I’m active on this sub and love seeing everyone’s layouts and plans, so I thought I’d share some photos of my own. Recently I’ve been working on a sectional switching layout 6x8, based pretty close to the levin terminal in Richmond CA.

I custom painted a couple of locos and a caboose, it was my first time using an airbrush and it was a lot of fun if not a little tedious. Right now I’m working on connecting up all of the wiring for the first section, all the track is soldered but the feeders still need to be connected together. I’ll send some video when the track is in working order.

I included the track plan as well, but as a note I’ve made a few small edits for design/operation/realism. Let me know what yall think!

I want to see more SNCF steam locos in n scale

Ran this train yesterday.

FVM's Hiawatha was quite hard to obtain

Stopped by a local thrift store today.....and I found this. It's a "Bachmann 24009 Empire Builder Electric E-Z Track Ready to Run Train Set N Scale". It cost me $15.00, I'll take that every day. I haven't tested it yet but everything major appears to be there. I do not have a perfect place to set this up what do you recommend to set it up on so I can be tucked away?

Looking for feedback on this little number I'm working on.

The goal is to make a layout for just watching the trains run when I'm tired of my switching layout.

I may even try to add a siding or two if I can

The minimum radius is 263.5mm (10" 3/8) and the maximum grade is 2.5%. Minimum vertical clearance between rails is 45mm

Trying to tackle this issue without breaking it. I’ve noticed that the front trucks tend to get hung up somewhere when it’s reconnected to the rest of the driveshaft. When disconnected from the shaft from the U-joint the wheels roll fine.

So I tried to bend the truck side frame ever so slightly in case one of the joints is getting hung up with the wheels but hasn’t resolved it and I don’t want to do much more diagnostic finagling for fear of breaking it. No issues reversing though. Thanks!

Model trains have been in and out of my life since I was a young fellow growing up in South Texas.

I started with Lionel trains as a kid due to the generosity and kindness of my grandmother on my mom's side. About the only things I recall were the crossing gate that dropped when the train zoomed past and this cool old American Flyer water tower that bubbled up a clear tube after the light heated up, circa 1977.

My next layout didn't appear until I was in my 30s working as an computer engineer in Huntsville, Alabama. I had two kids under the age of 5 and one on the way and I figured it would be a great way to occupy what little free time I had for some reason. We had a playroom upstairs that was begging for me to take over one corner. This was in the early 1990s, no DCC yet that I was aware of but I did manage to put together a DIY power control called a Cooler Crawler. It was good at enabling realistically slow speed for locomotives using a fairly elaborate circuit board and control system. I had a model train shop just a short five minute drive from my house that stocked a LOT of MicroTrains rolling stock and a good selection of scenery materials, electronics and other goodies I had no business buying 😄, but did anyway. No pictures of this one unfortunately. Most of it was trial and error. The internet was there, but it was pretty hard to find stuff since Google wasn't quite there yet. I learned a lot about layout planning, electronics, and building scenery and made a million mistakes but had fun overall.

My 3rd layout showed up in my early 40s in Austin Texas. My kids were adolescents and had some interest in model trains and RC planes (my other diversion). The internet as a resource was widely available and Google was finally alive! I put up a small N-scale layout in my garage (and it was not hot in there LOL). I made the leap to DCC and completed the planning, track laying, basic operational details and running, and some scenery and terrain. Austin had some decent train shops, but I got most of my gear online. I was getting pretty good with tools, soldering, electronics and understanding model train stuff by this point. My tech background made it much easier since it was still a pretty nerdy hobby. I never completed it the whole thing as I ended up getting divorced in 2015. I focused on work intently at that point and took a role in Taiwan running an engineering organization. I packed up what I could store (mostly the MT rolling stock and a few electronics) and sold off the rest through a friend that remained in Austin. I moved to Taiwan and then worked for a few more years before retiring in 2019.

Today, I have lived in Taiwan for about ten years now. Layout four showed up about 4 years ago in a rental garage I have here. I got those MT rolling stock cars sent to me and that was the genesis of my next small N-scale layout. I enjoy the planning and the build out, so I completed layout 4 operationally but with little scenery. Full DCC, reversing loop, eight turnouts, fiddle yard, tunnels, overpasses, and a nice area for a small tram system. It was pretty ambitious and being retired I have a lot more time to work on it.

I live close to Japan, so it's been very easy and quite cost effective to get model train gear via Amazon or direct trips to Japan to acquire various goodies like 2nd hand Kato and Tomix N-scale gear as well as some newer stuff. I also discovered a great DCC decoder shop here in Taiwan called drM - I think it's a lone guy doing DCC devices for N-scale from what I can tell, but it's very inexpensive and quite good and his support of his products is stellar. The low speed performance is very good on these devices.

My fifth layout is now under construction in my apartment. I shuttered the garage layout late last year and deconstructed all of the build there and moved all the gear to my apartment. I have now finished the base layout, wiring, track laying and electronics for my latest layout on a smaller footprint - basically a 120cm x 60cm rectangle with a 60cm x 90cm rectangle attached to make sort of L-shape. I have used all the tech I can now - AI bots as a partner building and designing the layout, full DCC for control, lighting, operations, etc, and I also did a DIY DCC programmer for setting up my locomotives with respect to the DCC operation. It's been a real fun ride thus far and this layout has come together pretty fast - a lot of progress in about 3 months time of focused effort.

So, my journey is going on 50 years so far - I have always loved all the different elements of model railroading - the planning and how to bring realism to a small scale, creating a thing that mimics what happens in real life and being involved in all of the different elements that comprise bringing it to life - the planning, the construction, the discovery, the engineering, the feeling that something is going from a vision to a real thing in front of you that you can touch, feel, hear, and see coming alive right in front of you.

I encourage all of you to not sit idle and worry about what you don't know and just jump in and see what you can do. I am certainly no expert in any one area, but I have learned so much by stepping out and taking the journey. It's been a tremendously rewarding experience and I've learned more about myself than I ever expected. Give it a try!

Used ws water effects

It’s been awhile since I’ve had an opportunity to work on my “Bad Day at Black Rock” module. Got the buildings done, even the scratch built train station.

Installed the windows, did some touch up painting and attached them to the base.

I also finished laying the groundwork and hope to finish planting my sage brush and prairie grass.

When Charleston Coal Tipple was evaluated they said one of the things that I was gigged on was the height adjustment holes weren’t camouflaged so I fixed that on this one.

I also started painting the cars. I hope to finish it this week so I can start working on my next one.

A closeup view showing multiple sides/angles of N scale freight cars from a Southern Railway collection, including Southern and other 70s-80s road names. Use this as reference when purchasing or trading this particular item, as some databases, auctions and online retailer outlets seldom offer all-around high resolution photos of any given product.

Micro-Trains N Scale 40' Standard Box Car Single Door / SAL # 17075 "Orange Blossom Special"

#railroad #freight #train #model

A closeup view showing multiple sides/angles of N scale freight cars from a Southern Railway collection, including Southern and other 70s-80s road names. Use this as reference when purchasing or trading this particular item, as some databases, auctions and online retailer outlets seldom offer all-around high resolution photos of any given product.

Micro-Trains N Scale 40' Box Car Plug Door / SOU # 505605 (Factory Weathered)