Any other model railroaders on Ars?

Paul Bartz · Jun 2, 2023

I've been fascinated by trains for as long as I can remember. Bought my first model railroad car, a little silver ore car in N scale, when I was about five.

Got rid of the N scale stuff upon moving to California a while back and joining an HO train club.

Trains went into storage upon that club's dissolution, but I knew I'd get back into it someday.

Well, someday is now. I got a layout up and running, wasn't satisfied, and started over about a year ago.

This is a great hobby, because there are so many facets. Painting (cars, buildings, and scenery), sculpting (scenery), carpentry (benchwork), electrical (basic wiring for power), electronics (detection, controls, signalling), model building (structures), track laying, and of course, running trains.

Overall theme is mid 1940's to mid 1950's Southern Pacific, so I can run a Cab Forward along with some tiger stripe SP switchers.

Yeah, starting to volunteer with the Niles Canyon Railway helped re-spark my interest, too.

invertedpanda · Jun 2, 2023

Back when I was a kid it was an absolute joy of a hobby. Mom even let me set up this big (to me) permanent train setup in the garage that had fake grass, buildings, and more.

Was an expensive hobby then, and now it's.. Well, yeah, expensive hobby and I have nowhere to put it because I have too many other expensive hobbies

Still think about those days, though.. Flipping through old model railroad magazines, circling stuff to wishlist them, re-reading articles over and over..

Carhole · Jun 3, 2023

I’d gravitated towards N scale after HO because I thought that the even extra miniaturization was so cool, and I’ve still never seen one of the nano scales in person.

Leading to now, I absolutely cannot let myself get into model trains until I’m much older. It’s a totally addictive hobby. That didn’t stop me from buying AnyRail and recommend that to any model train hobbyist who enjoys the track layout aspect enough to take it to CAD

AnyRail™ - The easiest model railroad design software

www.anyrail.com

Vince-RA · Jun 3, 2023

Yes! I loved it as a kid but never really did much. I picked it up for a couple years about a decade ago then young kids of my own got in the way. In the last year I have picked it up for a third time and am loving it. For the most part I build cars from scratch or from kits - targeting around 1900 in central Vermont, primarily granite-hauling railroads, in HO scale. I don't have a layout yet, but am having fun with the "long game" of learning modeling, painting, weathering, etc. I also just put in an order for a resin 3D printer - I'm hoping I can get my shit together enough on the 3D modeling side to really open up some cool possibilities for custom builds of cars and structures.

This is my favorite scratch build so far - a well car designed to haul large, thin pieces of granite that are too wide to fit on a normal flat.

This is the prototype, borrowed and re-lettered from the Hardwick and Woodbury RR:

von Chaps · Jun 3, 2023

I am surprised to have not seen a thread on this earlier.

invertedpanda said:
Back when I was a kid it was an absolute joy of a hobby. Mom even let me set up this big (to me) permanent train setup in the garage that had fake grass, buildings, and more.

Was an expensive hobby then, and now it's.. Well, yeah, expensive hobby and I have nowhere to put it because I have too many other expensive hobbies Still think about those days, though.. Flipping through old model railroad magazines, circling stuff to wishlist them, re-reading articles over and over..

Echoing all this, that describes my childhood too. I was mad, keen when young. I think it probably sparked my interest in electronics that led to a uni course and degree.

I was always HO, but my uncle had a really cool 'N' gauge in the loft that was huge. I loved it, but also kind of recognised that it was too delicate for my kid-hands.

My dad had a large tin triple-rail thing in the garage, but I hated it. Something about the lack of detail.

Mate of mine from when I was a kid and we had our own railways got back into it in later life and posted on a UK forum about the detail he got into. Sadly he died suddenly. I never got to meet up with him again nor see his build.

I am kind of "afraid" to open that Pandora's box. A bit like @Carhole, it awaits around the corner. I would absolutely follow a well-documented build though, if you are volunteering @Paul Bartz.

Carhole · Jun 3, 2023

Here’s a tiny scale, twin-gulch seaport layout from my sketchbook. Feel free to duplicate or base a layout off of it. As you can see by the dimensions listed this is a small scale layout, borderline doable in n but much better at Z scale, and it was intended to be viewed 360° with the various tunnel cutouts all the way around the layout:

Paul Bartz · Jun 5, 2023

The story of my first layout via pictures.

Pictures here

Vince-RA · Jun 6, 2023

Love the suspended peninsula!

m0nckywrench · Jun 6, 2023

While an enthusiastic model railroader in childhood (which led me to a life of full-scale techy fun but not with trains) I'm long out of the hobby and have too many other interests to fit it in.

