Ho Model Train Layout video
Video of a model train layout in HO scale
N Model Railroad
N Model Railroad scale is one of the other more popular train scales available. N is short for Nine, which is the gauge of the inside of the track, between the rails. Nine millimeters is the size of the track. These model railroads are much smaller than the more popular scales, but are ideal for people who may not have a lot of room, or would like to run very long trains, like passenger or freight cars. They are smaller and lighter, using less energy than larger scales.
N Model railroad trains are still very highly detailed, and in some cases more than larger models. These are also ideal for those enthusiasts who are tired of dealing with larger trains, and want something a little more complex. The layouts for these can be extremely intricate, but also small enough to make them portable. Portable train layouts you will usually find at some county fairs, and around the holidays when hobbyists set up their trains for the public to enjoy.
With the N model railroad scale, you can find all sorts of interesting accessories, from little prisoner or worker figurines, vehicles, and buildings. Just like larger scales, you can also find highly detailed scenery, and these can include real working lights and sounds. Some of the steam locomotives actually have real steam machines in them, and you can get some with sounds as well. The nice part about scenery for this scale is that you have two options for power. You can hook into your existing power supply, or many units are battery operated.
N model trains are small enough to fit almost anywhere, including a room or small apartment. There are many very complex layouts that will fit on one sheet of plywood, and can easily be moved around. You can find many examples of layouts in photos and video online. There are books and instructional videos to help beginners, as well as more experienced people.
Some people say that the problem with N model train is that there isn’t a wide range of products available, but this is not true. Sure, if you are looking to local outlets, there may not be that great of a selection, but by doing a simple search engine look online, you will find many different websites that specialize in nothing but N scale model train products and accessories, and sell them for very reasonable prices.
Bachmann actually makes a wide variety of N model railroad train sets, including the White Christmas Express, Set number 24016. It comes complete with enough track for a 34″x24″ oval, has a powerful steam locomotive with tender car, operating head light and two cars and a caboose. It also comes with the power pack and speed controller for under $100. This company also offers a wide selection of optional accessories for this and other N scale sets.
Lionel Model Train
Lionel model train has been around for over one hundred years and are among the largest and most popular model train companies. They are well known for their quality construction, durable trains, and attention to detail. They are heavier than other models, and are made in the “O” and “HO” scale, the most common and popular model train scale. They are ideal for use by children because of their durability and easy handling.
Chances are if you used to own a train, it was a lionel model train. They probably have the widest selection of complete starter sets than any other company, and often include many accessories. These sets are easy to build, fun to run, and have many options. Because they are heavier than other manufactures, they handle turns well, and for someone without much experience building layouts, they are very forgiving.
The first style that lionel model train can come in is ready to run sets. These sets are designed for the beginner, or kids, because all you have to do is set up the layout, plug in the power and you are set to go. There are kits called Shake-The-Box, which means that even though they need assembly, there are step by step instructions so anyone with even beginning skills can put them together. The most difficult is the Craftsman kits, which are highly detailed and complex and should only be used by the most experienced model train enthusiast.
There are many different lionel model train sets, from realistic replicas of the real thing to other train designs from popular movies, like the Hogwart’s train, or the Polar Express. These come with a variety of scenery and layout possibilities, and may have real working lamp posts, clock towers, and numerous musical offerings. They even have accessory packs, like lumber yards and industrial complexes. These packs can either be shipped ready to place, or in kits with prefabricated buildings that you put together.
The lionel model train has stood the test of time, even when this hobby dwindled in popularity, and then gained a come back. You can find these trains just about anywhere toys are sold, at hobby stores as well as many websites. Even though these trains may be a little more expensive than cheaper brands, Lionel stands behind every train, track, power supply and scenery they make and have a limited money back guarantee if you are not satisfied by their products.
When purchasing lionel model train products online, make sure that you shop around to get the best deal, and check with each retailer for any shipping charges or taxes. If you are new to the model rail road hobby, it would be a good idea to visit a local hobby shop first. Then you can see a variety of different offerings, and any questions you may have can be answered right away.
Model Steam Trains
Model Steam Trains are probably one of the most special parts of the model train hobby, because of how the steam locomotive shaped our country improved out way of life. Many model steam trains are made in the exact image as the real thing was, and in some cases, is the only representation of the original still in existence.
You can buy model steam trains complete or you can buy them in kits that you put together. There are even scales used not only in garden railroads, but also even larger models that that are actual real working engines. What a great idea for people who live in the country, and want a unique way to entertain guests. There real steam trains are real workhorses as well, and can haul a number of different loads, whether you want to feed your livestock, haul in the crops, or even transport materials to a construction site.
