can imagine a large room-size being built on shoestring.
All lumber is used, mostly from buildings that we have torn down.
Find a roofer in your area, and follow him around, recovering sizeable pieces of 2" thick roofing foam. Actually it is fiberglass with a tar paper backing on both sides. You can use it for many things on your railroad.
Find an electrician who does telephone installations and get scraps of 25 or 50 pair cat 3 cables. Twenty foot length leftovers are useless to them, but a gold mine for railroad builders.
Another shortcut is to eliminate roadbed. It takes time, money, and makes alterations difficult. Slap down the tracks, move them as you need to.
There is another aspect to building on the cheap: Construction Methods. LION slaps things together rather than engineering fine table construction. It saves time. Time has value. Having fun has value. It is better according to the LION to build something quickly and have fun with it rather than to spend months building a perfect table. PUT IT TOGETHER and RUN IT, then make changes and improvements as you use it.
ROAR
EDIT. Too slow off the mark, two fingered typing doesn’t cut it at times. Hats off to blownout cylinder.
Gidday, Do certain threads that seem to get far to much attention for what they don’tcontribute to making “Model Railroading Fun” make you want to 
??
Sick and tired of the negativity?
Lots of good inexpensive tips are regularly posted quite often in reply to questions on this forum, but how many more good ideas are out there on how to have FUN on a budget?
(1) “The $ Car Projects” that "Model Railroader"ran through the 50s and 60s have always intrigued me, certainly inflation will have done it’s bit but as far as I’m concerned time not money is currently my limiting factor.
(2) Similar to above, there are also many articles on kit bashing rolling stock for more specific prototypes.
(3) Do you want to run a unit train or cut of cars together, but put off with the price of converting them all to Kadees? If the cars came with Bachmann E-Z mate Mk 1 couplers, which don’t have a great reputation, then don’t throw them away, put a drop of CA glue on the plastic "whisker’’ to lock the knuckle in place, fit Kadees to the cars at each end of the cut, and there you go, looks good and you can still remove cars individually off the layout if required.
Have Fun, 
Cheers, the Bear.
I don’t have any innovative ideas to save money other than to adjust my expectations. I wanted a passenger train but couldn’t justify $40-$65 for each car. Instead I bought an Athearn, six car train off of ebay for $40. Then I spent a few dollars on new wheels, couplers, paint and decals to spruce them up. Does my train look as good as the Walthers or Rapido trains? No, but it looks good enough to me. Similarly, I fixed up an old, broken down Mantua Pacific with some detail parts, new motor and paint. It’s not quite on par with the new, expensive locos on the market but it looks pretty good for under $100. All of my other rolling stock was purchased off ebay as mostly new old stock. It’s all Athearn blue box or roundhouse. Basically I’m modeling as if stuck in the 1980’s with the 2012 price equivalent. The trade off is I’m getting the basic detail level from back then as well as the price. The bonus for me is the modeling time I get per dollar spent.
There are entire railroads with just one locomotive. A modeler on a shoestring budget would be well advised to avoid ALSO being a collector! That same thinking extends to all aspects – rolling stock, structures, scenery material. Many of us, even those who think of ourselves as penny pinchers, probably have enough stuff to equip three layouts if you include “TBBs” (“to-be-built”).
The best way to avoid being an “involuntary collector” is to learn about and think about what you want to model. And that is where the internet is great because you can do your research often for free.
I was going to say that a layout with one locomotive could remain DC and thus explore the many good quality used DC engines that are being sold by guys who have made theswitch to DCC, but interestingly I am now starting to see “first generation” DCC supplies hit the used/consignment market.
The aging of the hobby coupled with the technological and quality improvements means lots of great stuff is available on the used/estate sale market if you know where to look – and who to ask to keep an eye out for you.
The end of the housing construction boom of 10 years ago also meant the end of lots of free lumber to scrounge for those on a budget but if you are lucky enough to live near buildings under construction, a simple conversation with the work crew might enable you to have what would otherwise end up on their burn pile. I know a guy who built a huge O scale layout entirely using burn pile material. It got so that the crew would actually set aside and sort his stuff for him!
Dave Nelson
People need to always be on the lookout for things if your on a shostring budget. KIJIJI is a great place for used model railroading things if you put some time and effort into it. Everyone always complains about the high cost of Kato locomotives. I recently picked up 2 Canadian Pacific SD90’s and 3 AC4400CW’s for 200 bucks from a guy getting out of the hobby because they are moving. Even the odd yard sale can produce great finds once in awhile.
Now this is a thread I like!
Three years ago, I lost my job and, as a consequence, our beautiful house, which has been home to my family for 15 years. Being 56 in Germany means finding a new job is just about impossible. We had to move into a small apartment in the dingy part of town and our monthly check pays only for a very basic live. There is no room for a hobby, in terms of space and funds.
I had to come up with a rather unusual approach to the hobby, if I were not to be condemned to armchairing for the rest of my days.
