Model Railway Layout Ideas

30 Awesome Photos That Look Like Model Trains

August 3, 2011 By Danny Ashton Leave a Comment

Looking for some inspiration for your model train sets? These photographs can really trick your eye and make you think you’re looking at H0 scale models – exquisite ones, if you consider the realistic details. But take a closer look: they are real trains!

Photographed or processed with a tilt-shift effect, real-life landscapes convey the feeling of macro photography. And isn’t that close to the great dream of turning real trains into toys?

1. Miniature Commuter Rail by Paul Nicholson

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2. Tilt Shift Train by The Fox and The Polar Bear

Original photo taken from a bridge, just outside of Chepstow on the England / Wales Border.

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14. Model Berlin by zimdollar

A model of Berlin with a tiny train system.
Or..
Simple "fake model" photoninja’ing, with a gradient lens blur and a bit of masking.

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15. by FilipR8

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16. Miniature Shinagawa by architrex12249

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17. Miniature Budapest by hoving

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18. City Toys by DesteN

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19. Train19 by FilipR8

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20. Train33 by ~FilipR8

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21. Snowdon Train by nevyn

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22. Tilt-Shift Tokyo

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23. Bluebell Railway Tilt-Shif by Darren Hendley

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24. Tiny Train by ichigo-55ty

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25. Train2 by FilipR8

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26. Old Steam Train by Aussiegall

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27. Incredible Tilt-Shift by Josh Mock

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28. by Vitaloverdose

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29. Canadian Pacific by delawarm

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30. by sinkdd

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Model Railway Layout: Backdrop Making

March 12, 2011 By Danny Ashton Leave a Comment

Backdrop is very important when you have a wall-hugging type layout and shelf type layout because it will create a proper environment and enhance your layout’s scenery.

Backdrop is also used by others even if they have a tabletop or freestanding layout. Backdrop creates an illusion of scenery that extends in an infinite environment.

Making a backdrop is not really difficult as you think, but not too easy. It will take you a tiny effort and a little time to make a perfect one.

If you have a wall-hugging layout, you may want to hide the corners of the room because the corners of the room are not realistic to be used as a scene. You can use hardboard and attach it to the walls that extend from the layout to the ceiling. Make sure that you use hardboard that is flexible enough to make a good rounded area. After you placed the hardboards, use a spackling compound and drywall tape to cover the seams. Sand the seams once the compound dries to make a nice flat surface.

After sanding the seams, next is painting your backdrop with any scenery you desire. It may be clouds, ocean, forest and etc. If you don’t want to paint because it is messy, then you can have printed scenery using your own photographs or you can mix the painting and the printed scenery.

Filed Under: Backdrop, Model Railway Layout Ideas Tagged With: Backdrop, Model Railway Layout, Scenery

Planning Model Railroad Benchwork

March 9, 2011 By Danny Ashton Leave a Comment

Building and designing benchwork for your model railroad is a must after you have the knowledge about your trackplan and theme. Before you continue, you should have a blueprint in mind.

Model railroad benchwork planning

In designing your model railroad benchwork, you may use grid paper in scaling your plan or use computer to virtually plan your benchwork instead. To check if the tracks really fit your general plan, you can lightly lay out several tracks on the floor to check if it really fits. If it will not fit, then you can change or resize your trackplan.

Even if you already checked and completed your benchwork carefully for many times, you will still encounter some minor problems like misfits. Planning ahead of time however, will help you prevent from encountering major problems.

Some people use different techniques in planning their benchwork. They use the available space they have and figure out the size of their plan based on it. By the way, there is no rule of building the benchwork.

Filed Under: Benchwork, Model Railway Layout Ideas, Software, Theme Tagged With: Benchwork, Model Railway Layout

Theme For Model Railway Layout Design

March 8, 2011 By Danny Ashton Leave a Comment

To have a very good Model Railway Layout Design, you need to plan on what theme you want to use regardless of what size your model will be.

Here are some examples that you may want to use:

- A logging layout with freight locos moving small chunks of wood to lumber distributors, paper mills, or furniture stores and shay locomotives carrying logs to sawmills from the camp of forest logging.

