Model Railroading Blog and News

One of the things that stick out like a sore thumb on nice models are the shine from the wheels, trucks and couplers. Perhaps you don’t own an airbrush, or don’t want the hassle of the airbrush set-up and clean-up for a small job like this. I’ve found that acrylic paint is a cheap, qu...

The cap end of Faber fine Uni-Ball pens were obviously designed as an HO or S manhole cover. A new X-Acto knife will easily cut off the cover (cut flush with the lip on the side, it’s almost like they provided a cutting guide!). The photo by Richard Schumacher shows the pen, a cut off...

One item in railroading that is not often in the magazines is a discussion of signals and how they work on the prototype. What is often said by the modeler is “I operate in the dark,” or with CTC, or ABS, without much discussion of what these are and what they do. Perhaps it is best t...

There are many different methods for supporting hard shell scenery. Cardboard strips, chicken and screen wire, rolled up newspapers and Styrofoam. There are countless approaches to creating the initial support for the hard shell. I have discovered one which I found easy, clean and saf...

Making styrene look like concrete is much easier than it sounds! On my layout, the “JDS&E”, I decided to use sheet styrene for my service platforms in the engine facility. I first scored the sheet into 12 foot squares using a hobby knife. I then laid the sheet flat and block sande...

One thing that has been constant since the early days of railroading is that a dispatcher controls the flow of traffic between interlockings. An interlocking is simply an intersection or union of two or more tracks. An interlocking is more than a section of railroad with multiple trac...

Custom limited run HO scale Utah Belt boxcars....

Have you ever looked at someone’s layout and wondered how they did all the rock castings? There are basically two methods, dry and wet. The dry method allows the modeler to mix large batches of plaster at a time. Have several molds ready and pour the plaster into molds until your supp...

When we operate a model railroad, we try to simulate the operations of the prototype as much as possible. The “as much as possible” is dependent upon the tastes of the individual operators who gather to run a railroad. This will impact on the amount of paperwork and other ...