Railroad Layout Size (HO). Start in science DIY railroad model making

For young modelers and enthusiasts who feel sorry for or not have money for purchased rails, but have time, below we present you an example of a budget modeling railway track.

The basis our road is a stretcher made of strips and plywood. Its size can be approximately 3000x500x120 mm or more. It depends on the area of the room. The role of ballast is performed by wooden blocks, on which the sleepers are laid. Homemade rails are attached to the sleepers.
And to make your road bed look like a real one, grease it with liquid wood glue and sprinkle it with sand sifted through a fine sieve. When the glue is dry, shake off excess sand. You can do it differently: paint the stretcher with paint. Of course, you first need to putty it, sand it with a sandpaper ...

Sleepers can be made from plywood strips or pine planks 60x10x4 mm. In order not to bother with the manufacture of each tie, the work can be simplified. Take a sheet of plywood, mark it according to the size of the sleepers and cut it with a fine-toothed hacksaw, then smooth out all the irregularities with a file and sandpaper and paint oil paint or black ink.
Ready sleepers are laid on the canvas - glued at a distance of 20-25 mm from each other.

You need a stamp to make them. It is made from two metal rectangular bars of the same section.
On a milling or planer process these bars. On one, cut a groove 7x10 mm in size and two grooves with a diameter of 3 and 4 mm, on the other - the same grooves, but instead of a groove, a protrusion. You will get a device like a punch and a matrix. The rail head is stamped into the groove (see figure below). The 1: 50 model uses a 3.5 mm notch, and the 1: 100 model uses 2.5 mm.
Let's talk about the sequence of operations. Take a strip of tin (see picture below), draw a center line, fold. Insert a wire with a diameter of 2.5-3 mm inside - for the rail head, crimp with wire cutters and now put it into the stamp. Clamp the die in a vise, and you get a straight rail along the entire length with a good head and neck.
Without removing the rail from the die, flare its base with a screwdriver different sides and align with a mallet.
Attach the finished rail to the sleepers with studs. Do this carefully and as accurately as possible. First of all, outline a line of one strand of rails along the entire length of the canvas. To do this, exactly at a distance of 15 mm from the edge of the sleepers, pull the thread, fastening it on two studs temporarily driven into the first and last sleepers. Place the rails and nail exactly under this thread. At the same time, they should neither touch it, nor pull it to the side.
There is another way. Cut out a rectangular bar measuring 1000x32x10 mm. Place it in the center of the ballast, secure with nails and run rails on either side of it. You will see how exactly they fit, and the distance between them will be accurate along the entire length - equal to 32 mm between the heads.
It is necessary to connect the rails to each other at the joints with rods that are inserted into the rail heads. The rail joints must be in the middle of the sleepers.
When you make one section of the track, test the locomotive on it and start building the next section.
Fasten the sections together with metal hooks or loops attached to the stretcher.
So, you have built a railroad track, laid sleepers, rails. Now you need to install the support poles and tighten the overhead wire.

Support masts. Cut the support out of a bar 200 mm long and 21 x 21 mm in cross section. Take plywood (30 x 30 mm) by the base. Drill a 10mm hole in the center, sand and fit the bottom of the mast.
You can make the hanger on which the contact wire is attached from any wire with a diameter of 2-3 mm. Do not forget to wind the spring, as shown in the figure, for this take a nail with a diameter of 2 mm, clamp it in a vice and wrap a spiral 10-12 mm high around it. The suspension is ready. It is attached to the support mast through a bracket and, in addition, for greater strength it is pulled with a string - an ordinary thread or thin wire.
Insulators there may be plastic beads or small buttons.
Contact wire runs along the entire track. It is supported by the support poles we just told you about and the support wire. It is fixed over the contact wire and connected to it with guy wires.
To make the model portable, the overhead wires have a break in several places and are connected by connectors - two metal plates: a contact wire is soldered to one, and a reference wire to the other. The plates are equipped with a lock - cutouts are made on one, rivets are soldered on the other. Thanks to this, the plates are easily and quickly separated.
You can "green up" the finished railway. The material for the "grass" is dry sawdust painted with gouache green. They are sifted through a sieve onto a tablet greased with wood glue, drying oil or oil varnish.
"Trees" are made from a rubber sponge, foam rubber or a bundle of copper wire. The plait is folded in half and twisted to the distance of the "trunk", and for the "branches" the wire is disconnected. In order for the “tree” to “turn green”, it is dipped in liquid glue, allowed to drain and sprinkled on the “crown” with finely chopped dyed tissue paper.