Other than this larger real working model steam trains, you will normally find your standard electric models. These may look like real steam trains, but their power is from electricity. Many do have smoke makers, and sound capabilities, which make them very realistic, and they may even have real moving parts. These highly detailed replicas are ideal for any indoor setting, and come with complete instructions on the care and maintenance of the smoke producing elements.
Usually with model steam trains, you can find scenery that is geared towards the early industrial era. You won’t find any modern racecars here, and if there are any motorized vehicles, it will be model “T” designs, or motorcycles. Many people use steam locomotives in their back yard layouts, and these can be quite fun to watch as they go by.
You can find model steam trains wherever other toy trains are sold, locally and through the internet. You can find complete starter sets, and some are rather reasonably priced. One of theme is the Little Joe Electric Steam Train Set, which includes a basic steam locomotive, no smoke or sound, two train cars and a caboose. You get enough Nickel-Silver track for a 19.5″x24.5″ oval, two buildings, and a handful of other scenery, including trees and light posts. You also get the controller and power pack, and all this can be your for under $60, if purchased online.
You can find this and many more products online, as well as at many local merchants. Model steam trains are also popular around the holidays, when they are presented in festive colors and may even include holiday music, light up scenery and well-detailed accessories. Many of these sets are in the “G” or “O” scale, which is fun to watch. There are many different layout designs, and you can see pictures and video, or you can even purchase a book with layouts and complete instruction.
If you really want to see some nice model steam trains, wait until the holidays. Train hobbyists use this time of the year to set up displays for all to see, and you can find these at recreation centers, or even some school gymnasiums.
Model Train Scenery
You have many options when it comes to model train scenery. The most popular and readily available options are in the O and HO scale. With larger scales you can even make your own scenery, like using recycled household items. Cans make good silos, and if you combine them with some scrap wood you can find for free at lumber yards or home improvement outlets, you can create a really nice water tower.
For gardens, there are many ideas for model train scenery available. This type of scenery will be made from materials that can stand up to all kinds of weather, and you can even combine your own plants and shrubs to create your own unique layouts. There are many examples that incorporate plaster molds, like Mount Rushmore, or some other famous landmark.
Some model train scenery comes already put together, but there are many DIY kits that have prefabricated pieces that you put together yourself. You can find individual pieces, like a fifties diner, or office building, but you can also find many complete scenes available as well. If you are looking for a mountain layout, you can find lumber yard kits complete with buildings, equipment, and even with lumber cars to add you your train set.
If you want really well detailed and proportioned model train scenery, you should stick to ones that are the same scale as your model train set. This way nothing looks out of place, the figures look like they can fit inside the train, and the buildings are the right size. Many of these scenes and landscapes are highly detailed and realistic representations.
If you want some really cool model train scenery, wait until around the holidays. Model train companies come out with all kinds of intricately detailed winter wonderlands with many optional accessories, like working clock towers, buildings that light up and play holiday tunes, and even working miniature lamp posts. You can find an assortment of many unique items online, like the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, and the Matterhorn, just to name a few.
With so many choices when it comes to model train scenery, it really is only limited by your imagination, available space, and budget. You can even find “Z” scale scenery, which is so small that a whole layout will fit on a small desk. You can see many different examples of layouts both online and in books. Make sure that if you are ordering lay out books, to buy ones that give other helpful hints, and give you complete materials lists of what you will need to do the layout. There are also instructional manuals on how to set up any layout right the first time.
Model Railway Trains
For many model railroad enthusiasts, one of their favorite things about the hobby is creating their own scenery for their trains. If you’ve only set up an oval track around the Christmas tree at the holidays every year, then you’re probably more than ready to construct something a little more creative and long lasting.
Everything begins with your benchwork. Model train hobbyists can choose between making their own foundation for their layouts or purchasing one which is already built. One of the advantages of buying a premade benchwork kit are that they are almost invariably sturdier than using a sheet of plywood on two sawhorses. These kits are also predrilled, precut and can easily be disassembled for portability.
Making your own allows you to create exactly the layout you’ve always envisioned, though it will require significantly more time and effort. Begin by making a design to follow when you actually build your layout – this should include how large the benchwork will be.
As you come up with your benchwork game plan, decide if you’ll want to add to your layout later on and how much space you have available for your layout and what shape you’d like your layout to be. You can make your benchwork any shape you like, though rectangular, square and oval shaped layouts are the most common.
