dstarr Starting from what you have, have you considered:1. Building a few structures? For instance, a gas station, a passenger station, a freight house, a factory, an oil terminal, a house, a store, a church, a school, a warehouse, a bridge, or engine house. Decent structures can be scratch built from cardstock for little money. With a color printer you can run off brick sideing, windows, lots of details. Place each structure on a base of plywood or masonite or foam board and then you can rearrange your structures as you rearrange your track plan.2. Build storage shelving to fit under the layout.3. Try for some three dimensional land forms. Scrounge some building foam and carve hills, ridges, mountains, embankments, what ever. The foam carves easily with a steak knife, (also just about any wood working tool). The idea is to break up the dead flatness of the table. You can leave the foam contours unglued permitting track changes. 4. Make a viewblock that divides the layout into two scenes. Run it down the center of the table. Cover it with a pre printed backdrop or try your hand painting a backdrop. Plenty of backdrops are just a blue sky with some white clouds floating in it. Trains pass thru the view block using tunnel entrances.5. Repaint some freight cars. A spray can of red auto primer gives a fine box car red. Add decals for your favorite road and watch a low end car turn into something pretty nice. 6. Make some loads for your hopper cars. Cut a piece of soft pine to fit the open top of the car. Carve the top round like a coal pile. Paint it black, and then cover it with HO scale coal secured with Elmer's glue all.
Starting from what you have, have you considered:
1. Building a few structures? For instance, a gas station, a passenger station, a freight house, a factory, an oil terminal, a house, a store, a church, a school, a warehouse, a bridge, or engine house. Decent structures can be scratch built from cardstock for little money. With a color printer you can run off brick sideing, windows, lots of details. Place each structure on a base of plywood or masonite or foam board and then you can rearrange your structures as you rearrange your track plan.
2. Build storage shelving to fit under the layout.
3. Try for some three dimensional land forms. Scrounge some building foam and carve hills, ridges, mountains, embankments, what ever. The foam carves easily with a steak knife, (also just about any wood working tool). The idea is to break up the dead flatness of the table. You can leave the foam contours unglued permitting track changes.
4. Make a viewblock that divides the layout into two scenes. Run it down the center of the table. Cover it with a pre printed backdrop or try your hand painting a backdrop. Plenty of backdrops are just a blue sky with some white clouds floating in it. Trains pass thru the view block using tunnel entrances.
5. Repaint some freight cars. A spray can of red auto primer gives a fine box car red. Add decals for your favorite road and watch a low end car turn into something pretty nice.
6. Make some loads for your hopper cars. Cut a piece of soft pine to fit the open top of the car. Carve the top round like a coal pile. Paint it black, and then cover it with HO scale coal secured with Elmer's glue all.
Ok, first off: your list off buildings that you made, I planed on adding some of them, next I've been wondering how to store all my cars and locos that I'm not operating, next thing I've been thinking of using the news paper and plaster cloth meadthod.( OK I know I spelled that rong, I'll finish later I g2g eat)
Been Nothing Since Frisco (BNSF)Ok, first off: your list off buildings that you made. I planned on adding some of them. Next I've been wondering how to store all my cars and locos that I'm not operating. I've been thinking of using the news paper and plaster cloth method to build my hills.
Here's some help with the spelling and grammer...
I used newspaper and plaster cloth on my mountains, and it worked well. Just be sure to cover the floor and wear old clothes, as plaster drips everywhere!
To store equipment I'm not using, I have an old chest of drawers that I added felt to the drawer bottoms. The equipment goes on it's side so it won't tip over when you open the drawers. I can store plenty of equipment in these.
If you don't have space or can't find the needed materials, you could use an old bookcase (a small one works great underneath the layout) and place the equipment upright parallel to the front edge so if it rolls, it will hit the end walls rather than the floor. I used a short (about 3 feet tall) bookcase on a previous layout to store rolling stock on.