Prototyping is a very interesting activity.

I have always dreamed of making a model of the railway since childhood, in reality I made only a few spans experiential ways... Unfortunately, during my work, I encountered many problems and scarce details, in this article I want to discuss with you the most frequent questions when creating a layout of a railroad bed and transport.

In the second issue of ModelMen magazine, I published an article and several photos from the site of an experienced modeller, he builds models of railways and participates in exhibitions with his creations. Even looking at the photos of the layout, you can already determine the amount of work for yourself, make a list of tools and materials. I will not give the entire list of necessary things at once, because it may not be complete, let's better analyze together what is made of what.

Base

The model of the railroad track must stand on something, therefore, at the very beginning, it is necessary to design the base (table) for the model. The base can be solid and collapsible. It's easier to make a solid base, but then you need to decide in advance on the room for the layout, it should be big room in case of scale up.

For the base, you need legs; you can take them from old school desks or make them yourself. The entire structure can be easily made from plywood and timber. For fasteners you will need screws, metal corners. To make a collapsible model, you will have to smash your head over the base device and how to transport it.

Tool

To work, you will need many different tools:

Hammer
- screwdrivers
- nippers and pliers
- chisels
- files
- spatulas
- scissors
- knives
- brushes
- soldering iron
- and etc.

Railroad bed

In order for the trains to move in the right direction, we need rails, they can be purchased ready-made in specialized stores for modelers. If you, like me, do not have such stores in your city, then you can buy them through online stores or go for them yourself. As a last resort, you will have to make the rails yourself.

The easiest construction option is to use ready-made rails, they are glued or nailed to the base with small nails, the joints can be soldered and cleaned with a file.

If there are no ready-made rails, then you need to think about how to make them yourself, you can take the dimensions of the rails that are sold in stores and make your own. For sleepers, you will need to saw a lot of thin pieces, this can be done on a small machine. The rail itself must conduct current, so it is advisable to make it from thick copper wire that can be rolled on manual machine before rectangular section... You can attach the rail to the sleepers using good glue or solder it to the nails driven into the sleepers, this can be done after 3-4 sleepers.

Electrical equipment

For the movement of the train, electricity, unless of course you are doing a steam locomotive. Factory and home-made power supplies are used as a power source (see diagrams, radio engineering), the output voltage should not be dangerous, usually a power supply unit up to 16 volts is used, for small models 6 - 9 volts are enough.

The train is driven by an electric motor; it can be taken from broken toys or purchased at a radio store. Electricity is supplied to the engine from two rails, the voltage is removed from them with the help of two or more meters or from the metal wheels of the train itself.

For wiring electricity on the layout (base) you will need copper wires and connectors.

In addition to the trains themselves, the layout can contain traffic lights, barriers, lanterns and other elements that need electricity. Before wiring, carefully think over every detail, after installation it will be too late to lead the wires, you will have to chicken the layout.

Landscape

Landscaping is an integral part of a good layout and should be given Special attention... To resemble reality, you need to work hard on imitation of hills, vegetation, buildings, little people, vehicles, etc.

Many parts can be used in finished form, i.e. take toy cars, figurines of people, also in children's stores you can buy figurines of animals, trees ...

To imitate hills, mountains, etc., you will need plywood, plaster of paris, papier-mache, fiberglass, acrylic paints and other finishing materials.

Building

Models of buildings can also be purchased at toy stores or made yourself from wood, cardboard, papier-mâché, plywood, etc.

Modelers often take real train stations as a model, photograph them and turn them into miniatures on the table.

On the site, I will periodically publish my own and the developments you sent, you are probably interested in information on how to make a model of a train, traffic lights, trees, bridges and other elements for the railway. And also I will publish electrical diagrams, photographs and drawings of old and new trains.

The text of the work is placed without images and formulas.
Full version work is available in the tab "Files of work" in PDF format

Introduction 3

Chapter 1. General information about railway modeling 5

Chapter 2. Building a model of the railway 6

2.2 My experience of creating a model of a railway at home 7

2.3 Sociological survey "Railway modeling" 8

Conclusion 9

List of sources and literature 10

Appendices 11

Introduction

Do you like to meet and see off trains? Perhaps you are delighted and admired by a passing train, the power and strength of the locomotive, which pulls loaded wagons, amazes. However, you do not yet have the opportunity to connect your profession and life with the railway. Then you will be interested to know what is the hobby that will allow you to have your own train with trailers, stations, rails and the world around you. This is railway modeling.

