Code of railPrototype railroads use rail of varying heights and weights depending on the type and frequency of trains that run on it. On model railroads, code is the height of the rail measured in hundredths of an inch. See fig. 2. FlextrackWhile some modelers handlay their tracks by spiking the rail to individual wood […]
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 […]
Running trains with Digital Com-mand Control (DCC) is a lot of fun, and it can make operating a model railroad an enjoyable experience. However, all those DCC electronic components and sound decoders don’t mean much if you can’t get a reliable signal to the tracks. When it comes down to it, nickel-silver rail is a […]
Take a look at our list of roundhouses that still exist in 2010. Are we missing one? If so, click here. […]
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 […]
American roundhouse Roundhouses were found all across the nation once. Now they’re rare gems. These structures began disappearing after the dieselization era. Only a few were left in use by some railroads. Many were eventually demolished or repurposed. Here’s a gallery of them under construction, in use, and after the wrecking ball. […]
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 […]
Name: Mount Royal Division of the Baltimore & Ohio RR Scale: HO (1:87.1) Size: 12 x 24 feet Prototype: freelanced based on Baltimore & Ohio RR Locale: Maryland and Pennsylvania Era: 1940 to 1948 Style: walk-in with liftout Mainline run: 65 feet Minimum radius: 20″ (34″ on main) Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 3 […]
