I have been working on a model railroad for almost 4 months now, but, i still find myself in the idea stages. No track, or anything down, no plans for anything. I would like to ask for any input or ideas to help get my blood flowing again for modeling.
I am a HUGE fan of the N&WRR. Already been to see old 611 in person, and saw her as a boy on what I think was one of her last fan trips back in the late 80's or earlyer 90's. I live in the Petersburg Va area and want to model the line in that area. So, call the line from Crewe or so to the east... I am a N scale lover and belive that will give me the most for my room. I also live in a apartment so, I till have to be built to move. I also love steam so, mid 1950s if my time frame!!
So, any tips or ideas?
Just the normal tips.
1. Read old issues of the mags.
2. Get a couple of books on the eras and aspects that interest you.
3. Visit some other layouts.
4. Find what you like to build, because this is more about building than having. You need to like the process more than the result.
Get something up and put track down, plop a train on it and run it.
Anything to actually GET going on your railroad. Mine was a 5 foot straight track on a workbench for about 7 years before I finally got off my chair.
Get up and put something down today. THAT will motivate you faster than anything else. First a engine, then some wires and power then some feeders, then some scenery, perhaps a industry etc. Your first switch etc.
Got more done plopping track in 3 years than the last 30 in the armchair.
I agree with both previous posters. Reading and pondering is best done assiduously and up front. It doesn't have to be 200 hours of it, but maybe 10-20? In the meantime, get some track down in something that you fancy for a layout, just tacked into place, wire it up non-permanently, and power some small trains around it. Find out what you don't really want or like, and try to mesh it with how your learning goes. If you get bored with something like a loop or a folded loop, even with some sidings and a couple of industry spurs, then you at least know that much when it comes to settling on a firm track plan. But, you should begin to flesh out some ideas and play as soon as you can. Later, with some hard decisions, your spending (both time and money) will be more focused and you will get your dream realized quicker'n you think.
Remember, though, that even what you have been going through is part of your journey, and the journey is really 50-70% of any hobby fun. Don't feel bad about what you have experienced so far.
Visit train club open houses and train shows in your area. MR has event listings here, and you can use Google to find them, too. These are great opportunities to see real layouts and look for ideas.
Download one of the free track-planning programs. I'd recommend Atlas RTS (www.atlasrr.com) for a simple starter. If you're up for a bit more learning curve, XtrakCad (www.sillub.com) is a more capable program. These will let you start thinking about your layout space, and you will begin to understand curves and what can fit where. It's a lot easier to throw out your layout and start again if it's only on your computer disk.
Don't be tempted to buy too much at the start. Most of us have shelves full of "why did I buy that?" items that seemed like a good idea at the time. Your layout will not all come to you in a brilliant flash of inspiration. Rather, it will evolve and grow slowly. Don't worry if the tracks ahead look a bit foggy. It's just part of the adventure.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
What I do for layout design (have done so far) is define my area and benchwork first. Next I decide on a theme. (Mainline running, with a branch line(?) or other special interests.) Then I put in a mainline. I am fond of twice around the room types divided by scenery and grades.
Since I have gotten into operations, I also have a staging area of some sort, whether it is a lay-over for entire trains, or a yard that simulates an interchange yard. One track in staging is a through track for continuous running. If I put cars on it, the layout becomes point to point for operations.
Next I try and determine how many small towns I can have, and possibility one city with a yard and loco facilities, without them crowding one another. Usually small yards and facilities unless I have the room for larger ones. I will try to fit in a way-side industry or two just for variation as long as it won't crowd things.
Then I go looking at plans for modular railroads. I look for ones that would make good towns or cities because their track plans are usually fairly compact, and most of the way they will be switched is already determined with a good track plan themselves.
Because I freelance, I don't worry about town and city names etc., but if you want to model a specific prototype, you can name the towns as the railroad you are modeling would, and build or plan you scenery to suite the area you want to model. Also, some of the industries that may be recognizable in a town you choose to name from a real one may have to be built or otherwise implied to achieve the "feeling" of the real town.
When building starts, I try and get all of the benchwork built first. Then plan where the towns will go and install the mainline to get some trains running. Then I work on one of the yards so I can store stuff when not running. Then I plug along on the other track work and scenery design and continue from there.
Hope this helps.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
Because I work in a limited space I use a short mainline from A the junction to B the industry and return.. basically a branch.
Built the industry and moved the tracks around until I found a pattern of trackwork that validates all possible switching to a specific operation of that industry that works. Then I worked out onto the main, hammered out grades or no grades, passing sidings, staging etc.