Railroad modeling is not as simple a hobby as it might seem at first glance. In order for the result of practicing railway modeling to please, you must have enough knowledge in general issues of railway technology, strive to acquire new knowledge in this area, apply various techniques and technology, choose a material for creating objects of a layout or model, be able to use the tool correctly and, of course, do not forget about safety precautions.

In our work, we want to collect such information and offer our own version of the railway layout.

We believe that our research will help arouse interest in technology, will contribute to the development of imagination and fantasy in children, perhaps, it will help someone to decide on the choice of a future profession.

Research problem: find out how to organize work on creating a model of a railway at home.

Object of study: the layout of the railway.

Subject of study: conditions and technologies for creating elements of the layout of the railway.

Purpose of the study: describe the creation of a model of a railway at home.

Research objectives: study the literature on the topic; research modern methods and technologies for constructing a model of a railway; describe a home-made model of a railroad.

Research hypothesis: it is assumed that if certain conditions are met when creating a model of a railway, then this will make the model as realistic as possible.

Theoretical significance We see that the research carried out will contribute to the development of students' interest in technology in general and in railway modeling in particular.

Practical significance of this work is that collected materials can be used by teachers and students in additional classes on the surrounding world and technology. Also, the research materials may be of interest to those who want to do railway modeling.

Research methods: study of special literature; generalization and systematization of the material; observation and fixation of results, photography.

Brief overview of used literature and sources... Topic railway modeling devoted to a huge number of practical and theoretical manuals, catalogs, reference books and periodicals. We have at our disposal a selection of the periodical "Railway in Miniature", which describes in detail the instructions for creating model objects. A lot of general information about railway modeling (history, development, modern achievements, the most famous models and technologies for making models) is collected in the three-volume edition “The Art of Railway Modeling”. "Model railways" edited by BV Barkovskov is one of the first domestic publications about railway modeling, this book is very popular in our country, it is not without reason that it is called the "Bible of Modeling". Here you can find general information about this hobby, its types, production technology and storage of models and models. This topic is also widely discussed in Internet communities and forums.

Chapter 1. General information about railway modeling

"Modeling" is the production of a model that reproduces the geometric shapes of nature, linearly reduced in all planes and repeating the texture of the outer surfaces of the original. The word "model" itself is French, meaning the semblance of some kind of object in a reduced form. Thus, it is customary to call modelingism a large-scale reproduction of an existing or pre-existing object.

Today, no one can confidently say what happened in the beginning: a real steam locomotive or its model. According to some reports, the English engineer Richard Trevithick tested a smaller copy of it before building his first locomotive. In any case, it remains undoubted historical fact that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the railway model came to our world almost in parallel with the real railway.

The development of railway transport in Russia contributed to the development of railway modeling in the world. The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway at the beginning of the 20th century became a worldwide phenomenon. At an exhibition in Paris in 1900, a model of the Siberian express received a gold medal, which is classic example models of large-scale forms.

Today the model Railway ranks among the most popular hobbies around the world. People of different ages and professions are fond of creating copies of rolling stock and entire railway complexes - models.

In the first half of the 20th century, three ways of development of railway modeling were outlined. The first one is large-scale and includes museum and exhibition models. high class made by professional layout designers; the second is student's, which is popular in our country and has a large educational value; the third way is small-scale amateur.

Student Modeling introduces students to railway technology. This type of modeling does not aim at a strict large-scale reproduction of rolling stock and other elements of the railway. Its main features- this is a large selection of the scale of models and their arbitrary shape.

Amateur small-scale modeling includes the construction of miniature replica models of railway rolling stock, as well as the construction of model complexes for these models, reproducing, as it were, the railway as a whole. This type of modeling can be home or club, that is, individual or collective.

Chapter 2. Building a model of the railway 2.1 General recommendations on creating a model of a railway

A railroad mockup is a miniature recreation of railroad objects. The mock-up may contain a model of a railway station, part of a stretch, access roads, a locomotive or carriage depot, urban infrastructure with railway tracks, natural objects along which a railway line passes.

