Feraca Stone Canyon gallery volume 1

Wood structures frame a Santa Fe steam locomotive at the end of a gravel parking area

John Feraca started working on his Stone Canyon HO scale layout in 2003. After several expansions, it now fills a 28 x 40-foot space. The freelanced layout depicts the mountain west of the United States, but there are also town scenes and plenty of industries to keep operators busy. John used kits from Walthers Cornerstone, […]

Read More…

Ballast track easily

Applying Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement with pipette.]

On Model Railroader’s Beer Line project layout, which was set in 1947 Milwaukee, I ballasted the track on the entire layout using a favorite technique. I used a 50:50 blend of Highball Products Light Gray and Dark Gray limestone ballast, which looks similar to ballast used by the Milwaukee Road [Highball Products ballast is no […]

Read More…

Santa Fe Inspiration gallery volume 2

A Santa Fe steam locomotive and caboose are posed at Gary Hoover's HO Scale representation of "Summit", the top of the grade for the Santa Fe in California's Cajon Pass.

In this photo gallery, we encourage you to enjoy two fantastic Santa Fe layouts that are inspired. We hope they inspire you on your journey to creating a new model railroad layout, even one based on the Santa Fe! The first railroad is Gary Hoover’s interpretation of the Santa Fe Railway on Aug. 29, 1951. […]

Read More…

Make quick-and-easy junked cars for toy train layouts

Junkyard with painted aluminum foil auto shells.

Toy train layout operators foiled by the lack of inexpensive details can you aluminum foil as the raw materials for unlimited “junked cars.” Best of all, the project won’t strain your how-to skills and will add detail to your layout. You’ll need heavy-duty foil, gloss black paint, your choice of flat colors, a hobby knife, […]

Read More…

The N scale Milwaukee Road North Montana Line

DanLewisNscaleMilwaukeeRoadNorthMontanaLine_02

When I cut a hole in the living room wall in order to expand my N scale railroad into the hallway beyond, I thought that was as large a model railroad as I would ever own. I was just happy that my wife agreed to my bizarre suggestion (see “Harlowton, Montana, in N scale,” ­Model […]

Read More…

A busy urban model railroad

HO scale Canadian Pacific Montreal Terminals_01

  Prototype operations weren’t the focus of many model railroaders when I started work on my HO scale layout in 1988. But I had a clear vision of an operations-oriented layout that would depict the Canadian Pacific Ry.’s Montreal Terminals Division in Canada’s second largest city in the late 1960s. That was when I spent […]

Read More…