It's not all there yet. Just the other day i swapped a switch out and flipped two buildings after about 7 months of wondering how I could improve that particular dock area and free up 4 inches for a run around to fit?
It's a journey. Not a race.
ok, is there any way to find out with there are any layouts near were I live that I should go and see, like club lists or the like?
To tell the truth, this will be the 4th or 5th layout I have started, never realy got anything good out of what came before, planned and wanted more then what I could do, so I want to have a plan of what I am going to do before so I can have a hope in hell of making to a state were I would love to show it off.
Find a local hobby shop and ask there about layout tours or clubs in the area.
I am over on the Eastern Shore, where are you?
MisterBeasley wrote:Download one of the free track-planning programs. I'd recommend Atlas RTS (www.atlasrr.com) for a simple starter. If you're up for a bit more learning curve, XtrakCad (www.sillub.com) is a more capable program.
Download one of the free track-planning programs. I'd recommend Atlas RTS (www.atlasrr.com) for a simple starter. If you're up for a bit more learning curve, XtrakCad (www.sillub.com) is a more capable program.
XtrkCad's latest version is available here.
Be sure to check out the beginners tutorial on the web page and go through the demos in the help menu once the program is installed.
rtprimus wrote: I have been working on a model railroad for almost 4 months now, but, i still find myself in the idea stages. No track, or anything down, no plans for anything. I would like to ask for any input or ideas to help get my blood flowing again for modeling.I am a HUGE fan of the N&WRR. Already been to see old 611 in person, and saw her as a boy on what I think was one of her last fan trips back in the late 80's or earlyer 90's. I live in the Petersburg Va area and want to model the line in that area. So, call the line from Crewe or so to the east... I am a N scale lover and belive that will give me the most for my room. I also live in a apartment so, I till have to be built to move. I also love steam so, mid 1950s if my time frame!! So, any tips or ideas?
I also have layout under construction but can't run any trains yet. I joined an N-Trak club so I could run trains and get some great ideas for my new layout all of the time from the guys. And to tell you the truth, I've been in model railroading since 1977 but in the 4 to 5 months I've been in the club, I've learned more about railroads and model railroading in particular, than I had learned in the previous 31 years.
The best thing you can do, at least in my opinion, is to find a N-Trak, One-Track or similar club in your area and go down there and see what they are all about. If you find you like them, join. It'll be money well spent.
Irv
I looked into that, but the only two that my loacl hobbyshop had known of have both closed down in the last year or so. Right now, closest one is about a 2 hour drive from my house.
I took some time away from planing, and came back to it last weekend, still nothing. I tryed laying some track, but, I am the type of person, that if I dont have a plan of what I am doing, then what I do, ends up looking like crap!
I know about the area and time frame I want to do, just cant plan HOW to do it or lay it out or build it. Thats what is holding me back!
Take a trip to a big box lumber store like Home Depot or Lowes. Dont buy anything, just walk among the wood products and think about what you could do with them to build a train table. Alot of good bits in a place like that. A peice of wood this long to that peice shorter. Then two more like peices make a rectangle. Now for plywood or other surface on top for a shelf. Voila! A small start for a layout.
Trackwork should not hold you back. Let's say you have a engine. It needs a engine house or round house right? Maybe your space is too small for roundhouse so you get a two stall engine house.
Great. Now pick a corner and stick that engine house there. Grab some cheap sectional track and start laying. One switch to serve both stalls of the engine house.
Suddenly you want either a fuel rack or coal tower/water tower to go with the engine house.
And one depot later (Any size) you are now a headquarters of a railroad with a freight agent ready to take orders from local shippers and recievers.
Now you probably already have a million rolling stock. Pare down to about 12 or so, put them on the railroad with the engine and caboose. Suddenly you have a train.
Where do you want the train to go? Well? We can all never ever have enough money or space.... so we make do.
Personally I cannot stand driving a train into the next town while the caboose hasnt yet left the previous town that the train departed from. I have a real problem with that. So I use just one town on my loop and call everywhere else "Beyond the house..." imaginary track connection to those points.
Maybe you have a coal mine in one corner. take empty coal cars up the track, swap for loaded coal cars, then take them to town on the other side of the railroad and unload the coal into a power plant or a harbor barge for export or off layout power plant.
Track patterns are either two around, oval, figure 8, out and back, dog bone, folded dogbone.... simple stuff.
Call your new engine house and depot corner of a layout a town name. Call the coal mine and that part of the layout ANOTHER town name and name your destination something else.
