How to make roads stick on your model train layout

Hand gluing a model road on a layout

Hal Miller repairs peeling roadway material on the City Transfer & Terminal, an O gauge layout showcased in Classic Toy Trains articles and videos throughout 2018. With the original adhesive backing now dry and no longer tacky, Hal shows how silicone caulk can be used to affix the roads to the layout for good. […]

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Cody’s Workshop: Modernize an old covered hopper, Ep. 46

Host Cody Grivno paints wheelsets, adds roof details, applies weathering effects and decals to an old HO scale Athearn covered hopper. All of that in five easy steps detailed in this video, and in a feature story found in the June 2021 issue of Model Railroader magazine. […]

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Rapido Trains N scale Canadian passenger train

N scale Rapido Canadian passenger train snakes along rocky cliffs of Canadian Canyons project layout

The Canadian is out and it’s roaming the Canadian Canyons layout in the Model Railroader workshop! See Rapido Trains’ all new streamliner is here and Cody Grivno and Eric White take a look at the 10-car set and the add-on sets. […]

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A custom-decorated covered hopper and gondola, new road numbers on a locomotive, a modeling tip, and viewer mail!

Cody Grivno sitting with locomotives on the table in front of him

Learn about the new HO scale Milwaukee, Racine & Troy 4750 covered hopper from the Kalmbach Hobby Store, Atlas Model Railroad Co.’s HO scale Dash 8-40B diesel locomotive in new road numbers, and the New England Steam Corp.’s custom-decorated HO scale Philadelphia, Bethlehem & New England 52’-6” gondola. In addition, there’s viewer mail and a […]

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Secrets of staging

View of Frankfort, Ind., yard on Tony Koester’s HO scale Nickel Plate Road layout.

Why do you stage a model train layout? Let’s be clear about the need for staging. Unless you’re modeling a very small railroad or perhaps a branch line, you’re faced with the need to simulate the connections that the part of the railroad you’ve opted to model makes with the rest of that same railroad […]

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