Great tip for making railroad tunnels

Posted by on 8:56 am 2 comments

“If you trains ever derail in a tunnel, it’s a real pain.

Get round it by using an old picture frame in the scenery. Bin the glass and use the frame and the backing, face down, in the scenery.

Just take the backing sheet of to get inside your tunnel – and as most railroad layouts have bushes, fences or vegetation it’s easy to hide the ‘ridge’ of your frame.”

Alan

Another reason to use simple railroad layouts…

Posted by on 4:35 pm 4 comments

…well it’s the same reason: they work!

If you’ve seen my earlier posts you’ll see I’m a fan of the simple layout. A railroad should look like scenery with some track in it – not the other way round.

So this caught my eye – and demonstrates the point well.

Railroad desert pics

Posted by on 10:34 am No comments

Tim, sent in this mail and pictures from the previous post:

“Wow….he did a good job of capturing the look of the desert…..and I live out here in the western desert, so I see it every day.

Just for fun, I attached some pics I took out here in the desert, near Nipton , California. You can see the freight off in the distance, as just a dark line. The tracks right there parallel the border of California and Nevada. I rode my motorcycle out to this very remote road crossing, and was rewarded for my wait with this train. I have a set of binoculars that are also a digital camera……just the thing for train chasing!!

Tim”

By the way, if you like these, there are lots of great pics on one of my favourite sites: www.modelrailwaylayoutsplans.com. It follow a newsletter type format.

Modelling rock formations from foam

Posted by on 2:26 pm 1 comment

See how much fun you can have with a bit of foam, some painter’s caulk and some brown shades of acrylic paint.

Chisel out where you want (or rather, where you don’t want) your mountains.

The seal the foam with painters caulk.

Paint the rocks a light tan. Than dab on a darker brown to give it depth.

It sounds simple – and it is.

But the effect it brings to a model railroad layout can be pretty impressive.

Cheap railroad modelling materials

Posted by on 9:19 am 1 comment

Following on from my last post, here are some pictures that demonstrate how you don’t have to spend a fortune on your scenery.

Take a look – most of this scenery is just sponge and twigs from real trees. Really. If you want lots and lots of modelling tips (layouts too), have a look at this site. There’s some pretty good stuff on it.