A reader from Australia (Robert P) has kindly sent in these photos and story of the Pendle Town Rising layout.

Our layout comprises of three "module" boxes. When we say module box, they are constructed on a 1.2 m x .6 m box with two common rail lines.  The beauty of this is that you can connect to other people's module boxes and create a unique continuous railway. We recently displayed this concept at a local festival and the response we received was amazing.

A key point about our module boxes is that all of the points were hand made, and the scenery was completed by myself as well as my two sons Zac 11 and Damien 8.

We took the module concept a step further and created mini scenery modules which are interchangeable.

The above photo shows the module boxes in their entirety. The middle two tracks form a common rail lines which can be attached to other modules. For showing purposes, we built a loop behind the boxes meaning we could run our stock continuously. All of the points have been made by hand - no gigs used, all done by eye. These boxes were created by myself as well as my family with a large input from my sons Zac 11 and Damien 8. My wife is great at shopping at the $2.00 shop and has a knack for creative thinking. Who would have thought you could create wild long grass from wallpaper brushes. The man in the shop thought she was mad!

The buildings on the upper level are interchangeable and my boys are working on even more of them. We chose to do a zig-zag railway as it optimises the limitations in space when working in module format. From the rear, all of the points have been connected to slide switches and colour coded by section. This means that running the layout is virtually idiot proof. 

Common sense prevails. My youngest son ran 3 trains continuously independently for hours on end. I think a few people got quite a shock when his little head popped up over the top. Both boys but particularly my eldest son contributed to a good percentage of the scenery, amazing where a child's imagination can take you.

Robert Anderson comments...

What an inspiration to everyone! I'm sure society wouldn't have half the problems if more families worked as a team like this. Congratulations and well done!!

Chris has a good question and is hoping someone can advise him:

“Can someone point me in the direction of suggestions for storing model layouts. At present I have mine hinged so that it can fold up vertically, but am interested in other ideas.”

Readers can add suggestions below.

Chris might also be interested in reading this earlier posting about Colin’s HO Farrer Siding Foldaway Layout

http://modeltrainsetshelp.blogspot.com/2009/02/ho-farrer-siding-foldaway-layout.html

Over the next few days I will publish some excellent ideas contributed by Jay the “super tech”. So keep watching this space!

In the meantime here are a few words from Jay…

You touched on a subject near and dear to me, as I have been buying and selling used trains for over 24 years. I do consider myself an expert at repair in most model trains, in fact I like to say that if I can’t fix it, it can’t be fixed. My background is a development engineer in electro-mechanical systems. I spent 18 years at the Hughes Research Center in Malibu Ca.

I buy lots of used train items, and hardly ever pay retail. Even though I try to be careful in buying used equipment, I expect that I may have to fine tune or repair the stuff. I love the old heavy die cast HO equipment, and like to bring it into the modern world with sound and re-motoring etc.

I have entered the DCC/Sound world about three years ago, and love what is out there, great stuff. I use a laptop and JMRI to program my decoders. I have the North Coast Engineering and digitrax systems to run DCC. I also have a very large collection in HO, HOn3, and G-scale including six live steamers in G.

I have installed sound into G, HO, HOn3 & N-Gauge Locomotives using the PBL system the sends the sound signals to the locomotive down the rails.

The PBL system is becoming outdated, but it is an excellent system to use. The real challenge is combining DCC & PBL systems into my layout, as one conflicts with the other, I have a selection switches in order to run both systems. With the PBL system, you can put sound and lighting into a locomotive for around $10 each, not too bad compared to DCC with Sound. I have so many locomotives, that I don’t expect to ever run them all with DCC, but the PBL will allow me to run them at a much lower cost.

Being retired, I do spend a lot of my time working on trains, I still buy, sell, trade and collect trains because I love it, I can’t stop. I will be selling some stuff soon on Ebay, as I decided to thin my collection a bit, under the handle “Jayofto”. Keep up the good work!

Robert comments…

Thanks Jay, for sharing your thoughts with other model railroaders. We need more people who are prepared to help others in the model railroading community. Unfortunately sometimes we are inclined to be secretive and keep our ideas to ourselves. It is a shame, because so many people who read this blog would benefit greatly from the ideas of others. And, I know there are a lot of very experienced and talented model railroaders out there.

Remember, to watch this blog in coming days for some of Jay’s ideas that he has kindly contributed for publication. Share this on Facebook and Twitter using the buttons below.

