Photo 1 Copyright 2020 Nicholas Kalis
Fence Protecting Dispersed Bombs in WWII Oahu (1:20.3 scale)
Essay
Serious about starting a model railroad?Introduction
Started on your model railroad layout may just be the biggest hurdle you will face in its overall construction. Here are some random musings on often overlooked first steps to a layout. Building a layout has two critical yet seldom mentioned components:
1. Be brutally honest with yourself about what you can accomplish and your limitations (money, skill, not enough friends to help you, time) – remember the old adage “you cannot fool an honest man”, the person best able to fool you is yourself; and
2. Don’t berate yourself when things don’t go as planned; your waste basket is not your enemy – it is your friend. I repeat, your waste basket is your friend. Every time you throw a failure into the trash you are one step closer to achieving your dreams. To paraphrase Edison - each failed experiment brings me that much closer to success. You will never have a decent layout until you stop fretting about lost dollars and bruises to your ego from failed attempts at modeling. A long-lost friend of mine was a judge at local International Plastic Modelers Society events. He mentioned that at monthly meetings they held “worst model” contests. Sounds like a goofy idea at first until one realizes what they were seeking to accomplish. Advanced modelers would bring in some of their first efforts from years past to enter into the contest. Newbies would take heart that their modeling heroes were pretty awful modelers when they began.
Before you embark on your layout, friends and acquaintances will doubtless egg you on to build bigger; true friends probably will be a bit more cautious in what they egg you on to build. When in doubt, ask your friend or acquaintance how their layout is progressing and then just wait for an awkward silence as they explain either that they don’t have a layout underway or how their dream layout had hit a snag or two.
Commitment
Good news and bad. The good news is a model railroad can be built with only a minimal amount of time per day. The “bad” news for some is that it will require an almost daily commitment of some time. That is the “secret” I learned from Paul Dolkos. That time does not need to be spent in the train room. That commitment can be discharged by a run to the local home improvement store to load up on missing supplies. It can also be met by researching on the internet (with a specific goal in mind) or contacting friends for answers to a question you might have regarding a stumbling block.
You will need a timetable. Set time-specific goals for each element in your layout – bench work, backdrop, scenery, track work, etc. If you fail to meet a time specific goal, it is not the end of the world but you will need to replace the missed “deadline” with another one.
Consider too that while winter is often said to be a great season for model railroading, it can often prove – in certain climes – to be too cold, wet, and dark to get much painting done outside.
The best way to get a layout in working order (mind you, I did not say “completed”) is to schedule in your own mind or with your local NMRA division an open house. Of course, you could instead (or also) schedule an open house for a historical society, your neighbors, a narrow-gauge convention, or some convention of enthusiasts of a particular scale (O scale comes to mind).
If your layout is of a smaller size, then perhaps you can just throw down the gauntlet with yourself to take your layout to a modeling or prototype convention. If that is not your cup of tea, then consider making an internal appointment with yourself to send photos of your layout to one of the generalist model railroad magazines, a magazine covering your scale, or perhaps a historical society’s journal (one that covers the prototype your model).
Don’t overlook that you could commit yourself to sending photos of your layout to some website that covers either your prototype, scale, or type of railroading modeled (for example - logging, narrow gauge, mining, etc.). Even sending photos to your modeling friends can create some incentives to push forward.
Challenges
Years ago, my immigrant dad – a WWII veteran a bit more hardened and world weary than his fellow GIs – told me how military life astounded some GIs by how tough they found it. His response to them was “get used to this not being the Army service Hollywood imagines”. To get your layout built you must make the same adjustment; it won’t be like a project layout featured in some model railroad publication nor like some video you have seen posted on YouTube – nope, it will be a bit less organized and if you do not steel yourself a bit, some roadblock will shut you down.
Perhaps the most important things to master are to organize your time; your tools; and your supplies. What I find the hardest thing to handle is striking a balance between buying too little of some supplies and bringing my construction to a halt because we ran out of something versus buying too much of an item that it turns out I did not find was serving me well (there is some designing going on during construction no matter how thoroughly thought out your project is).
Procrastination
Years ago, I wrote an article about how procrastination can kill any layout effort so I will not cover this again except to say – crush that snake with vigor. If you do not crush that snake, it will devour your layout dreams and you too.
Tools
Do you have a sturdy table to store power tools, supplies, and hardware so that every time you want to get something you don’t need to bend over and pick off the floor? If not, get one. You might need more than one table for all the stuff involved in building and scenicking a layout.
Have you acquired power tools or friends who will lend you theirs or cut your wood at their place? Do you have replacement blades for your power tools? A table saw will help your bench work construction go much faster and safer – they are not that expensive. Buy an extension cord dedicated to your layout – it should not be lent to any other household project. Do you have some plastic caddies to hold spray paint, tools, scenery supplies so to keep them off your layout top?
Room Preparation
Have you finished your future layout room? If no, once again be brutally honest about your abilities and money. If you cannot finish this room yourself, you must consider getting an outside pro to help you. If your budget is strained, consider reducing the size of the layout; yes, that is a painful step but it better than never getting to a layout. Consider taking a room that has been finished but is no longer serving the purpose it once did (children have moved away; spouse has abandoned a hobby). Don’t forget to consider taking a sunny room for your workbench so you can do your modeling in a cheerful place – if space is available. Windowless basements can be discouraging to our modeling efforts when the weather is fine.
Seldom Mentioned
You will not get far building your layout unless you have taken care of a few items that are seldom mentioned in any how to article or video. To start with, you will not get very far without a dedicated litter receptacle and liners for same. This does not mean borrowing the kitchen waste can! Go out and buy one just for yourself.
Copyright 2020 Nicholas Kalis
Tub O' Towels
Acquire a shop vacuum dedicated to your layout room and the extra filters that go with it.
Planning
You will need a track plan of some sort (you have either designed it yourself, had a friend design it for you, paid someone to design it for you, or have purchased a CAD program to get the job done).
Have you collected some reference materials to guide you? If not, get going but do not wait until you have collected all the reference material available before you start.
Materials On Hand
Go out and buy that first board and be prepared to make many more trips to the home improvement center. This includes an ample supply of lumber and hardware.
A hundred locomotives in your closet – you know who you are – will not get you a layout. In fact, the daunting task (financially and otherwise) of re-motoring, installing DCC, painting, and weathering those locomotives could actually hold you back in most cases.
Before you buy your vast fleet of locomotives, have you started assembling the fleet of vehicles to populate your roads and parking lots? Assembling a stable of vehicles should not be rushed. Take your time to find them – they often can be found in catalogs aimed at auto model collectors.
These paragraphs were not meant as a substitute for reading countless more articles and books about planning and building your layout. What I strove to impart to my readers were a few considerations that are often overlooked for one reason or another.
You can talk for decades about building a layout (and many have) – but if you confront and conquer some of the challenges laid out in this essay, you will have the layout you always wanted!
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