- Coal mining trains that carries coal through the Mountains from the mines to steel mills and power companies to power industrial and residential areas.

- A train that transport eggs and milk from farms to local market.

- Passenger trains that transport people from their house to the workplace, shopping areas, towns and cities.

- Trains that carry wheat, corns, and rice to the mills and stores.

- Trains that carry cars or motorcycles to the local automotive distributors.

Themes give your model a sense of reality and purpose so that you will not get bored.

Filed Under: Model Railway Layout Ideas, Theme Tagged With: Model Railway Layout, Theme

Software For Model Railroad

March 5, 2011 By Danny Ashton Leave a Comment

There are many brands of commercial model railroad software available that can be used to help plan your layout. There are fundamentally two types of software, the Computer simulation programs and the Model railroad track planning software.

Choosing which type of model railroad software to use depends on what are your ultimate goals and how much time you want to spend on your computer. Planning your railroad layout on your computer gives you a techie feeling and makes your planning organized and easy. You can even exactly determine the cost and quantity of the materials to use. A lot of these software programs let you simulate your layout by displaying virtual trains and railway operating on the screen helping you redesign the layout if you encounter problems.

Use the planning software if you don’t have the space or time to actually build your model layout. You will also save a lot of money since the cost for errors in designing will only happen on the virtual world.

Some of the software is very powerful in designing railroad layouts but complicated for beginners. Other softwares are easy to use but not that powerful in designing complicated layouts. Once you master the software, you will enjoy designing complicated layouts.

If you want to download Model Railroad Softwares, visit this site. The site provides some free and paid softwares.

Filed Under: Do-It-Yoursef, Model Railway Layout Ideas, Software Tagged With: Model Railway Layout, Software

HO Scale Model Train Layouts

February 26, 2011 By Danny Ashton Leave a Comment

HO Scale Model Train Layouts are today’s most popular sets. The scale 1:87 appears to be the most favorite set for most hobbyist and households.

There are many manufacturers who manufacture accessories and trains of HO scale because of its popularity. With HO scale layout, you can create almost anything like people, cars, and every imaginable building. The cost of the HO scale accessories is moderate because of its popularity and mass production.

Different kinds of available track are the HO scale’s big advantage. As a good conductor of electricity, brass track is used traditionally. But today, nickel-silver alloy are used by the manufacturers in building their model railway layout tracks. To create a realistic looking track, Flexitrack was introduced for HO.

There are a lot of available starter kits that you can buy over at your local store and the internet. So, if you are a beginner in making railway layouts, HO is the suggested scale for you.

Filed Under: HO Scale, Model Railway Layout Ideas Tagged With: HO Scale, Layout, Model, Railway

Options In Making Model Railway Table

February 24, 2011 By Danny Ashton Leave a Comment

After you finish designing your model railway layout, you need to have a table where you can place the scenery, train and the track. When your layout is big, the center and sides of the table must be accessible and the underneath should have a space for the electrical wires.

The table should be strong so that it can carry the weight of your model railway layout. If you like to bring and display it anywhere for the public to see, then build it easy to disassemble and assemble. Below are some of the common model railway designs.

Sawhorse Table – The sawhorse is suitable for beginners. Just lay a plywood piece across a couple of sawhorses to make a table. This table allows easy access for the builder. It is also easy to work with when you are using paper mache landscape. The disadvantages of this table are its difficulty in disassembling, not so pretty to look at and unstable.

Indoor Sports Table – In this table, you can use your old pool and dining table thus making it inexpensive to build.

Wooden Pallets – This is like the sawhorse table but much more adaptable and sturdy. Table skirt is used to cover the raw edges. The room underneath is enough to run the electrical wirings.

Custom-built Tables – This is like a freestyle table and is for advanced builder. You can build it in any design and material you want. You can also make it fixed or easy to disassemble.

Filed Under: Model Railway Layout Ideas, Table Tagged With: Layout, Railway, Table

Realistic Trees For Your Model Railway Layout

February 23, 2011 By Danny Ashton Leave a Comment

Making a railway layout means scaling down your train to replicate the large scale model. It also means that you will also scale down the environment or scenery to the same ratio as the train from the original size. Trees are commonly used to copy the real world. In making these miniature trees, real trees and plants are usually used. Australian gum is one of the known trees used.