A long and tedious web search unearthed a web page of a Japanese fellow model railroader, who builds a mini-modular layout in N scale, consisting of simple and inexpensive modules. Each one measures only 6" by 12", that´s not much of a real estate, but enough to come up with something rewarding.
The modules don´t require an elaborate and expensive benchwork, the consist of three pieces of plywood, nailed and glued together. OK, you can´t really build sweeping curves and big yards. The track plan will always stay fairly simple, but heck, that´s better than nothing.
I also follow Japanese prototype - for a good reason. Locos, trams rolling stock, structures and building materials are a lot cheaper than anything I could get out of the US or Germany. Structures are in a price range of $ 8 - $ 10, instead of $ 25 to $ 40, which I see here in Germany. Scratch building Japanese structures isn´t much of an effort, as they are mostly simple box-like contraptions (unless you go for a shrine!).
Just a few pics:
Here are some more model railroading cheap cuts.
Go to train shows. Used rolling stock will be cheaper than E-bay (no shipping charges).
Spiff up some el cheapo trainset cars with new paint, decals and wire grab irons.
Hardware store rattle cans will do a better job painting rolling stock than a brush. In fact they are nearly as good as an air brush. A decent coat of paint will make silk purses out of sow’s ears.
Sawdust, dyed green with RIT dye still works for scenery and is cheaper than ground foam.
Turnouts don’t need electric switch machines. Make a hair pin over center spring from piano wire to hold the points against the stock rails. Throw the turnouts with your fingers.
You can live without DCC. We all did years ago.
Scratch build. It’s fun, it’s easy, and it’s low cost.
Put your computer printer to work. It will make signs, brick paper, backdrop building flats, lotta stuff.
Scrounge, scrounge, and scrounge again. I have scrounged lumber, 2 inch foamboard, house wire, telephone wire, semiconductors, and trainsets.
Hi!
Goodness, I was on that shoestring thru the '50s, '60s, and '70s and know it quite well. Yet, I had a ton of fun with the trains, and frankly had a couple of decent looking layouts (in my eyes anyway). Here are some things I did, and suggest for today’s MR with a small pocketbook…
Benchwork can be scavenged from construction sites, especially homes. Often they will have a dumpster you can go through, but I would certainly seek permission first.
My cars and locos of choice were Athearn blue box kits. I still have a large amount from the 60s and 70s and run them regularly. With KDs and wheelsets (when you get the funds), and a bit of Dull Cote, they are just terrific for almost any layout.
Of course the early years were DC operations, and especially for the fellow with “few bucks”, I recommend it highly. So, an MRC power pack and Atlas control switches, you are in business.
For track, a good way to go is Atlas code 100 NS. I still use it today, and it works. It is the least expensive and viable choice out there.
For structures, there were a lot of inexpensive Revell and IHC (and counterparts) kits out there that worked just fine. Scratchbuilding was also an option as well.
For scenery, well you can start out with simple groundcover of foam or fine dyed sawdust. Yes, I have dyed my own and while messy, it works out just fine. Remember, you can add those expensive details later on, right on top of your sawdust fields.
For rockwork, well wood scraps and nylon screening and paper towels soaked in Plaster of Paris is a time proven and inexpensive way to go.
So how does today’s MR with short pockets get all of the above? Well, Ebay is a good place to start, and garage sales, train shows, and of course your local hobby shop (discount tab
After reading Ulrichs post about limited space problems but still wanting to model got me thinking about all the modular clubs out there. They are a great way to get into the hobby without even having a layout. You build your module and your good to go. I’ve seen some very nice modules from the Oshawa Ontario Pineridge MR clubs members. You don’t need to spend a ton of money on it and when you meet up with fellow club members you get to run your trains. You could probably build a module and super detail it for under 100 bucks.
We Americans like to succumb to the advertising that newer, bigger and high price is best. But, just like you can drive a $5 thousand car to get to the same place as a $50 thousand car a model railroader can have as much enjoyment with a few hundred dollars worth of used equipment. There are so many ideas on this forum and in the Model Railroader magazine to save dollars that only the uninformed can still complain about the hobby being too expensive. My grandson just visited for a month and I told him I would give him some of my excess track and rolling stock to get a layout started. He is excited and ready to roll.
I suggest buying locomotives on sale.
I just got great prices on two new locomotives from MB Klein–and they have a ton of stuff at discounted prices. One was $67 plus shipping; one was $76 plus shipping.
If one doesn’t need DCC (it is a high priced, totally unnecessary luxury for some of us who are on a budget) there’s still plenty of DC locomotives out there brand new.
Also, there are entry level DCC and sound equipped units for only $100 or so, readily available.
(I buy either DC or DCC depending on the engine in question, the price, and what’s available. If they give away DCC engines for cheap, then and only then do I buy them).
I’ve learned I don’t need huge mainline steam locomotives with ridiculous overhangs on my layout when a modest little 2-6-0 steamer or an F unit diesel will suffice quite nicely to do the same job.
