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[Anonymous]

I need some help friends... I just built a roomi n my garage (14 x 12). I want put in a layout.. HO scale Any one have a suggestion???

[Anonymous]

Well, My first suggestion would be to narrow Your question down to exactly what type of help You want..........How to build bench work?......Track planning? Electrical systems? how to lay roadbed? what brands of equipment to buy? what brands and types of scenery ? etc.........

Kalmbach Publishing Co. offers numerous informative books on any subject You might need, so You might want to start there..........Keep on trackin!

[bluepuma]

This question comes up often, the best answer is build what you know best or want to see in your model. The quest for modeling took me to looking at real railroads, tracks.

Looked at lots of trackplans, but hadn't seen those types of areas, no idea of how to scenic them. After hundreds of miles of driving, I have the scenes. I like towns along rivers, trains seem to fallow the rivers, streams.

I like town and country, farmland, want to have both.

I settled for the area I grew up in, the SP line closest to home. Should have ideas about what scenes you want to have, hills or other features. In that amount of space,
I'd want to do around the wall or like a big G or U, build the end parts on two tables
then expand them later. Point to Point with turnaround loops.

[CSXrules4eva]

I would say, in order to get yourself started. Ask yourself what type of model railroad do u want to build. Then go from there with track plans, wireing, acceries and such. I would also figure out wut kind of track u want to use, allong with what radius u want to use.

I started my model railway not knowing anything about laying out a platform. Then from there I just built as I went. I'm still building and adding things on now. Most of the guys I know of that have a model railway didn't plan anything out ahead of time, they just built.

[Anonymous]

It really is all about personal preference. Building your Layout is building your own idealized version of what railroading is to you.

Personally, I find myself modeling what I saw running the rails as a child. To me, that is my personal vision of railroading. I like wide open spaces with plenty of room to roam. But I also want industrial areas and would really like to model the Seattle waterfront someday.

Start with your vision of what you think railroading is and what interests you. After that, you can worry about the minutia or how to make it actually work. There are millions of “how to” books and people that will help you through the details.

WB