Shrubs like the “Heavenly Bamboo” can be used also as a replacement for the Australian gum as suggested by the horticulturist daughter-in-law of one of the modeler.

When the heavenly bamboo finish flowering, the flower heads will look like a tree without their leaves. This would be an ideal material for the miniature trees.

The miniature trees are commonly dipped in a fifty-fifty mixture of water and glue. Depending on how small is your model, you can cut and trim the small flower head branches.

After it is trimmed and cut, it will look like a tree without its leaves. You can apply now your imagination and customize your tree into many different tree species.

Nandinapygmaea4

Filed Under: Model Railway Layout Ideas, Scenery Tagged With: Layout, Model, Railway, Trees

Naming Your Model Railway Layout

February 22, 2011 By Danny Ashton Leave a Comment

Designing and building model railway layouts are a fun-filled and interesting hobby especially to those who love history because you can recreate the scenes in the early world. The real fun starts when you are planning the fine details of your layout like the trees and grasses. By doing so, you created a special or emotional attachment to your model layout. You start giving them a name like it is your pet dog or cat.

Need a name for your layout? It is easy to give names if your model railway layout is patterned from a town or scene in the real world. So what if your layout came from your imagination and is fictitious layout not patterned to the real world scene? This is the problem asked by VSneader2. He just can’t come up with anything that sounds good.

Since his model railway layout is a fictitious scene, he must also give it a fictitious name. Naming your railway layout has no rules. You name it anything you want since it’s yours.

Filed Under: Model Railway Layout Ideas Tagged With: Layout, Model, Railway, Scene

Guide In Designing A Model Railway Layout

February 21, 2011 By Danny Ashton Leave a Comment

Designing a model railway layout is very fulfilling for both children and adults. In fact, it is a lifelong hobby for many model train enthusiasts. When you consider all of the involved elements, designing a layout can be a little complex. So, what is a railway layout? As mentioned in Essortment “Hobby and Toys Designing Your Model Train Layout”, a layout is fundamentally a stage setting for the train or the scenery to mimic the city, jungle, countryside and many other settings you can imagine.

When designing a model railway layout, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself.

What setting or scenery do you want for your train? Do you want a busy city, jungle, or countryside? You can also make your own fantasy world. Your imagination is the limit.
How big is the model railway layout you want to make? How big is the area of your house where you want to place the model?
Do you have the skill to use the needed tools in building and designing the layout? Do you have the budget in making one or do you have the tools needed?

If your answer is YES to all of the questions above, then you are now on the next step in designing your very own model railway layout!

Then you must figure out on how you are going to put the layout together and research on where to get the necessary items needed.

After you finish your design, you can make any necessary changes or personalize your layout.

Filed Under: Model Railway Layout Ideas Tagged With: Guide, Layout, Model, Railway

1. Miniature Commuter Rail by Paul Nicholson

2. Tilt Shift Train by The Fox and The Polar Bear

3. by Rene Kleizen

4. Train Station by Brendan Skinner

5. Hauptbahnhof Hamburg by =Thomas=

6. Toy Train by rolohauck

7. WestCoast Express Miniturized by Tylerngram

8. Miniature or real? by ja.vroegop

9. Tilt Shift Train by BnBattaglia

10. Toy Train on Bridge by emsox

11. The Toy Train by oneindigo

12. by xxsilenexx

13. by jimspokat

14. Model Berlin by zimdollar

15. by FilipR8

16. Miniature Shinagawa by architrex12249

17. Miniature Budapest by hoving

18. City Toys by DesteN

19. Train19 by FilipR8

20. Train33 by ~FilipR8

21. Snowdon Train by nevyn

22. Tilt-Shift Tokyo

23. Bluebell Railway Tilt-Shif by Darren Hendley

24. Tiny Train by ichigo-55ty

25. Train2 by FilipR8

26. Old Steam Train by Aussiegall

27. Incredible Tilt-Shift by Josh Mock

28. by Vitaloverdose

29. Canadian Pacific by delawarm

30. by sinkdd

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