The first thing we must decide on when deciding to create a model of the railway is the scale. In railway modeling, the concept of scale is closely related to standard size. The standard size is characterized by scale reduction and gauge. There are several main standard sizes of model railways, you can get acquainted with the main ones in the appendix (Appendix 1).

Having studied in the literature various instructions for creating layouts of railways, we have compiled an approximate sequence of work on making a layout of a railway at home.

Make a sub-model, a platform on which all the elements of the model are attached and a rail track is laid. For simple layout you can get by with a plywood sheet of the right size.

Apply a marking of paths, highways, the location of buildings and more.

Lay the substrates to simulate the ballast prism.

Lay the rails. Before doing this, you need to buy a sufficient amount of rail material.

To develop electrical circuit and mount it on the layout.

Carry out ballast filling. Ballast simulation - required element layout. Ballast can be sized among aquarium soils or other similar household bulk materials.

Make a relief (hills, mountains, river valleys, etc.).

Paint the bases for various elements of the landscape (grass, sand, forest soil).

Stick on roads.

Build and install structures.

Apply grass and other vegetation.

Arrange the figures of people and vehicles on the layout.

2.2 My experience of creating a model of a railway at home

Having decided to create our own model of the railway, my dad and I subscribed to the magazine "Railway in Miniature" (Appendix 2).

Since we decided to create a simple layout, we settled on wall version... For the model, strips of plywood 30 cm wide were used.Using wooden blocks, they were attached to the wall with self-tapping screws.

Dad and I bought rails and arrows in the online store. We nailed them to the model with small carnations (Appendix 3).

To simulate the ballast filling, a sieved river sand... Dad applied glue, and I poured sand (Appendix 4).

Grass was made from sawdust stained with green gouache and glued to the model (Appendix 5).

The station building is flat - my dad cut it out of a piece of plywood, and I painted and painted the windows (Appendix 6).

The station building is voluminous. I worked as a burner, screwdriver, chisel, hammer and stationery knife. The walls, floor and ceiling are plywood pieces held together with toothpicks. To make it realistic, the roof was covered with black paper (Appendix 7).

We also bought traffic lights and glued them to the model. Dad connected the wires, we put locomotives with carriages on the model, and I checked how it all works (Appendix 8, 9).

The layout is ready, but this does not mean that nothing else will change in it. We are planning all sorts of improvements and improvements. So there is a lot of work ahead! (Appendix 10)

2.3 Sociological survey "Railway modeling"

I wondered if my classmates, friends and acquaintances were familiar with this activity? Do they want to get carried away with railway modeling and will they be interested in my work? I conducted a survey (Appendix 11) and received the following results:

Conclusions: By interviewing boys and girls aged 6 to 9, I found that:

Many people (74%) like trains.

Few currently have a railway (31%), but the majority would like to have their own railway (58%).

Few people are familiar with the concept of "modeling" (21%).

The respondents want to know how to create their own model of the railway (63%).

Therefore, the research topic is really interesting and relevant for the majority of my classmates, friends and acquaintances. I will definitely introduce them to my research and share my practical recommendations.

Conclusion

In our research work we formulated a problem - to find out how to organize work on creating a model of a railway at home. During the research, we examined general issues, principles, possibilities and methods of building layouts of railways at home.

Our observations helped to verify the correctness of the hypothesis put forward: if certain conditions are met when creating a model of a railway, this will make it possible to give the model maximum realism. Our model is a small world of the railroad.

The conducted sociological survey helped to make sure of the necessity and relevance of the topic presented in the research. We hope that our recommendations will help you create your first model of a railway, and you will feel the magic and magic of the world of small railway models.

List of sources and literature

Barkovskov B.V., Prokhazka K.I., Ragozin L.N. Models of railways / Ed. Barkovskova B.V., - M .: Transport, 1989

Railway in miniature - M .: Iglmoss Edishins LLC, a selection of magazines for 2014-2016.

Moskalev L.M. The art of railway modeling. [In 3 vols. Vol. 1]: History. Initial skills / Moskalev L.M., Myasnikov A.G., Ragozin L.N. - M.: Zheleznodorozhnoe Delo, 2011 .-- 256 p.

www.railmodel.ru/- a site about the creation of a home railway.