If any Arsians in reasonable (your call but I'd drive three hours each way without hesitation though I'm too distant for that) distance of Carlstadt, NJ can attend an NYSME open house it's very good time. They'll celebrate their centennial in 2026.

About | New York Society of Model Engineers | Unlock Your Inner Engineer!

ABOUT NYSME NEW YORK SOCIETY OF MODEL ENGINEERS HISTORY OF NYSME Before there was an N.M.R.A., Model Railroader, or Walthers, there was the New York

www.modelengineers.org

The really old model railroaders and clubs are on another level. It's inspiring stuff.

Quarthinos · Jun 7, 2023

The B&O railroad museum has preserved a model railroad that was used for training linemen (or maybe conductors? Don't remember which). It's outside the round house in it's own little building, but it is very detailed.

Paul Bartz · Jun 19, 2023

Anyrail is great. I used a full-sized print out to get the best cuts for a long span to start on the next section.

Cuts finished to 1/2" plywood sub roadbed and 1/2" Homasote roadbed. Tan latex paint applied to keep the dust down - Homasote is a compressed paper product.

Test fitting the cut section.

Finished bonding the Homasote to the plywood with clear acrylic caulk. I've stapled the paper template down and cut away the paper template where the track is going but left the outside for overall alignment.

Track bonded to Homasote with more clear acrylic caulk. Radius set with track radius gauges.

The lower area is for staging and turning of entire trains and will probably not be ballasted or otherwise decorated. Control panel for staging return loop and staging tracks visible just to the left of the suspender rod.

This new section leads to the upper level with scenery and buildings, freight and passenger yard, a continuous run option, and turntable and roundhouse for locomotives. Planning to work in some bridges, too.

Carhole · Jun 21, 2023

Paul Bartz said:
Anyrail is great. I used a full-sized print out to get the best cuts for a long span to start on the next section.
View attachment 57872

Cuts finished to 1/2" plywood sub roadbed and 1/2" Homasote roadbed. Tan latex paint applied to keep the dust down - Homasote is a compressed paper product.
View attachment 57873

Test fitting the cut section.
View attachment 57875

Finished bonding the Homasote to the plywood with clear acrylic caulk. I've stapled the paper template down and cut away the paper template where the track is going but left the outside for overall alignment.
View attachment 57878

Track bonded to Homasote with more clear acrylic caulk. Radius set with track radius gauges.
View attachment 57879

The lower area is for staging and turning of entire trains and will probably not be ballasted or otherwise decorated. Control panel for staging return loop and staging tracks visible just to the left of the suspender rod.

This new section leads to the upper level with scenery and buildings, freight and passenger yard, a continuous run option, and turntable and roundhouse for locomotives. Planning to work in some bridges, too.
View attachment 57880

I love that you’ve left so much vertical height to keep growing your plans.

checkedout · Jun 27, 2023

Heya. Nice thread.
And, nice job on the setup, Paul.
I've still got my Lionel train kit I inherited from my dad. He played with it when he was little (1940s - 1950s)
I think it's the O-gauge setup.
I sometimes bring it out at Christmas to run around the tree and entertain the cats. Good times!
I used to play with it A LOT when I was a kid. Had a big old plywood table that my dad built for me to set up and run it around.
I've got quite a few cars and a really nice engine and most everything still works well.
I guess I need to repair a couple of the cars, but that shouldn't be too difficult.
I've been told it's become rather valuable, but I don't know if I could ever part with it.

The Rock · Jul 17, 2023

If I bought a new house with a larger basement to feed my train hobby, would that qualify me?

HO scale, 1990's. 9.5 scale miles of mainline when totally complete. I have about 90% of the track done and have been hosting operating sessions for the past year and change. Right now, focused on getting signaling working.

Xenocrates · Jul 17, 2023

I have a fair amount of N scale building kits, cars, and locomotives, nothing major. But I haven't ever gotten it into a working layout, since my other model building has generally taken over, since it can standalone and doesn't need the same level of planning and electrical work.

Vince-RA · Aug 19, 2023

I still have no where to run trains, but I still am enjoying building railcars. This one is built from wood (with some plastic and metal details), meant to model a Montpelier & Wells River Railroad car constructed in 1870 or so and run hard with little maintenance until sometime in the 1890s:

Carhole · Aug 19, 2023

Vince-RA said:
I still have no where to run trains, but I still am enjoying building railcars. This one is built from wood (with some plastic and metal details), meant to model a Montpelier & Wells River Railroad car constructed in 1870 or so and run hard with little maintenance until sometime in the 1890s:

View attachment 61363

Lovely work! That is very convincing and you’ll have one hell of a train car collection if you keep this up. Pardon if I missed your earlier (HO?) disclosure but is your focus on HO? It almost looks smaller to me based on the track segment.

