r/modeltrains

Rapido are making a OO Scale model of their own locomotive 'Marcia'.

• Price: £134.95 (DCC Ready) / £244.95 (DCC Sound Fitted)

I have been slowly updating my 3d printed coaches, the new bogies and coupling are working perfectly and even work with ready to run locos.

After a long time I got my dream train, the Piko BR 249 Vectron "dual mode" (with realistic shuffling sound) with some Double-deck coaches.

Bought used tracks off of Ricardo(Swiss fb marketplace) and doubled the track distance for a mere 60chf. Had to completely change the route of a cable car and dig out a trench but it’s worth it.

We found a vendor at our 40th anniversary show and sale who had 2 custom made DC Republic switchers. Everyone who sees them immediately places them in Gadsden. We found a DCC frame we could shell swap and now we have prototype switchers for the plant yard.

No idea how it fell over in a straight peice of track point was set straight

As part of rearranging the house I have decided to mount the railway to the wall, making it a proper shelf layout.

The track is 150 cm above the floor, placing it at a good height for operation and still accessible for continuing the scenery.

By raising the layout it creates a lot more space in the room which we plan to use for hobby and work desks.

The layout sits on 2 steel wall mounts, in total rated for 100 kg, hopefully I never need to test that.

Next steps are to extend a single track around the perimeter of the room to allow for continuous operation.

Really happy about today’s haul! Got that 3rd Rail engine at the top for only $150 and it is custom decaled for B&O, weathered and was given Proto Sounds 1. The Lionel ABA set were also custom painted and I got them for $100 total. For all the cars it costed me about $175-200 total. Overall great day!

I'm building an N-scale layout with my 4-year-old son.

I started by laying and soldering Atlas flex track by hand, and had a ton of trouble getting the curves right. The track wants to spring straight, and keeping it in position while lining up joints and soldering was a pain. I kept getting derailments.

Kato Unitrack is good, but the cost adds up. Its fixed-radius sections also don't give me the smoothly changing curves I wanted, and raised sections mean adding risers or pier kits too.

So I started making printed roadbed that follows a track path defined in software. The sections join together, then ordinary flex track goes into the guide and is held by retaining strips. Everything is press fit. The idea is to settle the geometry before I start laying and soldering the rails.

The generator can make curves whose radius changes continously along the track. With grades up / down and with banked curves all in the same curve section. Bridge and tunnel models are in-progress.

There's a browser viewer for looking at the parts, assembled sections and it generates print plates for my Bambulab printer.

The photos show real prototypes; the full-layout and elevated-section images are CAD. I'm hoping this becomes something we can rebuild into different layouts together as he gets older.

Would this be useful to anyone else? Would you want printable files, a configurable generator, or parts generated for your own layout?

source: https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.com/andrew-barclay-works-no-1815-freemans-meadow-no-2-0-4-0f/

After having this layout in the garage for 4 years, it was time to disassemble it.

I got back into model railroading after being away from it for years. I grew up with O gauge so that’s where I wanted to stay.

The first purchase was a Lionel Pennsy Flyer set my wide surprised me with for our anniversary. That loop kept expanding to the layout in these pictures. I used this layout to experiment with different wiring techniques, but most of all figuring out different geometry and configurations for Lionel Fastrack. The last set I had were conventional and TMCC, so I was also learning the legacy system. I have a base three now that I have not fully utilized. I have a lot more learning to do with that.

I was able to salvage every piece of wood from the table that I built. Which is good because… A new layout is coming. 😁

We’re building a garage and I will have a dedicated 30‘ x 30‘ room for new layout. Diagram shows a rough draft of what I’m thinking about doing full the dog bone along the walls to get as much track run as possible with a center island for additional scenery and trackage. I’ll have a yard above the desk / work bench. Under the island there will be a lower level staging so I can keep the big engines parked and not have to handle them.

If anyone is interested, I could talk more about the new layout and post updates about the progress.

Want to own this midi scale roundhouse? Support here and Lego might make it a reality: https://ideas.lego.com/product-ideas/de68f70b-4134-4858-83c7-56e78115fe3a

This set includes/features:

Servicing Area: Service your locomotives at the water tower, ash pit, and diesel tank.

--Fill your steam locomotive with water with a movable water spout.

--Drop your steam locomotive's ashes into the ash pit.

Turntable w/ pit: Spin your locomotives 360 degrees to face any direction and track. The turntable has wheels below each end to assure a smooth rotation.

3x Stalls with authentic interiors: Brick walls, embedded rails, inspection pits, timber support beams with lights (non-functional), chimney stacks, front doors, and removable roofs.

3x Back stall attachments: Mix and match back attachments at each stall’s rear. Each back attachment can be easily removed and reattached to a different stall.

