so I got a pictorial list of buildings and a 4x8 table to work with. I have a few switches, used and brand new, so Im trying to come up with something I can use the buildings, table, and the sectional track I have.
Here are the buildings
https://imgur.com/a/eBCe5RO
It's mostly town buildings and not industries, but there is a freight station and a passenger station.
My thought was to add a grain elevator or something to take hoppers, and build a small rural farming town out of it all, using the freight terminal, passenger station and the grain elevator for rail served. Im not sure where or when any of my buildings I have would be set, so that I would need help figuring out. It definitely seems earlier than I was originally planning with my BN locos, but I was planning on going earlier anyways so I can have the locos I want, which looks like CB&Q has all the ones I want (U25B, GP7, GE 44 Tonner, SW1 or similar) but since I am getting all new there, I do have a nice Santa Fe passenger train set I could use for the passengers, if that makes a difference.
Anyway, any help with where amd when I could set this up as?
A 4x8 and 15 buildings can make a nice layout. As stated, most of the structures are town buildings and not necessarily RR buildings. Depending on your track arrangement, basically the sky's the limit. Some of those structures could be converted to industrial with some kit bashing. You can feature a "main" street with just a few of them. A suggestion is all that's needed to convey a town.
One thing is if you want a grain elevator, what other industries are in context with that? Grain elevators usually feed flour mills, export docks, breweries, baking companies, cereal mfrs, etc.
Often in proximity to grain elevators are meat packers, so those can include stock yards. Small farm communities usually have a lumber yard, or a feed store (often connected to a grain elevator.
I think you can see the possibilities are endles. Hope some other folks chime in Because I didn't cover it all.
Jim (with a nod to Mies Van Der Rohe)
Wdodge0912 I do have a nice Santa Fe passenger train set I could use for the passengers, if that makes a difference.
I do have a nice Santa Fe passenger train set I could use for the passengers, if that makes a difference.
Rich
Alton Junction
Hi,
If you are not sure of what you want to build try growing a layout with what you have... I wrote in another British forum about "growing" a layout in one format but there are many plans you could "grow" with.
Have a read first of
http://yourmodelrailway.net/view_topic.php? id=10671&forum_id=6&highlight=sunil#p203627
and if the concept intrigues you, send me a private message using the messages box under your welcome banner in the upper right hand corner of this page. I can send you a copy of another growing your layout article to your email address... I'm not selling anything, it's all gratis!
Cheers from Australia
Trevor
Wdodge0912so I got a pictorial list of buildings and a 4x8 table to work with. I have a few switches, used and brand new, so Im trying to come up with something I can use the buildings, table, and the sectional track I have.
I get that you have stuff, and the more of that stuff you use, the less you'll have to spend. I am a person who has zero budget to work with--small fixed income and all that. But sooner or later you have to create a vision of what you want: Road name, era, and geographic location. If you do, then this question becomes simple. This engine/building/box car/etc. fits my vision this doesn't. Stuff that doesn't fit can be sold on eBay to finance stuff that does fit. You can build stuff you need for virtually nothing. Then, your decision becomes do I spend the time or do I spend the money,
These buildings I built out of popsicle sticks and coffee stirrers.
These buildings and engines fit for me, because my vision is of a layout set in 1895 in a Northern California Redwood logging town serviced by Southern Pacific and the ficticious Rock Ridge Railroad.
So, instead of adapting your vision or lack thereof to fit what you have. Adapt what you have to fit your vision. This also works for what you buy. If it doesn't fit your vision, don't buy it.
The sooner you do this, the less time and money you will waste. You will also have no need to keep asking us questions we can't answer because until you have your vison, we don't have enough information.