Vince-RA · Aug 19, 2023

Carhole said:
Lovely work! That is very convincing and you’ll have one hell of a train car collection if you keep this up. Pardon if I missed your earlier (HO?) disclosure but is your focus on HO? It almost looks smaller to me based on the track segment.

Yup, HO scale and standard gauge - can't really imagine dealing with a smaller scale. Honestly I am considering getting one of those magnifying visors at this point, lol.

Carhole · Aug 19, 2023

Vince-RA said:
Yup, HO scale and standard gauge - can't really imagine dealing with a smaller scale. Honestly I am considering getting one of those magnifying visors at this point, lol.

Yesterday I rebuilt a 2015MacBook Pro —down to bare chassis and zipped back together for a complete refurb resale. It would’ve been impossible for my eyes without using these things and a goose neck LED over the work area, and I was wearing prescription lenses under these which helped my weak eye contribute. Nothing special until you get into what you’re doing and go blind (not from that). Note, I have a commercial lab set of these which seem to have been cloned here as it’s basically the exact same design, and at 10-20 bucks falls into must-have gear.

Proper Eyeballz

Vince-RA · Aug 19, 2023

Carhole said:
Yesterday I rebuilt a 2015MacBook Pro —down to bare chassis and zipped back together for a complete refurb resale. It would’ve been impossible for my eyes without using these things and a goose neck LED over the work area, and I was wearing prescription lenses under these which helped my weak eye contribute. Nothing special until you get into what you’re doing and go blind (not from that). Note, I have a commercial lab set of these which seem to have been cloned here as it’s basically the exact same design, and at 10-20 bucks falls into must-have gear.

Proper Eyeballz

Something broken about that link - but I'm curious to know what you recommend? Seems like a lot of variations out there of potentially questionable quality...

Carhole · Aug 20, 2023

Looks like they pulled it after my post. Let’s try this:

Amazon.com

Nothing fancy and highly functional. There are so many variants I’m not sure where you’d find a comprehensive review of the various offerings. Maybe read the reviews and ensure that you can wear glasses under them if that’s a personal requirement. I’d say flip-up pivoting is a must have feature. Interchangeable lenses are nice to have as well.

Vince-RA · Aug 20, 2023

Carhole said:
Looks like they pulled it after my post. Let’s try this:

Amazon.com

Nothing fancy and highly functional. There are so many variants I’m not sure where you’d find a comprehensive review of the various offerings. Maybe read the reviews and ensure that you can wear glasses under them if that’s a personal requirement. I’d say flip-up pivoting is a must have feature. Interchangeable lenses are nice to have as well.

Thanks - not sure how I feel about buying something where the marketing picture is a dude looking at a pill bottle hahahah. But I will give it a shot. Next up, got something to keep my hands more steady? :flail:

KingKrayola · Aug 24, 2023

Vince-RA said:
Thanks - not sure how I feel about buying something where the marketing picture is a dude looking at a pill bottle hahahah. But I will give it a shot. Next up, got something to keep my hands more steady?

Surgeons tuck their third and forth fingers into their palms to help lock out a few tendons.

In the old days they used to experiment with blood alcohol levels too…

Doomlord_uk · Sep 11, 2023

When we were young we had a Hornby railway set, OO gauge I think, that my dad bought and set up for us. It was basically a double oval track around an 8' by 4' plywood board, with sidings (iirc). We had one train, a Flying Scotsman and three or four Pullman carriages. We probably had a few accessories but I can't remember now. I spent endless hours pouring through the Hornby catalogues we had, but we never had the money to buy extra stuff nor the chops to do any real landscaping. I don't think we really played with it much and it all got skipped (

) when we moved house, except the controllers which I kept for some reason. Sold one off a few years ago to someone who was pretty happy to get a vintage early 80s controller in its original box.

As with most things, I think I'd have infinitely more fun with designing and building a model railway than with actually operating it.

Paul Bartz · Oct 16, 2023

Big day today.

I finished painting, weathering, and assembling an Walthers Modern Roundhouse kit plus expansion kit a couple days ago.

Today I cut out the hole for the Walthers 130' turntable. Notches are for the inspection pits under the tracks in the roundhouse stalls.

Initial test fit looks pretty good; since I cut it by eye with a hand-held jigsaw, there's still a little work on the hole needed. I'll need to clip the rails back to exactly the correct length, and add electrical feeders and ties.
The screws and washers are temporary, and this will be getting track and wiring, locomotive service buildings, ballast, and scenery fairly soon.
I've built this area as a module as I plan to install it complete about 32" higher once it's finished - much nicer to work sitting in a comfortable chair than up on a ladder.