--Extended stall: Store, clean, and service longer locomotives. Workers can enter through 2 side doors.

--Back door: Exit the roundhouse's rear to journey to other servicing facilities (not-included).

--Machine shop: Craft, modify, and repair parts at unique workbenches. Your workers can enter through the back door.

Interior accessories: Plenty of tables, crates, ladders, anvils, wheels, parts, & barrels to scatter around.

Sidewall Building: Power station with chimney. Workers can enter through a side door.

4x Locomotives: Black duplex steam locomotive, blue steam locomotive, gray and yellow streamline steam locomotive, and an early orange diesel locomotive. Each locomotive has:

--Interior details: Firebox, seats, & instruments

--Unique railway name and stickers

--A bottom center piece to keep the locomotive on the track

--Spinning wheels/moving pistons & side rods: All wheels & side pistons are free-moving.

Locomotive “push out stick:” a large technical axle is provided to push locomotives out of the roundhouse without removing roofs or walls.

Easily disassembled: This set is meant to be disassembled into 9-20 sections for easy storage. 

--All walls and roofs are removable for easy interior access and viewing. 

--Each stall and side wedge can be assembled/disassembled with technic pins or swivel pieces.

Combinable/customizable:

--Multiple sets can be combined for larger roundhouses - combine up to 6 sets for 19 tracks/18 stalls.

--Extra pieces can be added to the back of the roundhouse.

Piece Count: 5,000 Pieces

Why would this set be a good Lego Idea’s Set (and why midi scale)?

Few railroad buildings are as iconic as the roundhouse and its turntable. Unfortunately, Lego has never made a roundhouse. I have always wanted a Lego roundhouse in my model train collection and I know that I am not alone. However, while I want an authentic and detailed roundhouse, I do not have the space for one in standard Lego train scale, so I made the roundhouse midi scale. 

This set is equally a display piece as it is a play piece. Adults and children alike can have fun running their own roundhouse. Playability and posability are possible with this set. There are numerous possibilities to customize this roundhouse and its locomotives. Furthermore, this roundhouse is equally fun by itself or as multiple sets combined into a full circle.

Questions, thoughts, concerns? Please let me know in the comments below. I love your feedback. Thank-you!

NOTE: All "lights" depicted are only for visual effect; they will NOT actually light up. 

Pennsylvania Railroad Fairbanks & Morse Erie-Built locos lead the Ridley Limited past the Water Tower. The locos are Proto 1000. The passenger cars are a mix of Walthers, Athearn Blue Box, and Bachmann Spectrum models.

Hey all! I'm settling into my new home in Germany, and I've had a realistic look at the space I have and the time I can devote to construction, and decided the previous plan was just too large, so I've had to lop a meter off each side of the layout space, which means axing most of the fancier elements from the previous plan. This is a smaller remix which manages to keep most of the elements from before, but flips the orientation of the transit line and loses the live interchange in favor of a dummy 90º crossing which can be used for photography if you just don't think too hard about how all its tracks are connected to staging. Anyway, I'd love some feedback on this version!

The freight mainline is in purple, and the technically mock additional mainline treated as a de facto interchange track is in blue.

The frequent DMU transit line is in red, with its Operations and Maintenance Facility in orange (in a 4.5-car-long engine shed), and two stations will be depicted on the top and bottom of the layout near small downtown areas.

And, finally, a shortline freight railroad is depicted in green with its single-track loco storage area in yellow. Unfortunately, due to the small size of the layout, the yard on a curve is the best I can do, and the mainline is used as a switching lead, but, since the majority of the traffic will be the DMU transit line, I think this is actually a very creative way to deconflict the freight switching and transit movements as much as possible, including the use of two double-slip-switches to turn the yard into switching tail tracks so that the switcher can very quickly scuttle out of the way of an oncoming transit vehicle.

Any feedback is most appreciated! My first thought, frankly, is I'd love to have just one more industry spur, but I can't figure out how to do it as everything's starting to feel a little cramped.

I have been fussing with fitting PowerPole Paks into two modules all day — or it feels that way!

This is the reward — the PowerPole Paks were on my last two single straight modules.

Now that they are in place, the a layout is 9’6” x 4’8”.

The next two steps are probably to re-wire the corner modules — they work, but I think I have found a better way.

And then I think I build the 15 VAC aux bus and wire in the circuits I built to control the Kato turnouts and the Cobalt Lever switches that that will work with the circuits to control the switches and LEDs that indicate the switch positions.

And then I will learn how to ballast track …

And then … I forget whether is Sam or Frodo who sings, “The road goes ever on,” but it seems appropriate.

I don’t know what kind of bug bit me last January — but a something definitely got ahold of me. :-)