TrainManTy Been Nothing Since Frisco (BNSF)Ok, first off: your list off buildings that you made. I planned on adding some of them. Next I've been wondering how to store all my cars and locos that I'm not operating. I've been thinking of using the news paper and plaster cloth method to build my hills. Here's some help with the spelling and grammer... I used newspaper and plaster cloth on my mountains, and it worked well. Just be sure to cover the floor and wear old clothes, as plaster drips everywhere! To store equipment I'm not using, I have an old chest of drawers that I added felt to the drawer bottoms. The equipment goes on it's side so it won't tip over when you open the drawers. I can store plenty of equipment in these. If you don't have space or can't find the needed materials, you could use an old bookcase (a small one works great underneath the layout) and place the equipment upright parallel to the front edge so if it rolls, it will hit the end walls rather than the floor. I used a short (about 3 feet tall) bookcase on a previous layout to store rolling stock on.
For clothes, also do that when you're playing w/ latex paint for ground cover if you do that or any other scenery method (also when hand-painting something, don't ask). I just have a pair of jeans that I already spilled model paint on (the don't ask thing) and an old Packers t-shirt that's a little tight. Also, to cover the floor, maybe some old towels your mom was about to throw out to the garage or something (newspaper works good to). To store my rolling stock and locos I have a little set of plastic drawers that you can get at Target, Wal-mart, Staples etc. that they market as things to help organize your desk.
Sawyer Berry
Clemson University c/o 2018
Building a protolanced industrial park layout
Packers#1TrainManTyI used newspaper and plaster cloth on my mountains, and it worked well. Just be sure to cover the floor and wear old clothes, as plaster drips everywhere! To store equipment I'm not using, I have an old chest of drawers that I added felt to the drawer bottoms. The equipment goes on it's side so it won't tip over when you open the drawers. I can store plenty of equipment in these. If you don't have space or can't find the needed materials, you could use an old bookcase (a small one works great underneath the layout) and place the equipment upright parallel to the front edge so if it rolls, it will hit the end walls rather than the floor. I used a short (about 3 feet tall) bookcase on a previous layout to store rolling stock on. For clothes, also do that when you're playing w/ latex paint for ground cover if you do that or any other scenery method (also when hand-painting something, don't ask). I just have a pair of jeans that I already spilled model paint on (the don't ask thing) and an old Packers t-shirt that's a little tight. Also, to cover the floor, maybe some old towels your mom was about to throw out to the garage or something (newspaper works good to). To store my rolling stock and locos I have a little set of plastic drawers that you can get at Target, Wal-mart, Staples etc. that they market as things to help organize your desk.
TrainManTyI used newspaper and plaster cloth on my mountains, and it worked well. Just be sure to cover the floor and wear old clothes, as plaster drips everywhere! To store equipment I'm not using, I have an old chest of drawers that I added felt to the drawer bottoms. The equipment goes on it's side so it won't tip over when you open the drawers. I can store plenty of equipment in these. If you don't have space or can't find the needed materials, you could use an old bookcase (a small one works great underneath the layout) and place the equipment upright parallel to the front edge so if it rolls, it will hit the end walls rather than the floor. I used a short (about 3 feet tall) bookcase on a previous layout to store rolling stock on.
Ok, It looks like you guise covered some of the info I need for my layout, as far as clothes go I help my dad on the farm so I got work clothes that I can use for the mountain if I put one in.
Ok, now that I have my sidings constructed, I realize that I dont have an 4 axle road power and the loop that takes the loco from siding 1 to 2,3 and 4 uses 18"R curves and 6axis doesn't work with that very good and it dont cooperate with the switches in a spot, I do have steam power that works on 18"R but none of them have working front coplers and I looked and I cant put operating ones in them.
As to tracklaying: in its most raw form, the term does describe placing any track upon a prepared surface, but BNSF, this is what I spoke of earlier. As your financial and skill sets grow, try replacing the prefab track with coark or foam roadbed and Atlas flex track. It is a scary proposition sometimes, to convert to something else, but you then are on the road to improving your modeling skills, since tracklaying in its most refined form elevates to such things as handlaying track, which I do not know if you have ever tried, and would not recommend without a lot of study and experimenting on a separate secene or area.
Layout size should not be an important factor in your enjoyment of the hobby. It certainly hasn't been for me.