Suddenly you now have three or more places with names and can now draw a line from left to right on a peice of paper. Engine house on left, coal mine somewhere in middle... maybe on it's own track and the town to the right of your paper line.
Examples:
Steamtown, Dry Gulch (Saloon in a dry town), Coal Hill..... BINGO.. makes it really simple huh? Why am I hauling coal into Dry Gulch if not too many people live there? Simple, they are so deep in the Hollow that there is no sun and they need power 24/7. =)
Regarding trackwork, switches etc etc etc... dont hurt yourself. Just relax and buy a switch to serve both stalls of the engine house. Maybe another switch to reach the coal tower and engine area and perhaps a third switch to get to the mainline next to the new depot.
By then you should begin to maybe see where you are going with the track versus the space you have left. It's best to doodle and draw on paper and double check your ideas before running out and sinking paycheck into track.
Now you might want to hook up something to the track and turn a power pack to DRIVE the engine.... oh boy!!!! Whoops... waitaminite.... DC or DCC?
Now the bloat comes in when you read the nice magazines that come in and see signals, figures, scenery, DCC, electronics, switch machines, doo dads, fluff, bloated toys, blingage etc etc etc etc....
Part of the problem with excessive track plan reading, armchair railroading is information overload. You are so soaked in a stew pot full of information you freeze in place unable to function. Break off that rust and scale and get moving LOL.
And that is all there is to railroading. point A to B sometimes by way of C and other points.
rtprimus wrote:I am a HUGE fan of the N&WRR. Already been to see old 611 in person, and saw her as a boy on what I think was one of her last fan trips back in the late 80's or earlyer 90's. I live in the Petersburg Va area and want to model the line in that area. So, call the line from Crewe or so to the east... I am a N scale lover and belive that will give me the most for my room. I also live in a apartment so, I till have to be built to move. I also love steam so, mid 1950s if my time frame!! So, any tips or ideas?
Have you looked at e.g. http://maps.live.com to look at the area - old or new tracks, lay of the land, landmarks etc. Tracks may have changed - but rivers and hills doesn't move much.
Got any pictures of the Norfolk and Western in the area you want to model ? That's a good basis for thinking about what you would like to see on your layout.
Where do you picture yourself: trackside watching the trains pass by or on a hilltop half a mile away watching the trains pass around a curve or over the hill (the railfan view), driving the train (engineer view), planning switching moves (conductor view), planning where trains will meet and scheduling trains (dispatcher view), or something else ?
Inspiration can come from many places.
Grin, Stein
well, I have been to the local home store..both of them, god you have to love Home de pot and lowes!! All the crap you will never need and not one Ahole in the place that knows a nail from a light bulb!! HAHA. Sorry to those of you who work at those stores.
Mores to the point. im still at a loss for idea. My main stoping block is HOW I should set up my layout. With my wishes, N&W from around crewe or so to the eastern end of the line, at or just past petersburg Va, what would be the best way to lay it out. Island, around the wall or some other idea. The space I have is about 11x11 or so. Only two doors in it are both on one wall, in the corners. Shoting for N scale would give me the best bang for my buck and space I have.
Might I suggest you take a look at my "Beginner's Guide to Layout Design" (Click below.) It takes about 5 minutes and might give you a few things to think about.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
Last Chance Take a trip to a big box lumber store like Home Depot or Lowes. Dont buy anything, just walk among the wood products and think about what you could do with them to build a train table. Alot of good bits in a place like that. A peice of wood this long to that peice shorter. Then two more like peices make a rectangle. Now for plywood or other surface on top for a shelf. Voila! A small start for a layout.
Then find a real lumberyard and buy your lumber there so it is straight and good quality, not the cheap, curved stuff you'll find in a big-box store.
Last ChanceTrack patterns are either two around, oval, figure 8, out and back, dog bone, folded dogbone.... simple stuff.
There are, of course, a lot of other track plan possibilities.
I mean, with the given space and the part of the line I am looking at, what would be the best use of space for the given shape of the room.
rtprimus I mean, with the given space and the part of the line I am looking at, what would be the best use of space for the given shape of the room.
Fairly standard N scale basic shelf layout with central peninsula in a 11 x 11 foot room, turnback curves having 12" radius (24" diameter), allowing 30" for main aisles.
Room for quite a LDEs (Layout Design Elements - scenes based on prototype locations) that space. You would have at least 4 fairly large scenes that you can view independent of other scenes - left wall, right side of peninsula, left side of peninsule, right wall.
Can be done in many other ways - but think scenes, not layout shape. First you decide what you want to depict, then you figure out how you can fit it into the room.
