In some of my early “Sketching with Steve” articles – in particular, “What is a station?” and “Big industries for small spaces” – I admit to having an ulterior motive. I was building toward something. Specifically, I had been thinking for a while about building an L shaped N scale shelf layout in my basement office. […]
How to add DCC sound to a compact HO switcher: When Bachmann introduced an HO scale General Electric 44-ton switcher, I knew it would make a great addition to my Boston & Maine roster. The model includes a Digital Command Control (DCC) decoder, and I bought a version in the B&M livery. Out of the […]
Track buses for Digital Command Control: Layouts wired for direct-current block control have several isolated track sections called blocks. Each block has an electrical switch that controls which DC throttle powers that track section. In theory, a Digital Command Control (DCC) layout could be wired as one large block with two wires feeding the power […]
Looking at old Model Railroader back issues, I found poisonous model railroad materials. I give those hobbyists a lot of credit; you couldn’t drive over to the hobby store and pick up ground cover or resin to make a water feature. You often used materials from the hardware store, or whatever you had on hand. […]
What’s in my dream 4-by-8 model railroad? A yard, continuous operation, and lots of places to switch. Just because you don’t have a lot of room for your model railroad doesn’t necessarily mean you need to give up on your dream layout. You might just need to scale your dreams back a bit. While that […]
Unless you’re modeling a flatland railroad – and maybe even if you are – your layout needs rocks. Building a level right-of-way through the ups and downs of natural terrain involves cuts and fills, exposing bare rock. A railroad with a mountainous setting, be it Appalachian or Rocky, calls for even more rocks. Between foam […]
Let’s look at some different types of tunnels. In the real world, tunnels are incredibly expensive to build and maintain. Prototype railroads would only dig a tunnel when there was no other way through or around an obstruction like a mountain, a river, or a built-up city. However, some types of tunnels are often necessary […]
A lot of railroad modelers got their start in the hobby when they received a train set for Christmas. I’d bet that most of them woke up to find the train not in a box but running in circles under the tree. What dad could resist setting up the train “just to test it?” Arranging […]
Bachmann Big Hauler birthday train […]
Over the years I’ve built a whole lot of wood structures – large and small, laser-cut kits and stick-built, beginner and craftsman. And I’ll admit I’ve made a few mistakes along the way. That’s how we learn. You may have an idea of what to do when building a wood kit, but it’s equally important […]
Can you believe hobbyists used to use toxic chemicals on model railroads? In the days before hobby shops sold premade scenery and wiring products, hobbyists made their own. Unfortunately, some of the materials weren’t very safe. Note: We’re providing this article for information and entertainment only. We are definitely not endorsing any of these substances […]
A while ago, I wrote about the Free-Mo modular standard. This month I thought I would share my thought processes while designing a Free Mo module. I’ll let you in on a secret: We’re planning on building our 2024 project layout as a series of Free-Mo modules. So my goal here is designing a Free […]