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In this latest poll you can choose your favorite brand of model trains. You can also use the Twitter and Facebook links below this posting to share this with your friends. They might want to vote too.

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The orange rss feed symbol means you can add a direct live feed from this blog to your web site or to your personal computer. So when something on the blog gets updated you will automatically know. You will be up to date with the latest model train questions, answers and tips.

If you (or your club) has a web site, then consider adding the RSS feed from this blog to your site. It will keep your web site fresh and regularly updated without you having to supply all the content yourself.

If you scroll down this page you will see that this blog gets updated very frequently, so it is well worth adding the RSS feed to your model train site. It might even help with your search engine rankings, because this blog is a popular and respected site. The RSS feed looks like this http://modeltrainsetshelp.blogspot.com/atom.xml

If you are unsure how to add an RSS Feeed Reader to your computer desktop, then there are several youtube videos explaining how to do it. It is really easy. Here is one video I found that will show you how http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLKZrsotvsQ

Joe has a mathematical question for readers:

“What is the calculation for converting HO measurements to S measurements?
For example, if I see an HO layout I like and wish to convert it to my S layout.”

Add your feedback and comments below.

Model railroad video

Bob has an HO question for readers and asks:

“I would like to build speed controllers like they had in Boys Life about 30 years ago. Does anyone remember them?”

Carlos has sent in this information about his layout and the trains in Peru.

I live in Peru, the city of Lima, my layout is in a 7 x 4 mt. with one main line with a big station with the city (every thing is in construccion right now). I just began a re-construction of all the layout.

It will have 8 trains DCC at a time. My station have 4 secondary lines and 2 industrial ones with 2 cranes for material delivery. I also have a connection to pass through without entering the station and a round house for diesel locos (16) and another round house for steam locos (17) already install.

I just buy a DCC control MRC prodigy so I’m making changes. When it will be finished will be 3 lines (flat) one faller bus inside the city, one monorail in between two main stations and one rural station, sawmail area and mine landscape one big mountain that is construccion with 3 different lines that will pass thru. I have almost 80 machines (diesel and steam) and 150 wagons (freight and passangers).

The first photo is taken at the top of los Andes mountains at 4550 meters above sea level we just left the highest point where a trian pass through in the world call “Ticlio pass” at 4818 m.a.s.l. and enter to the “puna area” a high city landscape and mine foundry (La Oroya city) of zinc, lead, silver, copper, iron, magnesum, gold, etc the biggest in Peru. All that area is mines site, Peru is the first producer in South America of Gold, zinc, lead the second in silver (1st is Mexico) copper, iron. Then the train rolls to the city of Huancayo at 3200 m.a.s.l. one of the biggest in central peruvian andes.

In Peru are 2 main train lines one thats go from Lima city the capital to the central andes and to the main mines of the area, don’t pass thru to the jungle, and the other is in the southern part of Peru, and it bigin at Ilo port and copper foundry and goes to Arequipa city, at 2200 m.a.s.l. and from there to Cuzco city, machu Picchu citadel one branch and the other to Titicaca lake, the highst lake in our planet at 4200 m.a.s.l. and finish the trip at Puno city. There are other little lines in between Chile and Peru in sugar factories at the norther coast of Peru and thats it.

Phil wants to hear from any readers who have moved a train layout. It sounds like he is looking for suggestions on the best construction methods etc to make a later move easier. Phil asks:

“Can you give me some ideas how best to build a large O layout, with mountains, etc, that can be disassembled and moved some day?”

Comment below.

Kerry is having a problem with the horn on his Lionel 2338 and asks readers:

“I just bought The Milwaukee Road 2338 – O-Scale and there is a battery compartment.
When I took the cover off, I do not see any wires going to the battery terminals. The battery sits right under the horn relay. I bought it off Ebay. It runs great, but the horn does not work. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.”

Comment below.

Palmer has a question about US railroad history and asks readers:

“I am an HO scale modeler and a Civil War re-enactor. I plan to include a TV set scene from the siege of Petersburg including some rolling stock from that period. All the photos I can find are black and white. I would like to know the color schemes used by U.S. Military Railroad during the Civil War siege of Petersburg.”

Comment below.