Regardless of shape and size, your benchwork has to be sturdy enough to hold the weight of your layout. A sheet of plywood somewhere between 3/8″ and ½” thick is ideal for most layouts. If you want your benchwork to be portable, then separate your plywood into a few different pieces before you assemble everything.
The viewer’s perspective is something to think about as you build your model railroad scenery. You want to make the layout appear larger than its actual size in respect to your train. You can do this by using scenery elements of varying size; for example, smaller sized features in the background with larger ones in the foreground. You may want to keep the type of trains you plan to run in mind as you build your layout so that you can include fine details to the scenery which match up with your train.
You can add rivers, ponds and other water features, build miniature cities for your trains to visit or make a pastoral landscape with meadows, animals, fences and the like. That’s the real beauty of model railroading – you can create anything you like and truly give yourself an opportunity for creative expression. Whether realistic or fanciful, your imagination is the only limit on what you can do with your layouts and that’s why model trains are a hobby which has an enduring popularity with people young and old.
Model Train Track
Model Train Track is just as important when picking a model train as the train itself. The track of course is what you run your railroad on, and they come in many grades. This isn’t really that important to know, because most of your train sets will come with the appropriate track already included. However, if you are ordering more for a bigger lay out, you will need to know what gauge your existing track is to be able to order the right size. Train track is measured in gauge, and measured by the distance between the track rails, Some trains are even labeled which track gauge they are, like the N scale. For this scale, the N means nine, which is the millimeters in between the rails, nine. This train scale is small, and a whole layout can be fit on a small space, like a table.
Model train track gauge is usually clearly marked somewhere on the box or track itself, making it easier to purchase more if you need too. When you buy a basic train set, you get enough track to make a basic layout, but if you want a more elaborate set up, you will have to order more. Usually, and order form will also come with the set, and all you have to do is fill out what you need and order more track.
When you are doing a lay out, Model Train Track should be the focus of your layout, because this is where you have to start. There are many different kinds of track layouts and many books with not only examples, but also lists of materials needed, how many to buy, and what the power requirements are. They can also walk you step by step through important things like how to set up a curve so that you train doesn’t fall over, where to place the rail joiners, derailers, and terminal sections.
When setting up model train track, it is a good idea to set everything up first, before you attach to the base. Make sure that it is all straight, and level, and then connect it all together. Take a test run, with just the locomotive, to make sure it rides easily on the rails, and doesn’t get hooked up on any of the sections. Go once or twice around the track slowly, then add a few cars and go a little faster. If the train runs smoothly, then you can tack it all down. If you are using some kind of portable base, then you should try to make sure that all of section breaks are where the platform comes apart.
Once the model train track has been tacked down, give it another run and adjust as needed. Now is the time to start considering the rest of the design. When putting together a model train layout, you have to think about what your design is going to be like. There are many model train layout designs online, both in photos and video. You can order parts and accessories online too, as well at many local hobby shops.
G scale model trains
G Scale Model Trains
If you’ve heard model train hobbyists talking about large scale model trains, they’re referring to a few of the different scales of model train available. The most popular of these larger scales with most hobbyists is G scale. These trains are quite a bit larger than the other model trains you may have seen before, being constructed at a 1:22 ratio to the full size trains they’re modeled on, meaning that they are approximately one twentieth the size of a real train.
Compare this to O scale model trains, which are also considered by hobbyists to be one of the larger model trains at a ratio of 1:48, a little less than half the size of a G scale train, which is usually about 6″ tall and 26.7″ long. This scale was first produced by the German company Ernst Paul Lehmann Patentwerk in the late 1800s. In Germany, the company is popularly known as Lehman Gross Bahn (German for Lehman Big Train).
The origin of the name G scale comes from the nickname Garden Railroading which was applied to the trains. Due to and durability the size of these model trains, they are ideal for outdoor railroading. As with other larger scale trains, these trains are designed to run on a #1 gauge track (45 mm from rail to rail).
#1 gauge tracks are made of brass, which is resistant to corrosion and incredibly easy to maintain. An occasional wipe down with a cloth is all the tracks for G scale model trains need to remain ready for use. If you have the space, these and other larger scale model trains can also be used for indoor model railroading.
In the United States, the most popular of the G scale trains are the Bachmann and Aristocraft brands. Many parents prefer these trains, since they are more than durable enough to be suitable for small children and enjoyed by the entire family for many years to come. Unlike 4.8″ long and 1.1″ tall N scale trains and other smaller scale model trains, the larger sizes can stand up to the sometimes rough play of younger children.