Look up the specs for N-Trak modules. Ought to be on the web somewhere. If you build a modular layout you can take it with you when you move. In HO, my club does a set of 2 by 4 foot modules that bolt together. We can set the whole thing up in a couple of hours. The modules all have folding or removable legs and the wiring plugs together. Even if you have to cut some track and snip some wires when you do move, no matter, you can always splice things together at the new location.
The N-Trak people have a standard module size that allows any number of modelers the just plug their modules together. Was it me, I'd look up the standard and make my modules compliant just in case I met a bunch of N-trakkers some time in the future.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
ok, I have been looking at maps, but, I need some facts about the N&W. Namely, I ideas on what I can model or think about building from Point A to Point B.
So, here is the towns I am planing on starting from the west end to the east end of the run
West
Farmville, burkeville, Crewe, blackstone, Petersburg-Hopewell, Waverly, Wakefield, Sulfolk.
Now, I know some of the stops, and what I can put or SHOULD put. Yard and roundhouse at Crewe, Fort Picket at Blackstone. Peanuts in Waverly/Wakefield. Im from Petersburg area, and know what I want there. But, the rest is blank for me.. My Goal is to be able to railfan the trans as they run, but also work the yard, and run trains to each town and switch they towns. I already know I am have to go with a 2 level layout...
So, ideas? I am hoping to get some ideas and MAYBE, get a track plan done wiht in the next few weeks.
Look at some track plans for layouts that fit your area. Ignore the name of the layout or its setting. That doesn't matter. Once you find a SIMPLE trackplan that fits your available space and operating inclinations, then you can start putting on industries that fit your prototype and naming things for your local area.
Operate your layout for a while. Enjoy it. But realize its not a permanent committment. You will not keep it forever. And that's OK. Use it to practice techniques on. Actually its very liberating. If you add something and it works or looks the way you want it, you can say that you have that aspect nailed down. If it turns out badly, you don't have to worry, its not your "permanent" layout, you'll do it better on the next layout you build.
Have fun and get started. I have had several temporary layouts that were nothing more than a switching area, a loop of track and a siding on the other side of the loop for staging. those layouts lived only as long as it took me to plan out the "real" layout and build to the point where I had to disassemble the temprary layout. The track, benchwork and structures got recycled into the new layout.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Im familiar with that part of Virginia. Ive run Peanuts, Mulch and other Foodproducts into and out of that area spanning Chase City all the way to Norfolk along that part of the State.
Take a pencil. Draw a standard rectangle on paper. Then draw a standard oval loop of track onto that paper.
Now. Draw a + in the middle of that simple layout plan on the paper. That is your North Pole.
The inside rail is now the North Rail and the outside rail is the south rail.
Suddenly you have the west to the left side of the plan and east to the right side.
Traffic going east bound will go counter clockwise.
You can place wakefield in one of the middle legs of the loop, put Norfolk on the right side and put... Roanoke or whatever to the Left side of the plan.
Now you can run traffic east from Roanoke through wakefield to Norfolk counter clockwise on the layout.
Here is some more advice on designing your own layout from the LDSIG (Layout Design Special Interest Group): http://www.macrodyn.com/ldsig/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Primer
Remember that a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. No matter what direction you start out in, you can always change course and try something else later, if your first try doesn't yield any material you can use as part of your design.
Now - in what direction do you intend to take your next step ?
- Do some more prototype research for a specific scene ? - Build a small test scene or loop (using e.g advice from the LDSIG primer) ? - Look at and copy a published track plan (in part or in whole) ? - Hire a pro to design it for you ? - Something else ?
Smile, Stein
I'm in the building stage still, its been almost a year now, my layout is large and in HO scale, Don't feel bad if you change direction on an idea you have, I've done this many times. I can stand there in one spot for hours on end and just think and measure until I get track, scenes, or building right.
Enjoy and have fune and do allot of reading like other poster's said.
Hi Stein, long time no see!
rtprimusI am a HUGE fan of the N&WRR. Already been to see old 611 in person, and saw her as a boy on what I think was one of her last fan trips back in the late 80's or earlyer 90's. I live in the Petersburg Va area and want to model the line in that area. So, call the line from Crewe or so to the east... I am a N scale lover and belive that will give me the most for my room. I also live in a apartment so, I till have to be built to move. I also love steam so, mid 1950s if my time frame!!
Okay - typical start of basic research.
http://www.google.com
Enter search term NW 611 - okay, we learn that the 611 is streamlined 4-8-4 engine, used for passenger traffic, supplanted in the late 1950s by diesel passenger engines - EMD E6, E7, E8s.
