Doug Dederick’s N scale Great Northern Kalispell Division is set in Montana in the late 1950s. The 29 x 36-foot walk-in layout, featured in the April 2024 issue of Model Railroader, is set between Whitefish, Mont., and Shelby, Mont. The model railroad features several of GN’s name passenger and freight trains, including the Empire Builder, […]
Garden railway at a glance Name: Snow Creek Railroad Size: Approximately 50′ x 50′ Scale: 1:20.3 Gauge: Nº 1 (45mm) Era: 1930-1950 Theme: High desert/mountain railroad accessing mines, quarries, and passengers Age: Original, 19 years; rebuilt portion, 3 years Motive power: LGB and Bachmann locomotives Length of mainline: 300′ Maximum grade: 3% Type of track: […]
The railroad at a glance Name: TooMuchFun Railroad Size: 60′ wide x 25′ deep x 15′ high Scale: Varies from 1:24 to 0-scale figures in some areas using forced perspective Gauge: Nº 1, plus a small N gauge railroad within the railroad Era: Mythical, Medieval, 1800s to present Themes: 15+ different themes, from Wizard of […]
I have always liked narrow gauge. In my early 20s I tried my hand at modeling a bit of the South Pacific Coast RR in HOn3. But truthfully, I didn’t have the skills or the time. Frankly, my first love was the 2-foot gauge Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes. I remember talking to Bob Brown, […]
I’ve had a fondness for narrow gauge modeling since I was a teenager reading Model Railroader stories by John Olsen and Malcolm Furlow in the early 1980s. So when it came time to build my first real layout, it’s no surprise that I chose HOn3 scale. It’s also no surprise I chose a freelanced route, […]
I decided that the three-rail layout was going to have an industrial theme. I wanted lots of smokestacks, guys in hard hats and safety vests, and tall cranes. Because my full-time job takes me into many facilities associated with a wide variety of industries, I already had good ideas and firm plans for how the […]
In the attic of Neal Mayer’s home, he has assembled a group of vignettes, each using trains and structures, vehicles and figures, and signs and lights to suggest life in his native New England during the postwar era. Visitors stroll from one scene to another and then to another, never in a rush, as they […]
Jack Hedge, a lifelong O gauge enthusiast and talented layout builder, created the fictitious city of Hedgerton for his three-rail display. His layout features four loops and includes contemporary steamers and diesels from just about everybody, including Atlas O, K-Line, Lionel, Right-of-Way Industries, 3rd Rail, Weaver, and Williams. Jack outlines what he installed, beginning with […]
David Parks’ Cumberland West in HO scale | In this Trains.com Video exclusive, modeler David Parks shares his large HO (1:87) scale layout built in Northern California. David has deftly combined elements of the Baltimore & Ohio and Western Maryland railroads as they operated in 1953 in and around Cumberland, Maryland. As narrated by 0ur […]
By Ari Sandel Ever since I was a little kid I’ve always loved miniatures, whether I was making models or painting toy soldiers. And though I always appreciated trains, I never had an actual train set because it seemed so intimidating. Flash forward to me in my 40s, when I convinced my best friend to […]
Jerry Strangarity’s Reading Co. in HO scale last appeared in the November 2010 issue of Model Railroader magazine. Since our last visit, he’s completed three more scenes on the layout: West Philadelphia, Reading/Hamburg, and Birdsboro. Enjoy this video showing a mix of steam and diesel locomotives running through eastern Pennsylvania in the 1930s and 1940s. […]
Take a ride along the rails of Lou Sassi’s On30 Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes model railroad, as SR&L No. 15 shoves an extra train hauling a GoPro Hero 6 Black action-camera. To learn more about how Lou scratch built the camera car used to capture these stellar low-angle views, be sure to read the […]
