Good lighting helps Flemming Örneholm hide the compact covered corner in his background. Coved corners help to reinforce the feeling of great distance that’s produced by a good backdrop. Large layouts with plenty of real estate often use wide, gently curved panels to make these inside corners disappear. But modelers with small layouts can’t afford […]
Scenic baseA layout’s scenic base is the foundation for all of its scenery, including roads, grass, trees, and rocks. An inexpensive scenery base can be made using a lightweight support structure, such as cardboard strips glued together, covered with layers of plaster-soaked gauze or paper towels. Another type of base you can use is made […]
Open-grid benchworkStarter layouts are often flat and built on a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood. However, the majority of layouts have tracks at varying heights separated by grades. The easiest way to add elevation to a layout is to use open-grid benchwork. For this type of construction you place a plywood subroadbed under the […]
In any hobby, or indeed in any field, there is terminology used as shorthand by those with experience in the hobby or field, to refer to things specific to that hobby. That terminology, though, can be a barrier to entry for the uninitiated. This article is intended to serve as a brief introduction to model […]
It can be difficult to get started in the hobby of model railroading. The terminology a beginner needs to learn is daunting for some, particularly for those without experience with or knowledge of prototype railroading. This article explains prototypes and modeling terminology for beginner model railroaders, or those looking to brush up on their model […]
Want to add a basic locomotive servicing area but don’t have room for the turntable, roundhouse, and other shop and warehouse buildings typical of a large facility? As this 1953 photo of a Missouri Pacific RR fueling facility in Little Rock, Ark., shows, a no-frills fueling area can easily be modeled in limited space. At […]
A precast concrete bridge spans a small creek on the Florida Midland RR. Lance Mindheim describes how he modeled this bridge using anchor-bolt cement and styrene sheet molds. Replicating the color striations, texture, chips, and cracks of concrete with paint and styrene is tricky at best. On the flip side, the texture of most concrete […]
How to wire power-routing turnouts: While it may initially seem difficult, basic two-rail wiring for power-routing turnouts is easy if you understand and apply just two simple rules. The diagrams below demonstrate these crucial wiring principles. Rule 1: Gap the rails between turnouts located frog-to-frog. Place gaps in both rails, between turnout frogs in opposite […]
The invention of the tank car coincided with the discovery of oil in northwestern Pennsylvania in the 1860s. Oilmen quickly discovered that hauling oil to market in horse-drawn wagons or floating barrels down local streams wasn’t going to do the job as oil production ramped up. The oil industry needed to find a way to […]
Gravel-covered siding. Gravel from an adjacent lot can mix with ballast on a siding. Paul partially covered this siding (lower right) at the freight house on his home layout. He embedded the rails of the spur (at left) into the parking lot. On some secondary lines the space between the ties is filled with dirt […]
Feather-topped palm trees are a signature element for any model railroad set in a tropical climate. Author Joseph Kreiss scratchbuilt numerous coconut plams for his HO scale Big Island Rail layout, set in Hawaii in the 1970s. When you can’t live in a tropical paradise, perhaps the next best thing is to model it. That’s […]
Name: Järfälla Model Railroad Club Scale: HO (1:87.1) Size: 33 x 46 feet Theme: generic American Era: variable Style: walkaround Mainline run: 360 feet Minimum radius: 47″ Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 2 percent (main), 3.5 percent (branch line) Originally appeared in the March 2010 issue of Model Railroader. Click on the link to […]