Applications

ANNEX 1

Symbol standard size	Main scale	Scale meter size, mm	Width track, mm

APPENDIX 2

APPENDIX 3

APPENDIX 4

APPENDIX 5

APPENDIX 6

APPENDIX 7

APPENDIX 8

APPENDIX 9

APPENDIX 10

APPENDIX 11

Research Questionnaire

Dima Maksimenko

How old are you? ______________

Do you like trains? Not really.

Do you have a toy railroad? Not really.

Do you know what "Modeling" is? Not really.

Do you want to have your own railway with small trains, stations, houses, trees, tunnels, cars, tractors, people? Not really.

Do you want to know how to make a model of a railway with your own hands? Not really.

Many articles have been written about this, but I decided to write my own and below I will explain why ...

I will say right away that until recently I had no experience in building a model of a railway. Searching for the necessary information on the Internet gave little. Some articles "bypassed the basics" and immediately "jumped on difficulties" such as: "and now we will make mountains" ... or the proposed layouts were super complicated: they were immediately offered to master the Autocad program. In other articles, the emphasis was on some trifles like: “ You will need a hammer ...“, That's all the valuable information. All found articles did not correspond to our goals and objectives. I had everything myself in person ask and pry in stores and, of course, amateurs.

Family tradition

Let's go back 12 years. In the photo below, in a St. Petersburg communal apartment, I play with my son Alyosha on the railroad, which my father gave me many, many years ago, when I was still in elementary school!

Yes, you can’t say anything, the quality and reliability of PIKO has been tested by time. After all, almost every weekend my son and I assembled, disassembled, designed ... And when our family moved again, each time a box with a gift from my father was the first on the list of things for the move. Only we had to leave it ... and again with my father in the village, it is intact to this day!

Goals and objectives of our future layout

The main goal: psychomotor development of the child.

So copy number , beauty (yes, such that you cannot touch it with your hands) and unnecessary complexity fade into the background. But this does not mean that we have to make a "simple circle" and "stupidly drive" the train around this circle ... In other words, we need to make the layout as functional and interesting as possible for the child.

Our tasks:

development fine motor skills : coupling and uncoupling of wagons, loading and unloading, construction of various objects on the model itself and many other small operations;
development of thinking and problem solving: this is something like a puzzle, for example, you need to remove a car from the middle of the train (not just with your hands, of course, but with maneuvers) and leave it on the side tracks (so as not to interfere) or for loading and unloading. It seems elementary, but believe me, sometimes such a task can even "strain" an adult a little;
interaction of the child with other players: for example, a child controls a train, stops the train, and asks another player to switch the switch. Or a child adjusts the train exactly to the place of loading, waits for another player to load the carriage and then transports this cargo;
the acquisition of knowledge: give an idea of different types transport and their interaction. Transportation of various goods (for people, we will use coach, for bulky cargo - a platform, etc.). "Combined" transportation, for example, we will load something into a container (directly inside this container), then transport the container itself and then unload it at the place of arrival.

This list can of course be continued endlessly ...

The foundation

Let's talk very briefly about the base: rails, a locomotive, wagons and a power unit.

The most common and convenient scale is H0 or 1:87 (~ 90-95% of all railway models). Note that it can be written as the letter "H" and the letter "O" (more correctly), but also as the letter "H" and the letter "O". The track width is 16.5 mm. Remember scale "H0"[" Ash zero "or" heych zero "] - search, ask, buy only this scale!

There is one more detail. As you know, there are straight rails, and there are curved rails. So, this "degree of curvature" is measured by the radius. Those. if we assemble a circle from curved rails, then we can measure the radius. If you only plan to use a small two-axle locomotive, then there is no problem. But if you use large six-axle (two bogies on three axles), then it will not be able to drive with a small radius... It is like a truck with a long trailer cannot drive on a road with sharp turns. I will not bother you with this, because different manufacturers may have different “curvature” markings. You just have to remember this.

It is good if you have purchased a ready-made set, and from it you can assemble not just " a circle" or " ov al ", and it contains arrows, dead ends ... But what if you need to assemble yourself from scratch? First you need to decide what size the layout will be (see below). Then you need to make a sketch of it on paper. And then the drawing can be made in full size. And if you already have rails, collect them directly on the drawing and outline. With this huge "picture", you can already walk around and select the missing rails, simply by attaching them to the drawing! By the way, now there are flexible rails on sale, bend as you want, i.e. you can put one of these instead of 4-6 ordinary ones, and the most important thing is that this long rail can be, at your request, either straight or curved, exactly repeating all your fantasies on the drawing!