My Mom bought me this illuminated magnifier from MicroMark, and it's been great. The lens is big enough for magnified stereo vision, and the LED lighting can change color and brightness. Power is via USB.

Yeah, I broke one of the pivot pins off one of the doors, but was able to drill it out and glue in a new pin made of wire.

Vince-RA · Oct 18, 2023

Hell yes. Love a roundhouse and turntable combo, I am super jealous!

The Rock · Oct 20, 2023

Having an operating session in November. All I've accomplished since my last post was a bit of clean up - getting empty car boxes stored and out of the layout room.

Carhole · Oct 20, 2023

The Rock said:
Having an operating session in November. All I've accomplished since my last post was a bit of clean up - getting empty car boxes stored and out of the layout room.

That’s what is so nice about a good hobby. It’ll be ready for you when you have the time and motivation to get back to it.

Lovely job on that round house! I have wanted to see a real turntable but that’s low down on the bucket list. Model RR shall suffice for now.

Vince-RA · Oct 22, 2023

There aren't a lot of them left, but supposedly there is one on Maui - unsure if it was impacted by the recent fires, seems likely it was in some way

This is the best database of turntables/roundhouses I've come across: https://www.steamlocomotive.com/roundhouse/

Carhole · Oct 22, 2023

Vince-RA said:
There aren't a lot of them left, but supposedly there is one on Maui - unsure if it was impacted by the recent fires, seems likely it was in some way This is the best database of turntables/roundhouses I've come across: https://www.steamlocomotive.com/roundhouse/

That’s interesting, and supposedly a roundhouse just a couple hours away from us on Hawaii Island. On the subject of unique railroad structures I visited this after a trip to Scaled Composites some years ago. It was mesmerizing watching long freight lines go down this:

Tehachapi Loop - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Vince-RA · Jan 4, 2024

I've been (very, verrrrry) slowly working on a bunch of new boxcars. One of them was cattywampus so I decided to convert it into a an office/storage shed.

hambone · Jan 9, 2024

Heya, I just discovered this very interesting Maker thread!

If any of you are ever in Toronto you really gotta check out Little Canada. The models are huge and wild with full day / night lighting cycles and all kinds of animated models and lighting tricks. My kids (8 and 12) aren't usually into this kind of stuff and it blew their minds.

2sk21 · Jan 19, 2024

Hi - I also just discovered this thread . Delighted to see others who are into model railroading. Here is a video that I made about my layout. This is an HO scale switching layout - I am also in the process of building a fully automated N-scale layout for which I am writing the software from scratch.

Paul Bartz · May 2, 2024

Had to undo the turntable section installation as I had blocked access to a network switch.

Not a bad thing, in retrospect. I realized I could cover the cables with a painted sky backdrop and glued-on photo-paper background, and add a lot of depth to a curve inside a closet.

The plywood "fingers" are height shims sitting on top of aluminum bars that will support the section that the turntable resides in. This track will descend into the distance behind that.

Hills are nVidia Canvas creations printed onto glossy photo paper with the sky cut out and glued to a piece of Masonite painted sky-blue. I could put in clouds, but the effect is good enough for something just glimpsed.

The backdrop adds miles of depth to this scene that weren't there before.

VirtualWolf · May 11, 2024

+1 on "just discovered this thread". We have absolutely no room whatsoever for a model train set (we own our house but it's not a large house and there's barely enough space for all my existing hobbies as it is

), but I'm thoroughly enjoying seeing everyone's efforts.

Doomlord_uk said:
When we were young we had a Hornby railway set, OO gauge I think, that my dad bought and set up for us. It was basically a double oval track around an 8' by 4' plywood board, with sidings (iirc). We had one train, a Flying Scotsman and three or four Pullman carriages. We probably had a few accessories but I can't remember now. I spent endless hours pouring through the Hornby catalogues we had, but we never had the money to buy extra stuff nor the chops to do any real landscaping.

Yep this was me too. I don't even remember what the brand or the gauge or anything was, but it was a single oval track around a similar-sized board, and I think there was one siding.

Doomlord_uk · May 12, 2024

I have no idea where my dad got the railway parts from but I guess there were standard kits you could buy? It sounds like it.

And now I want to design some crazy railway set, complete with decaying industriana and huge metal bridges. Plus thinking about some kind of futuristic cyberpunk rail system... food for the imagination, anyway!

Anyone here done an outdoor rail system?

Doomlord_uk · May 12, 2024

Do model railways come with sound effects?

Xenocrates · May 12, 2024

Doomlord_uk said:
Do model railways come with sound effects?

They can, with sound capable dcc decoders.

Any other model railroaders on Ars?

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