And you end up with a modge-podge of stuff that sorta works.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
SpaceMouse So, instead of adapting your vision or lack thereof to fit what you have. Adapt what you have to fit your vision. This also works for what you buy. If it doesn't fit your vision, don't buy it. The sooner you do this, the less time and money you will waste. You will also have no need to keep asking us questions we can't answer because until you have your vison, we don't have enough information.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXvaM7kSYQ4
Well, that's an eclectic selection of buildings, looks like the collection I had back in the late 1970s when I was starting out and had no idea what I was doing (as opposed to now, several decades later and still no idea what I am doing). I guess the late 1940s/1950s era would be you best bet for an era were all of those businesses could co-exist as you have them now (of course, you can always repurpose the builldings to more compatible industries for the era you pick) I had the small freight station (llighted!) from Tyco, the Bachmann Plasticville School House (which, if you look at it even a bit closely, is rather impractical), and a few other pieces, now gone - the Atlas Roadside Inn I just recently scraped in a storage room cleanup effort as my inexpert use of tube cement (smells like lemons to prevent kids from doing dumb things) made it not viable - I was able to salvage the cupola and the nice brick flowerbed walls.Pick an era, and consider what would fit into that era - for example, the legendary tyco freight house - by the early-1970s LCL freight (which used that type of building) was pretty much dead in the US, but railroads would repurpose such small freight houses as storage buildings, section houses, etc, usually boarding up unneeded windows and doors. That gas station looks to be of 1950s-1960s vintage which would not square well with the 'Railroad Hotel', so maybe repurpose the hotel as is (IIRC it's a generic IHC/MP building with the exterior porches tacked on - maybe get rid of the porches and make it a new business? that could work). In other words, just be ready to repurpose those buildings, if only with a paint job, some details, and new signs (except the Bachmann red schoolhouse - use it for target practice - unlike the Plasticville car dealership (Mirror Motors?) or even the motel, it cannot be made to look decent by any means known to mankind)I see someone actually used those 'Arlee' stations which were on a sheet of signs included with every - I think LifeLike - building kit, along with 'Rico' station and some others. I Forgot all about them.
so this is something I came up with. I'm not using all the buildings, but trying to base where and when on what I have. I would only need to get a grain silo or the fuel depot for this idea, the "main" industry being front and center on the layout. I haven't decided yet. But with the buildings I have, I think it would fit well in the 50s or 60s I think, somewhere in the midwest (Iowa?). My locos I have now would be a bit out of time or place, but I plan to get different ones anyways and can make them fit to the era than, since I don't have a particular connection to any.
And before the comments of short train cars and 4 axle diesels get brought up, that's all I want. a GE44 ton, a SW7 (or similar) a GP7 (Or similar) and a U25B. The passenger cars I have work well around 18" curves, so I think I'll see what lines have those freight locos and would have silver cars like Santa Fe would, and reletter them to that line and get a matching loco for them as well.
I figured with this layout, going with the fuel dealer, I could take in box cars and tankers. box cars to the freight station, tankers to the fuel depot. The factory could also take in box cars as well, unless there would be something else I could use to have them take in materials for manufacturing. Not sure exactly what I would have them make though. But then I figure the factory would also send out box cars of finished goods, and also have a gondola of scrap to go out every once in a while as well. The Grain Silo of course just changes the tankers to hoppers. I might go that route and have the factory also take a tanker of some sort of gas supply or something. I could split the fuel dealer/grain silo spur after the crossing and have both. i'm still playing around with it.
I'm not going for 100% realism, i'm going for 100% funtional and not trying to buy anything lol. as far as scenery goes, I'm going to paint the table, layout the cork roadbed and track, put the buildings down, paint on the road and river, and then go buy some premade trees to spread around. I might eventually raise it up and put the river in, but for now I'm jsut focused on making it seem somewhat plausable and getting it layed out and working.
Maybe something more like this to mix frieght up. does also give me a second interchange. Eventually I will be moving into a room and will do an around the room layout, but that's a few years away and I want to get something setup so I can run trains now.
I like the second one better.
If you're going to plant trees, the most likely place for them to be will be along your river. Even if you're not going to do your river now, at leasst the trees will be in the right place.
There are a lot of good videos on how to make trees and rivers on YouTube University, BTW. Neither one is no big thing.
Did you notice all your turnout go the same direction? You won't get bored as quickly if you point one in the other direction. You can put an industry in the upper left hand corner. If you expand, pull the industry and move it to your expansion.