Posts Tagged ‘Guide’
The Model Railroader’s Guide to Junctions
- Kalmbach Model Railroad Guide to Junctions – 12408
- KAL
Product Description
“The Model Railroader’s Guide to Junctions” is a Model Railroader Book / from Kalmbach Publishing Company. / Author: Jeff Wilson / / FEATURES: An excellent perfect bound, paperback reference for beginners and / and experts alike. / Thru the heavy use of photos and diagrams, this book offers an / in-depth look at prototype crossings, diverging routes, and many / other types of junctions to illustrate track layouts and / operations. / A step-by-step guide to understa… More >>
The Model Railroader’s Guide to Junctions
The Model Railroader’s Guide to Industries Along the Tracks 3
- Kalmbach Model Railroaders Guide to Industries Along the Track 3 – 12422
- KAL
Product Description
This volume contains a variety of prototype photos and suggestions for how to model and place industries on your layouts for realistic operation…. More >>
The Model Railroader’s Guide to Industries Along the Tracks 3
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An Introduction to Model Train Scenery – Your Ultimate Beginners Guide
Model train scenery is probably the second most enjoyable thing about model trains, with the intricacies of the engines and cars being number one and layout in the number three spot. While you would do an initial layout plan first, it’s the scenery that makes your creation come to life.
It isn’t just trees and landscaping that we are talking about, but all kinds of different ways to decorate you layout ideas. While it’s true that you can spend the time to make your own model train scenery, buying plastic plants to tear apart for trees and shrubs, or snagging a toy car or figurine once in awhile from your kids.
You may even think about recycling things out of the garbage like tin cans and cardboard boxes, cleaning them out and painting them to suit your needs. While these are all good ideas, many home made model train scenery creations aren’t going to be the same size and scale as the model train, and will look out of place.
Unless you are quite skilled at painting and modeling, you will never get the same quality of detail as you will from products that are specifically made for the train hobbyist. The product and accessory options are far better than anything you can come up with in many cases.
Weight bearing structures like bridges and trestles should be purchased prefabricated, to ensure their durability. It’s not just that though, just in holiday accessories you have carolers, musical clock towers, little lighted lamp posts, all that look just like the real thing, just smaller.
The people and vehicles of pre-constructed model train scenery are proportionate to the size of the train, meaning that the people figurines look like they could fit inside the train cars, not on them. Many mechanisms work in conjunction with the train’s electrical wiring and can be operated remotely from the command center.
When picking model train scenery, it is important that it’s fluid with the model train layout. If you’re layout has trains that transport goods, and you have more of a flat town or city layout, you won’t want a bunch of trees, mills and other forest related items.
You would want an oil refinery, some warehouses, maybe some semi tractor-trailers. If you are going with a country setting, then you would want grain silos, maybe a windmill, some farm buildings and animals.
If you just have to work with your hands, or have a sense of making it on your own, there are many model train scenery assortments where the pieces are prefabricated, but you get to put it together yourself. This way the scenery retains its detail, and you still get to feel like you did it yourself.
You can find model train scenery from a wide range of places, both on the Internet and at many local hobby shops. It might be a wise idea to visit online shops first, even if you may have to order products online, because they can answer many of your questions as well as show you what they do have in stock.
Then you can see firsthand the detail that goes into some of these items.
Clint Spille is a model trains enthusiast who enjoys blogging about the World’s Greatest Hobby. Stop by his blog where you can read his many articles on the model railroading hobby or watch the videos he provides on topics such as toy model trains, model railroad track plans and much more!
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A Beginners Guide to Model Trains
This is a general overview of what the model train hobby is and what it entails. In a effort not to discourage new beginners to this ever expanding pastime, this article will not be too technical yet designed to catch your interest.
The first thing that any model train hobbyist should know is about scale, and gauge. Scale refers to the actual size of the train engine, cars, and accessories.
They can be small enough to easily fit on a office desk top, or large enough for a garden railway. Scale is also referred to in letter form.
For example, ‘G’ scale train models are 1:24 scale, which means it is just one twenty-fourth the size of a real locomotive. These are often found with train hobbyists who lay out their model trains in a back yard setting, such as interwoven through gardens, and other landscaping.
The ‘Z’ scale is a mere 1:220, meaning it is 220 times smaller than a real train. As mentioned earlier, this size is ideal for a desk top lay out, but it is so small in size that they are difficult to work with, and are not in wide use.
The next part about model trains is gauge. While this is often confused with scale by many beginners, it is NOT the same as scale, and mixing up the two will definitely anger experienced train buffs.
What gauge measures is the distance between the trail track rails. For a simple example, if you have a 9gauge train track, this means that there is nine millimeters of space between the inside of the rails.
In this case, the bigger the gauge, the bigger the space. Now while this may seem confusing, don’t worry.
HO scale is 1:87, and is ideal for many new beginners, as well as many other hobbyists. It is small enough to fit well with many different layouts, yet big enough for the average person to handle, and they show well.
This is the most commonly used scale in the model train world not only because of its versatility, but also because parts and accessories are easy to find. This brings us to layouts and accessories.
Having model trains would be really boring if all it entailed was a train engine moving along a track. That is why a model train can include many different train cars, passenger cars, hoppers, and tank containers, just to name a few.
Then there are all the layout accessories, trestles, miniature people and vehicles, as well as buildings and scenery. The possibilities are really only limited to your imagination.
You can even create your own landscaping ideas, with plastic plants torn apart for trees, shrubs, and other plants. You could also use old cleaned out tin cans, painted, for things like grain silos, or oil refinery tanks.
There are many basic sets a beginner can buy, with all things to start your hobby. You can find many of these on websites, or you could also start at your local hobby shop.
A retailer can not only offer many different ideas, but can also answer many if not all of your questions. Hopefully you will want to know more information about model trains, and you can find many example layouts online for creative ideas.
Clint Spille is a model trains enthusiast who enjoys blogging about the World’s Greatest Hobby. Stop by his blog where you can read his many articles on the model railroading hobby or watch the videos he provides on topics such as model train scale, n scale model trains and much more!
