Model Railroads

The kid in me loved the Christmas Airfix thread, but I got talking with my brother last night about model railroads, and I said that I suspected there were some on here that would be into them.

So if you are, would you care to show off your handiwork?

Pics please.

We’re not American! Railways dear boy.

Nothing worthy of photographing, but I have a 13×3′ layout under construction in the garage.

Railways.

[mutters]…bloody colonials….[/mutters]

the father of our dear departed friend Marsdenman had a lovely set-up in his garden

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/dads-garden-model-railway

RIP Chris. Gone but not forgotten. Brought a tear to my eye remembering that

Sorry. Railways.

Alas, I didn’t see the error until the edit window had closed. I confess, I grew up in Canada.

😳

No Photo’s but when I was a youngster I had a Hornby Intercity railway track on a board that slid under the bed It had a simple loop layout with some points for a diversion line along one of the straight sections & one section of sidings.

I used to love playing with it, even though in reality it wasn’t particularly interactive.

A good friend of mine at school had a decent train set in his spare room. It took up most of the room, so must have been getting on for 9×5′. It was properly landscaped with a variety of track options, elevation changes & tunnels.
He was disabled & in a wheelchair, so all the points were electrified. He had a mini track-layout with contacts for all the points, so when you dibbed a little pointer on the contacts it would change over those points.
Now that was a great train set.

We’re not American!

He is though. Practically.

Just brilliant!

I consider SaxonRider a citizen of the world.

It’s still railway though.
🙂

And yes, boxes of the stuff, idea is to set up a layout in the garage, extending around the walls on some purpose built shelving.

Obviously not a loop, but possibly a couple of levels.

Mostly blood and custard era BR with a few odd GWR bits and bobs.

Some excellent videos here

This is mine in it’s current state, used more as a flat surface to put things 😳

Untitled by njee20[/url], on Flickr

I should stop buying EWS 66s, I’ve got 3 more too

Untitled by njee20[/url], on Flickr

Control panel, all points are servo controlled:
Untitled by njee20[/url], on Flickr

I have too much stock, this is less than half of it:

Untitled by njee20[/url], on Flickr

I enjoy it, not particularly cheap these days, but stuff holds its value amazingly, so I don’t mind taking a punt on things as I know I can sell for what I paid (if not more), in fact I have a fairly healthy side income buying stock, detailing it and selling on for a profit.

Not anymore – but our model railway as kids was bought of local club. It was scale model of Armathwaite on Settle-Carlisle. 30′ x 16’….
Now residing at Alston railway museum.

njee20. mint! what track are you using?

Got a 4′ x 4′ OO gauge layout under the bed in the spare room as a bit of a test to get me back into it after enjoying model railways when I was a kid. My kids love it and already getting ideas for my next one which will be digital with sound but due to time/space will be a micro layout.

I’ve got a model slate quarry in the shop museum:

click for video

I didn’t build it, though.

Njee, I never had you down as someone who would be into model railways 😉 just shows how the internet can give the wrong impression!

Top effort, would love to see that fully completed and operational, looks ace!

njee20. mint! what track are you using?

Thanks! It’s all Peco code 55, which has been faultless (my dodgy track laying aside). I flirted with building my own, but I’m too impatient and just want to play trains! 😳

The curves are all superelevated too, so stuff leans into the corners slightly, looks good if I do say so myself!

Untitled by njee20[/url], on Flickr

Top effort, would love to see that fully completed and operational, looks ace!

I’m way more geeky than I’d otherwise let on 🙂 I’m quite motivated to work on it at the moment, having a 5 month old son and trying to get fit again get in the way, which is really annoying! I’ve got a couple more points to wire up, then onto the signals. Using Arduinos and IR sensors to have automatic signals, installed one to check the detectors worked, pretty cool!

@Saxon Rider; surely every model railway is a bit loopy?

Not got a model railway, but I did go to Pecorama in Beer, Devon last week.

They had some nice stuff. Me and my lad bought some Airfix Mitsubishi Zeros I’m the on site model shop.

We have an 8*4 00 trainset. Built for the kids who are now more concerned with the Xbox. Not sure I can link a pic from Google drive buts it’s still a work in progress after 3 years. I buy the engines and the kids buy the trucks. I don’t know how much life it has left as a family pastime.

N gauge for me too, like njee. I did have a layout in the attic but mice ate it. This is its replacement, which lives on top of our wardrobe. It’s about 10ftx2.5ft, so not large. That’s the major advantage of N gauge to me. It’s about done. If we move house I’ve got it in my mind to make one of some sidings in the Hope Valley in a crate a piece of art came in.

It’s based on Newtonmore, if it had a distillery and they’d retained their sidings. It’s set up so I can switch between 1948, the early 90’s and around 2014.

Great stuff. Got all my old Hornby up in the loft ready to unleash when my boy is old enough. He’s train mad so should be fun. 8)

My stuff is late 70’s through to early 90’s BR mainly. Picked up a Network Southeast livery class 87 a while back to replace the one my mates mum sold by accident bitd.

Unfortunately, I have nothing to show for my childhood, but all my stuff was HO scale, and North American based. I did find two pics on line of my two favourite engines, though.

Canadian Pacific Railways:

and this nod to my (former) neighbour to the South, Santa Fe:

No layout but a couple of oo gauge models my dad scratch built. He also did bigger stuff; a couple are in the train musesum in York & he did a few sit on layouts in gardens for customers, back in the late ’70s/early ’80s.

