Model Railroader’s Favorite Projects

WELCOME TO Model Railroader Favorite Projects! On the following pages you’ll find nearly two-dozen detailed, self-contained projects from today’s finest model railroaders, including Pelle Søeborg, Cody Grivno, Lou Sassi, and 13 other familiar names from the pages of Model Railroader. In assembling this special issue, the editors of Model Railroader magazine combed through years of back issues to select the most helpful, complete, and useful how-to articles. Our goal was to assemble a one-of-a-kind collection of essential projects from the some of the most talented guys in the hobby. It’s the best of the best! These experts share a wide variety of ideas to help take your layout to the next level – everything from building a lift-up benchwork section to adding a coal dump to weathering rolling stock. It’s all here…

You’re well on your way to completing your dream layout. The design is just how you imagined it, with leading-edge electronics, the latest in track and roadbed enhancements, perfect-to-scale scenery, and the best locomotives and rolling stock ever produced. The result will be almost museum-like in quality; the generous curved aisles for operations and visitors, dimmable spotlighting for the perfect highlights, and … wait a minute … how am I going to install a fascia skirt on those curved aisles? As is the case with all building projects, it’s best to plan ahead, especially with regard to a fascia skirt. Unless you install a finished “underside” to your layout, what falls below the fascia line should be covered up in some way. My layout is a stylized horseshoe design with several…

The lesson I learned from cutting up my old layout in pieces to be sold was, no matter how careful you are, you can’t cut a layout without some damage to track and scenery. So after three permanent layouts, I wanted a sectional layout. I wanted my new layout to be movable rather than portable. There are no intentions of taking it to shows and such, but I wanted it to be easy to move if I end up selling it, or if I move and want to take the layout with me. I designed a sectional system using standardized rectangular segments built of ½" plywood. The segments rest on L-girders attached to triangular gussets that hang from the walls. Without any legs resting on the floor, I gained lots of free…

My layout design required the track to cross a door opening, so I needed an easy-to-use and safe way to get into the layout area. The device had to be convenient and reliable. My simple, easy-to-build lift-up does all this, and is fun to operate. Why a lift-up section? A traditional hinged swing-up section would limit scenery and structures. If the section didn’t swing beyond 90 degrees, I’d need a brace to hold up the section. If the brace was bumped, the section could fall and someone could get hurt. A well designed lift-up is safer, especially if it latches in place when raised, as mine does. It also allows for great scenic possibilities, as seen in fig. 1 on the opposite page. In order to keep the lift-up section from becoming an obstacle,…

In the September and October 2014 issues of Model Railroader, I wrote about how I modeled the Rockfish River crossing on my HO scale piedmont Southern layout and built a gantlet track over the bridge. Since I use Digital Command Control (DCC) on the layout, I wanted all the track and wiring to be “DCC friendly,” a term coined by Allan Gartner that I introduced to the hobby press in my March 1998 “DCC Update” column in Model Railroading magazine. The basic idea behind the DCC-friendly concept is to reduce the potential for short circuits to occur. One thing to keep in mind is that you can usually convert a DC-powered layout to DCC without going back and modifying all of the track and turnouts. However, addressing some of the topics…

Commercial turnouts are the choice for my layout. There are so many variations and brands to choose from that you can make almost any track arrangement you want. The rails on commercial turnouts can also be trimmed, which makes it possible to create a fluid arrangement, especially in yards and other crowded places. Most of the turnouts on my layout are no. 6 turnouts from Micro Engineering. The ME turnouts come with add-on details I like, such as frog bolthead plates and guardrail clamps. The other type of turnouts I use are Peco no. 8s. They’re at each end of a passing siding. I used Peco there because ME only makes no. 6 turnouts. Newer Micro Engineering turnouts are Digital Command Control (DCC) ready. The frog is insulated so you can wire it…