So - do you want to model passenger traffic primarily, or primarily freight ?
Back to http://www.google.com
Look up "Norfolk and Western". Okay - there is a historical society for the Norfolk and Western, web address http://www.nwhs.org/ - they probably can offer advice on where to learn more about the N&W in the 1950s, Bookmark that one.
Click on various links on that web site - okay, they have an archive with lots of drawings and pictures. Located in Roanoke.
The website has a collection of links to other sites: http://www.nwhs.org/other_sites2.html
One of the links lead to Virginia Tech's image database: http://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/search.php
Let's try a few of the names you listed in another post
rtprimus So, here is the towns I am planing on starting from the west end to the east end of the run West Farmville, burkeville, Crewe, blackstone, Petersburg-Hopewell, Waverly, Wakefield, Sulfolk. Now, I know some of the stops, and what I can put or SHOULD put. Yard and roundhouse at Crewe, Fort Picket at Blackstone. Peanuts in Waverly/Wakefield. Im from Petersburg area, and know what I want there. But, the rest is blank for me.. My Goal is to be able to railfan the trans as they run, but also work the yard, and run trains to each town and switch they towns. I already know I am have to go with a 2 level layout...
Okay, pick a town at random - Crewe. They have 63 historic images from Crewe, many of them showing railroad structures.
Here is one showing part of the yard at crewe on November 13th 1950: http://spec.lib.vt.edu/imagebase/norfolksouthern/full/nw864.jpg
There is another showing an icing house at Crewe - so Crewe had an icing house.
And so on and so forth.
Clicking on the "more information on picture", we learn that this picture is a part of a collection of Norfolk and Western pictures. Clicking on that link takes us to:
http://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/browse.php?folio_ID=/trans/nss
Lookie, lookie - about 10 000 historical Norfolk and Western photos. Bookmark site, start browsing.
Anyways, once you have looked at the prototype for inspiration, start thinking about recreating one scene. Don't try to cram in 8-9 towns on two levels right away. Especially not if you want to run long trains.
Pick one town - e.g. Crewe, if that should catch your fancy - it seems to be a town of moderate size, but where there was a yard and an icing house and a power house and RR maintenance buildings, ore trains passing through and what not - ie a place where switching took place.
Try to imagine an operating scene consisting of "points west" (west staging) - Crewe - "points east" (east staging).
Try to figure out (by googling, reading books, visiting the N&W historical society, whatever other way you can imagine) what kind of trains would come into Crewe from the east and what would happen with those trains in Crewe.
Would they be freight trains pulling long blocks of cars for far destinations ? Would they be passenger trains ? Coal drags ? A small 0-8-0 local switcher handling local industries ?
Would some trains just pass through ? Would some trains drop off a block of cars and continue going ? Would some trains originate or terminate in Crewe ? Would trains stop in Crewe to swap engines ? Would trains stop in Crewe to on coal or water ?
Maybe you will decide that Crewe wasn't that interesting anyways. So pick another town to research and go look for information on that town.
Look at pictures, decide what you like. Don't think "I will model the entire operation of many miles of railroad line, including 7 or 8 cities". You won't have space for everything. Pick one or a couple of scenes that inspire you and try to recreate the traffic that inspires you.
You can always extend your layout later. Or scrap it and start over, once you know what you like.
Anyways - there are *many* ways of getting started. Just pick one and try it out. If it doesn't work out, you can always backtrack and try something else instead.
Good luck with your layout.
well, after some head banging, I have come up wtih a idea.. granted, its a little on the large side of things, but I want that I want. I have not had a layout in pushin 5 years and I dont want to have to build a new with if I should haver to move again anytime soon.
It is going to buildt with 3 levels, with staging on the lower level. total main line, not counting the helx to each level will be just around 220 feet. All N scale. As I get it more layed down I will start posting it on there for your alls input.
I would suggest you go to your local big box lumber/hardware store (Lowes, Home Depot, etc) and buy a plain hollow core door 30" wide and two plastic folding saw horses. Set that up in your apartment some where that you can leave it up. Get some sectional track (no flex) with or without roadbed and experiment with different set ups. When you get something that you like add some buildings and see what changes you should make.
It's very difficult in a small space, even with N scale, to adequately replicate a railroad such as the N&W. So don't try for anything in particular just something that looks pleasing to you. You can always run N&W trains. As you gain experience/knowledge you'll find that you can little touches that say N&W such as signals, line side buildings, etc.
Enjoy
Paul