Having a smooth flow to our curves is essential to derailment-free operation. However, once a curve exceeds 90 degrees, a problem arises. A single, three-foot-long piece of flex track isn't long enough to span the entire distance. At first glance, the solution would be simple enough: just join two pieces of track together. Unfortunately, it's not so simple, and attempting to do so is a recipe for a train in the ditch. Try as you might, you will, without fail, have a kink

A Norfolk Southern switcher out of Windsor Street Yard in York, PA makes a short transfer run to York Rail's nearby Poorhouse Yard. Planning the treatment of yards on your layout is a totally different subject from designing them. Designing, which is much easier, covers minutiae such as ladder arrangements, stub-ended vs. double-ladder arrangements, etc. Planning, today's subject, asks bigger, more important, and more difficult-to-answer questions. What are my "true" intere

On the left is the cover of the original edition of my book on track plans for a spare room. On the right is the significantly upgraded second edition, which I will release next month. Restoration is an uplifting concept. Whether it be a car, old photograph, or structure, there is something uniquely satisfying about taking something with “good bones but needs a facelift” and breathing new life to it from the ground up. It never occurred to me until now, but the same concept a

Shown above are the “best practice” guidelines I use for dimensions and spacing on the shelf layouts I build. Guidelines are just that: a starting point. I generally shoot for a shelf width between 18″ and 22″. However, I do commonly go to two feet if a yard is involved; in most other cases, that begins to feel too wide. If you have a stub peninsula extending into the room, you need some width, say 18″, to give you stability. Once the shelf is in place, work back to front. If

A trio of Monon RS2s glides through the frozen fields of Southern Indiana on this 1950s-era, N scale, model railroad. The one thing railroads can do better than any other mode of transportation is move massive amounts of really heavy stuff over long distances and do so fairly quickly. That's their business model in a nutshell. However, one aspect of this poses challenges on the modeling front. Specifically, creating the illusions of those long distances. In the real worl

Valley Grain in New Ulm, MN, is the embodiment of visual interest, making it an ideal modeling subject. Third Street, on the left, cuts across the entire yard. I was recently contacted by an existing customer about exploring concepts for a layout to possibly be built in a spare bedroom. He is a lifelong CNW enthusiast, and if I could come up with something along the famed "Alco Line" that would be a plus. With a somewhat blank canvas, I began researching towns up and down

Several decades ago, I was contacted by a customer in the Chicago area who wanted a fairly large layout that would allow for both casual train running and industrial switching. The basic theme was somewhere in the Rust Belt during the 1950's. Shown above is the design we came up with. It's essentially just a large double-track loop with industries along the perimeter and a large yard on the top. It measured 32' x 11'. We set the minimum radius at 36 inches to accommodate

For the past eighteen months the project in the shop has been a rendition of CNW's famed Alco Line, plying the prairies of Southern Minnesota. The layout was done in three phases. The third, and final section, set in the region around Waseca is now complete. I've add five images of this phase to the photo gallery. Here's the final track plan.

A trio of faded RS3s rolls westward past the iconic station in Mankato, MN. The exquisite model was scratch-built by Jeff Kraker. Phase 2 of the Alco Line project is now complete. (Phase 1 was the cover story in the November issue of RMC). Phase 2 models Mankato and the regions just to the east and west. Join me as we take a photo tour of the latest progress updates. Here is the track plan. Phase 2 is in the middle of the room. After passing the station, and continuing

The yard switcher spots a load at a scratch-built model of Hubbard Feeds in Mankato, MN on the HO scale Alco Line project. As much as...

Heading eastward across Forest Avenue, Guilford's local works the Bishop Street Branch on one of my custom-built commissions. The vast...

In the November 1939 issue of Model Railroader, there was an excellent layout design put together by J. Harold Geissel. Just for fun, I...

CNW RS-3 no. 1616 warms up on a cold morning in Tracy, MN in preparation for its run to Sleepy Eye. Follow along as I walk you through...

It's September of '78 in Tracy, MN and things are getting to the point where you can start feeling a chill in the air when the shift...

It's a late summer afternoon in 1978 as a CNW RS-3 does some clean-up work on the elevator lead behind the yard in Tracy, MN. The...