Recently got back into the hobby and starting on a project to recreate the Devils Dyke railway station on the southdowns. If you live down this way there a far chance you never knew there was ever a railway up there, but there was. Fairly bleak by southern standards.

The bits i enjoy about the hobby are the historical research and then the actual modeling/crafting.

had trouble uploading photos but here goes. Devils dyke station in it’s “heyday “circa 1911

[/url]1911 Circa by andy constable[/url], on Flickr[/img]

Clearly not much traffic expected – circa late 1930’s just before closure

[/url]THE DYKE RAILWAY by andy constable[/url], on Flickr[/img]

some of my work

[/url]DSC03258 by andy constable[/url], on Flickr[/img]

Thanks! It’s all Peco code 55

I dropped in to the exhibition at Locomotion in Shildon at the weekend. A guy was showing a layout using Peco code 55, all beautifully ballasted. It looked absolutely the mutt’s.

I started mine a few months ago, it’s loosely based on a fictional GWR Branchline station. I’ve left room to connect further layout sections in places, but I’m learning as I go along! It’s been great fun to be honest and it’s a long time since I did any scenery modelling (a la Games Workshop) in my youth, so it’s bringing back memories, particularly the smell of flock! Points are all Peco motors, I may put signals in but that might mean a bit of faff. Will probably look at that with future expansions. It’s a 6 x 4 layout, buildings are Scalescenes, I had used Metcalfes which are OK but not the level of realism I wanted without spending silly money. I do have a church as well but that’s a) huge and b) packed away. It may have to go on to an additional section. This all started because we bought Hornbys Santa Express to go on the Christmas tree. This obviously meant I was allowed a train set and it’s run from there!

Some great looking layouts above!

I dropped in to the exhibition at Locomotion in Shildon at the weekend. A guy was showing a layout using Peco code 55, all beautifully ballasted. It looked absolutely the mutt’s.

You can tell, comparing njee’s code 55 to my code 80, just how much more realistic code 55 is. I’ll definitely do that next time.

Love the weathering on your wagon fisherboy! I’ve not dared do any of mine yet. Looking at your photo I assume you made that yourself?

The scalescenes kits look good BenjiM. Had you made anything like that before? I’ve been relying on resin buildings but the cost of them is pretty high, even secondhand (which is how I get mine).

I also have a US layout, set in Minnesota. My wife’s grandfather gave me some of his stuff, which is all Great Northern US stock as they live in rural Minnesota.

My Dad’s got a nice little layout coming along. Started as a 6×4 oval but it’s slowly been extended.

I’ve got a couple of locos. Would love to build my own layout in the garage but the wife says I spend enough time playing with the real ones

Mattbee those are stunning! About 50 years too early to me, but lovely work.

Munrobiker – yep, code 55 is superior all round, stronger, looks better, more versatile point geometry, more options in points and slips etc.

Thanks. The Manchester Regiment was his first scratch build, he used it as a promo when he set up his ‘business’ selling them. Usually bespoke for collectors, building them what they wanted.
The others are ones my sisters and I have tracked down over the years and bought back from collectors, apart from the Great Western saddle engine that a Canadian collector sent me as a gift when he heard my dad had passed away back in the ’80s, after he’d enquiries about having something commissioned.
I’ve always been more of an aircraft model person than a railway one but I can appreciate the effort that goes into modelling the layouts. It’s often beautiful work.

The scalescenes kits look good BenjiM. Had you made anything like that before?

As above always done models plains/miniatures but trains actually do something and the wife approves! I sued to scratch build buildings for wargaming when I was in my early teens but haven’t got the time to scratch build anymore so the scalescenes kits work well. Nice to sit and listyen to a debat on you tube or something and knock one up of an evening.

The Scalescenes kits aren’t bad, they’re pretty intricate, which is good insofar as the detail is good, but can be very fiddly to make. Cheap though! Buy one, try it out, if it goes wrong print it and try it again!

Only done N gauge ones, in OO they’d be easier I’m sure.

My railways were constructed in the garden, through cuttings in wild garlic. Twigs were a major export, and shortbread fingers imported.

Those photos are amazing… There’s something about the look, everyone just instinctively knows what a model railway ought to look like, that slightly stylised, not-photo-real-but-model-train-real thing, it’s just so right. Lovely.

My railways were constructed in the garden, through cuttings in wild garlic. Twigs were a major export, and shortbread fingers imported.

The twig economy.

Those photos are amazing… There’s something about the look, everyone just instinctively knows what a model railway ought to look like, that slightly stylised, not-photo-real-but-model-train-real thing, it’s just so right. Lovely.

This[/url] is incredible for having some genuine “is that a model, or not…?” photos:

njee20, those are breath-taking!

There’s another in the thread that I genuinely couldn’t decide if it was real or model, so didn’t post 😳

Obviously I can take no credit for those whatsoever, purely an admirer! It’s the northern end of Edinburgh Waverley station for anyone who knows it. There are some overall photos of the layout in the thread and it’s actually a bit underwhelming, the illusion is shattered entirely!

It’s interesting the numbers of layouts I’ve admired extensively online, only to be a bit disappointed when you see them in real life. As a series of ‘staged’ cameos in photos they often work better than the sum of the parts when you stand back and look.

If you are interested in North American railways then anything by Pelle Søeborg is worth a look, he has a famous Union Pacific layout set in the Mojave desert which is stunning.

The second one down with the class 25 (???) heading towards the station is fantastic. Know what you mean though – its difficult when you see a layout in a badly lit sports hall or something to get the same kind of feeling as in some photos.