You have a track plan worthy of making some small changes to include more prototypical operation with an inustry spur or two if that is what you want to be into, and as a display layout it provides excellent opportunities for photography. If you like the Frisco, as your handle implies, that road had a couple of open air engine spurs on it's old QA&P subsidiary that you could model without too much trouble.
I agree with most everyone else; model railroading encompasses structure building, detailing, and scenery work. You could take a section of your track (preferrably a single scrap piece that is not being used on the layout) and experiment with either paint or Woodland Scenics ballast to give it a little more texture and dull the sheen of the plastic. Yes I know it is already textured, but try a test section of a scrap piece......you will notice a huge change.
All of this encompasses the hobby, so don't get frustrated or bored. There are always things to do.
Been Nothing Since Frisco (BNSF)<snip>... I do have steam power that works on 18"R but none of them have working front coplers and I looked and I cant put operating ones in them.
Oh, but you can. it'll take a little work and ingenuity (not to mention some glue). I've added Kadee couplers to the fronts of some of my plastic locos. If your loco has a metal pilot, you'll probably need some files or something to clean it up enough to slip the kadee shank through.
-Dan
Builder of Bowser steam! Railimages Site
Newspaper and plaster is the traditional model railroading scenery solution. However, I've been doing landforms on my layout from foam. Less mess, no water, and it's easy. The foam comes from the lumber yard in 4 * 8 foot sheets, two inches thick. Just about any new house construction site will use the stuff and you can scrounge scraps for free. It sticks together with either foamboard adhesive or latex caulk. I carve it to shape using woodworking tools or just a saw edged bread knife. For taller hills, just stick a couple of pieces together.
What's more, the resulting hills and mountains can just be set on the layout, no glue. That way you can rearrange your track no problem. Just pick up the hills and such, redo the track, and set 'em down again in a new location. If necessary you can trim a hill or mountain so it fits in the new track plan.
The simpliest storage shelves are merely bricks and boards. Cut the boards to length and set them on bricks and presto, a storage shelf.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
NeO6874 BNSF -- you absolutely have time to build some rolling stock kits.
BNSF -- you absolutely have time to build some rolling stock kits.
Well, I guess I forgot, I had put together 6 walthers "classic kits" they were 49' quad hoppers and they were fun to put together and now their my best rolling rolling stock. (May haft to think about that scentence for a sec.)
dstarr Newspaper and plaster is the traditional model railroading scenery solution. However, I've been doing landforms on my layout from foam. Less mess, no water, and it's easy. The foam comes from the lumber yard in 4 * 8 foot sheets, two inches thick. Just about any new house construction site will use the stuff and you can scrounge scraps for free. It sticks together with either foamboard adhesive or latex caulk. I carve it to shape using woodworking tools or just a saw edged bread knife. For taller hills, just stick a couple of pieces together. What's more, the resulting hills and mountains can just be set on the layout, no glue. That way you can rearrange your track no problem. Just pick up the hills and such, redo the track, and set 'em down again in a new location. If necessary you can trim a hill or mountain so it fits in the new track plan.
I second using foam, and I second that it's great. There is mess, but then, it ain't in the form of plaster and water and that, but the shavings off of it if you use sandpaper to shape it. Just paint w/ latex paint, add ground turf, and presto, you have a decent hill (or other landform).
BNSF, might I suggest looking around on modeltrainstuff.com for a good 4 axle unit. You can get good locos there cheap, as well as anything else. Shipping might be a little higher for you than for me, because they're in Maryland and I'm in South Carolina, but they have prices that you can't beat. Also, look at the Atlas locos, they're the best for the money. Don't worry about the price, they cause you zero trouble and run like silk.
Well, I'm on modeltrainstuff right now, I found an Atlas that looks good but buy the time I add cars Its to much.
Been Nothing Since Frisco (BNSF) Well, I'm on modeltrainstuff right now, I found an Atlas that looks good but buy the time I add cars Its to much.
Well, get the loco, then save up and get cars later. Or, since you have one steam loco that can switch the industries, get the cars and get the Atlas later.