Model trains have been with us for well over a century now and in this time, the manufacturers of these trains have produced a wide variety of different styles and sizes of model trains with one being suitable for every purpose and the tastes of every model train hobbyist. With the versatility that model trains offer, from G scale model trains to N scale, this is a hobby which has a strong appeal to people of any age and from every walk of life.
Ho Model Train
The Most Popular .
Some model train hobbyists prefer to have their model train chugging away in the garden, while others may have devoted their entire attic or basement to an enormous layout of tracks and scenery for their model trains. Yet other hobbyists may have only a small room to use for their model trains but still want to include several different train layouts in this area. Because of the diversity of model train hobbyists space and their requirements, the companies who manufacture model trains have created trains and tracks in different sizes so that model train hobbyists can enjoy their very own model railroads, whether they have a large backyard to use for their trains or just half of a bedroom in a small apartment.
Out of the larger scale model trains available, O scale is probably the most popular size. These trains are one forty eighth the size of the real trains (a 1:48 ratio). O scale trains use 1 ¼” gauge tracks and like G scale trains, these larger model trains are often used outdoors. However, not every hobbyist is looking for a garden railroad.
For those seeking something a bit smaller, there are HO scale trains, which are about half the size (1:87)of O scale trains. HO is actually an abbreviation for “half O”. These trains use standard gauge tracks (16.5 mm) and are one of the more popular sizes of model train for indoor layouts. Their size makes them well suited for creative layouts with a lot of track without taking up an excessive amount of room in the home. However, they are not so small as to prevent them from having fine details, something which can be drawback with the smallest sizes of model trains.
HO scale trains offer the durability and detail of larger sizes while sharing the smaller space requirement of the smaller scale trains and it is this balance which has made this scale one of the most popular. This scale was first introduced to the UK market in the 1930s, but due to the overwhelming popularity of the OO scale to which HO was presented as an alternative, it didn’t catch on at the time.
However, HO scale trans became a hit in the US when they came out in that country in the 1950s and the test is history. At present, over 65% of model train hobbyists claim that HO is their favorite scale.
Since the HO scale is so popular, it is very easy to find locomotives, rolling stock, premade layouts and accessories for these trains from a variety of manufacturers. Hobbyists have an easy time finding HO scale sets, modular track, kits and other supplies. Limited edition trains aimed at collectors are also most often found in HO scale.
If you’re looking for a scale which will allow you to easily create elaborate layouts and offers readily available accessories without compromising on detail or durability, HO scale model trains are the size you’ll most likely want.
Model Train Scale
What You Need To Know About Model Train Scales
Model Train Scale is probably one of the most important aspects of this hobby. Scale is the size of the model compared to the real life train, the lower the scale, the larger the model. For example, one of the largest commonly found scales is the G scale, at 1:24, which is one twenty-fourth the size of a real train. The three most popular scales are “O,”"HO,”and “N” scales. O scale is 1:48, and ideal starting size for beginners, children, and older adults. “HO” is another good starter scale, and this scale probably will have the most available accessories. N scale is smaller and can fit into smaller spaces.
Space is a big consideration when it comes to model train scale. There are so many different layouts to choose from, in all scales, and it really depends on how much room you have available. Some really small scales, like the “Z” scale, (1:220,) are able to fit on a desk top with no problem. For many at home train hobbyists, “O” and “HO” fit really well with basement rooms and even portable layouts. These trains you see most often around the holidays, where many hobbyists set up their displays for all to see.
The model train scale you choose really depends on your needs. If you are buying for yourself and your family, choose a scale that everyone can play with. If you like putting the model together yourself, then there are many kits in the “O” and HO scale. These scales are also easier to find parts for, as well as an assortment of accessories. There are complete landscaping packages, vehicle, buildings and figurines. There are many that even include lights and sounds, not only in the layouts, but also on the locomotives themselves. For example, there are some companies that will sell you steam locomotives that have bell and whistle sounds, as well as mini smoke generators. There are many holiday designs that play carols too.
If you have always wanted a train set up in your yard or backyard, model train scale “G” is going to be your best bet. These trains are well built and made to stand up to all kinds of weather. Many of them are made with special plastics and have weatherproof gear boxes. There are many different simple and complex layouts for these model trains. If you have an apartment or smaller space, the “N” scale is highly detailed, and ideal for tables, or even an unused desk. This scale is also a good idea for people who like long trains, because the materials are lighter and easier to run.
If you are interested in a model train scale, there is a wealth of information, both online and at your local hobby shop. You can even order complete courses on ebooks, that will take you step by step from scale, to setting up your own favorite lay out. You can find a wide assortment of photos and videos of different layouts on the internet, and there are even plans and diagrams that you can download.