Who am I kidding really? My railroad doesn’t have to be a high density mainline with the locomotives to match.
Regarding passenger cars, I don’t need full length scale 85’ cars that look totally ridiculous on my 26" (and larger) mainline curves (and come without lights) when I can buy ConCor 65’ passenger cars with LED lights that look pretty darn good for less money.
Respectfully submitted–
John
Try buying stuff from the opposite end of MR, the guys who have basements full of unopened cars and structures that they could not possibly use in 7 lifetimes, but for some reason they are reluctant to part with them, give them a try.
Of course you have to have the bucks to actually succumb to the newer, bigger and more expensive is best philosophy. Where I live, seems every other car on the beltway is a Mercedes or Beamer so I guess they feel they do need the expensive car to get there. The locked thread that spawned this topic started out with the assumpsion that you needed to spend $200-400 to get a decent engine. I’d agree with the philosphy here in the shoe string topic that you can still spend well under $200, even under $100 to get decent engines. Heck, in the past 12 months I’ve added some 8 Athearn SD45’s at about $85 each and they all have prototypical details which scream D&RGW and Southern Pacific!!!
I realize new MSRP prices announced this year and going forward are sharply higher, but if you hunt around at swap meets, HO Interchange at Yahoo Groups, Ebay etc… you can still keep the cost down.
A lot of fine ideas have been expressed already. Much of it comes down to some imagination and modeling skill. And more comes from the type of layout you wish to have. My own personal taste favors simple room sized layouts, whereas the club style full basement layout just seems too complex to be fun. Again, that’s just my personal taste. As far as cost, its fortunate that my personal modeling taste happens to be the kind of layout that tends to cost less.
I like buying used structures, preferably poorly assembled ones; that are easy to dismantle, repaint, and either reassemble as intended or use as bashing fodder. Poorly assembled used structures tend to go for dirt cheap on the secondary market. Card stock or sheet styrene are good products to use for custom roofs for the new footprint of the building.
My habit of collecting locomotives I don’t need tends to be my biggest waste of hobby dollars, but I have fun with that too.
If one is on a shoestring budget, and wants DCC, there are still Bachmann E Z Command systems out there. Here is an example:
http://www.wholesaletrains.com/Detail.asp?Scale=HO&Item=RGBVCW&ID=200401356
with diesel loco:
http://www.wholesaletrains.com/Detail.asp?Scale=HO&Item=RGBVCW&ID=200401358 alos comes in NS, and WM, and COnrail
OR with a steam loco:
http://www.wholesaletrains.com/Detail.asp?Scale=HO&Item=RGBVCW&offset=25&ID=200429902 also comes in GN, and UP.
ANd others in both diesel and steam.
Other diesel DCCs ca be had from Bachmann for around $50, adn steamers from Bachmann for around $100-$120. THey have worked hard to improve qualtiy and detail.
Chances are if one is on a budget, one will NOT likely have an expansive layout to run 20 locos at once in DCC anyway!!! SO there is entry level easy-peasy DCC on a budget. SO a cheaper system cna serve well!
-I used to use cardboard when I was a kid to build RR buildings on the my child/teen O/O27 layout and later on my Teen N scale. Cardboard buildings are great if you have nothing else to work with.
-MOuntains/scenery can be built with rolled up newspaper/paper towels/napkins and soaked in plaster of paris for topping was a time honored tradition, and a box of Pof P lasts a good long time that way.
-Pick up oopsy paints at the hardware store, or as I did when i was a kid: i had a gallon of brown and a gallon of green, that provided all the under-painting I needed. Those were the only two scenery paints i had. Brown went under sand/dirt sifted out, and green went under all "grass
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Wow! Give an opinion that some people disagree with and I’m accused of drive-by flame wars! What a load of GARBAGE! I’m 62, been involved in the modeling hobbies longer than most of you have been alive! Simply put, I want the hobby to be the way I want it to be and I see absolutely nothing wrong with having that opinion, even though that might be considered controversial here in La La Land!
I’m having fun with the hobby the way I want it; but, feel it certainly could be better and more affordable and I really don’t need to listen to a bunch of wet behind the ear one-
Huh??
I thought you got a lot of good constructive ideas to address your concern. Other than the groans of “here we go again” as yet another “this hobby is getting too expensive” thread started up. I don’t recall any hostility or accusations of flame wars? Must have missed something. What is the point of placing an opinion on an open forum if you are not willing to accept contrarian opinions or even willingly accept other peoples ideas on how to make the hobby more affordable?
You did, and you can. The thread getting locked was not aimed at you in particular, simply to stop what amounts to a dog chasing its tail. The initiation of the modeliing on a shoestring thread is a very postive result of you expressing your opinion.
Re: "wet behind the ears: I think if you were to take a poll, you’d find quite a few of the members here are as old or older than you, and many more not much younger. You know what they say about assumptions…
Agee’d. I think this is a good topic and many feeling the pinch can benefit!