Fred is having troubles with his model train sets and asks readers for help:

“My new ‘Pure Power Dual’ MRC transformer will not activate my Lionel engine’s whistles that came in the Polar Express set and the Pennsylvania Flyer Freight train set. The whistles work fine with the 80 watt Lionel transformer. The Lionel transformer has a ‘whistle’ button verses the MRC having a ‘horn’ button. I’m using the center rail and the inner rail for my connection. The train store suggested changing to the outer rail. I don’t think this would make a difference, right? I’ve tried switching transformer posts on the MRC, but no help. Does the MRC ‘horn’ button not activate whistles? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.”

Comment below.

We’ve all probably heard of ships in a bottle, but trains in a bottle???

Shawn has kindly sent in some info for publication about how he approaches the hobby.

Shawn builds locomotives in bottles. Just a few examples are EBT #15, The General,1829 Stephenson Rocket, Porter Pusher, French 2-10-2. He starts by picking a locomotive and finding as much info as he can about the size and history of the locomotive. He gets pictures and scales them to the bottle size. Shawn builds the locomotive outside the bottle and then inserts it in bottle a piece at a time starting with track then wheels and up. Shawn had some bottles hand blown as this show off the model best. His scaling is between 1/120 to 1/150 (close to N scale). He uses silicon sealer to hold track to the bottle. Shawn then use both super glue and wood glue.

Peter has kindly sent in this photo of his layout for publication.

I’ve just finished one section of my South African model scene. I am now busy with the second section. This photo shows how it stands today if you would like to show the readers. My layout is based on the South African Railways in the period 1960’s to 1990’s when diesels were taking over the majority of train operations, however steam had it’s fair share of runs still. The layout is based on a small railway junction in that period in a country town.

Comment below.

Not all questions get published. Some are rejected because they are too vague and lack detail. Others use text language, have spelling and grammatical errors. Some use ALL CAPS and get rejected for that reason.

If you want others to put time and effort into answering your questions, then please put some effort into thinking about what it is you really want to know and writing your question clearly. As the old saying goes – Garbage in – Garbage out!

If your question has not been published you are welcome to reword it and resubmit it.

“I work as an actor and this scene commemorates a TV serial in which I played the lead, shot in 1990. I was the owner of the plantation as well as the sawmill, etc. The rear of the pic features a felled area where just the tree stumps and branch debris remain. To the right and above that you can discern a firebreak.”

Frank from South Africa has kindly sent in these photos for publication. Here is Frank’s story:

I am a 65 year old South African living in Durban on the east coast and have been involved in this fascinating hobby for 19 years. I should have, would have, started earlier but was convinced I couldn’t do it but only then realised what a superb support group we had in this city at the time.My layout is very large; it occupies 3 rooms in the apartment I purchased in 1991 opposite the one I live in. The track plan is relatively simple but I designed it so got what I wanted.
The scenery is “generic” as I run American trains, Continental trains and South African trains … just never at the same time. I am not a “rivet-counter” and as long as what I see pleases me, that’s fine.Th emphasis is on fine detail and developing that has given me a lot of pleasure. I now append a few photographs and hope that you find them pleasing to your eye.

“The beach resort of Uvongo some 140km south of Durban inspired this scene: a waterfall at rear with a river running into a lagoon with a peninsular beach on one side. I replaced the very boring road bridge with a dressed stone double mainline bridge, as well as a high trestle carrying one of the layout’s two branchlines, this one leading to the plantation, sawmill, lumber storage facility and furniture factory.“

I have four of these beautiful Class 23s as I love them to bits, especially the look that the smoke deflectors give/gave them. With tender they weighed about 185 tons and although their drivers are only 5′ in diameter, they could and did thrash through the Western Transvaal and the Karoo at over 130km/h. Impressive for 3’6″

The Industrial area east of the city of Douglas. There are an even dozen factories and warehouses etc. here, each served by at least one siding. The container terminal has 5. They’re pretty short, but they’re there!

The four-track tunnel portal linking two rooms in the apartment. This junction is one of a few on the layout where all four mainlines come together. Featured here are South African trains: two 5E electric units in charge of South Africa’s famed Blue train (this is the pre-1972 version and you’re seeing 4 of the rake of 12 coaches); to the right of it is a Class 36 diesel hauling a petrol tanker train; while a main line passenger train drifts downgrade behind a massive Class 23 steam loco. One must remember that while these locos were every bit as big as their British and European counterparts, they ran on 3’6″ gauge, not the world standard of 4’8½”.