The simplest and cheapest is analog model of the railway. Everything is simple here: we let current on the rails (minus on one rail, plus on the other) and the locomotive goes, because it has an electric motor. They stopped the supply of current - the locomotive stopped, changed the polarity - the locomotive went in the other direction. Recently appeared digital control... In this case, the rails are energized all the time, but the peculiarity is that a command is sent to the locomotive (along the same rails), so that, for example, the engine turns on, or the light, etc. Each locomotive is assigned its own unique code. If there are two locomotives (even nearby), then you can control one of them, the other will not respond to these commands. In other words, different formulations can be controlled independently. Such a system is much more complicated and its cost is much higher.
For our purposes and tasks simple, old and reliable analog control with an inexpensive power supply, more than enough.

Where can I buy

On many sites describing the construction of a model, they offer to buy a starter kit right away. If your “hens don’t peck money” and you are too lazy to do something with your own hands, then this is not a problem (they will do everything instead of you, and by the way ... what have you forgotten here?). It must be borne in mind that the child can break something during the game. In other words, the layout should not be "cheap", but it should not be overly expensive for a child to just look at. In addition, we do not need only identical cars, we need a variety: a platform, a car in which the door opens (for loading), a passenger car, some kind of tank, etc. Therefore, for a start, I would advise you to look for used sets, and already supplement them, if necessary, with both new objects and used ones. Actually such sets are "lying around" in many... In Montreal, where we live, they can be bought at / for registered users only / ... There I bought a starter kit for only $ 20 at regular price- 100 CAD! I've seen a lot of good suggestions here as well: /*****/ But be careful, prices are often unreasonably high! Very good prices in the shop /*****/ You can also buy online, for example by /*****/ but this is mostly for complement. By the way, when we lived in St. Petersburg, I saw a lot of things. /*****/ .

Diy railroad model

You can play on the floor, but the assembly of the railway itself will take from 30 - 40 minutes, after which you will no longer have the energy to play with the child. Then the rails will always be disconnected somewhere, while the cars will leave them .. It will be necessary to endlessly put everything back! Also, contact will often be lost, you will need to look for where it does not contact. The child will walk, step on the rails, sweep away the objects he has built, or may even step on the train ... But All this time you will crawl on all fours(as I am in the photo above). I have already gone through this and it "finished" me ...

Layout size

The requirements for the parameters of the layout were as follows:

so I can easily rush through the door,
so that you can put it against the wall (when we are not playing),
so that during the game you can walk around the layout,
to make the layout as large as possible,
so that the child can play calmly "like on the table",
so that we, adults, do not crawl on all fours and that we do not have to make an appointment with a masseur after such games.

So, we measured a couple of rooms where it was planned to play the railway, figured it out and came to the conclusion that a size of approximately 1.5x2 meters would do. In order not to complicate the design of the layout, we decided to just put it on four stools during the game.

Let's start construction

I bought 8mm plywood. Checking again, I collected all the rails on it and sawed off to the desired size.

On the picture at the bottom You see how the future railroad is assembled. In the same way, I assembled rails on plywood before as give her right size... The railway should be made as rich and interesting as possible (if possible), and not just a "circle" or "oval". Plan different branches, sidings. Of course, I would like to "have more railroad", but at the edges you need to leave some distance so that the locomotive or wagons do not fall to the floor when derailing. In addition, it is easier for a child to design and play on the edge of the model, he can build different objects there, there may be a road, etc.

Such a large plywood will deform both due to its gravity and due to the fact that the child will lean on it during the game. And when the plywood is deformed, the rails will deform. In this regard, on the reverse side, you need to make reinforcement. By the way, this reinforcement will also help protect the wires if you want to put any additional electrical objects (like traffic lights, lights or make arrows so that they can be switched remotely).

I thought for a long time how to cover this whole layout. At first I just wanted to paint it with paint, but it would not look very beautiful. The professionals themselves, who build complex layouts of the railway, cover everything with PVA glue, and sprinkle a special "grass" on top. But I settled on a special vinyl mat (Woodland scenics) that I saw in the store. I do not think that this is ideal, it is even possible that better fit some kind of fabric, BUT keep in mind that this the fabric must not build up static electricity!

I was assured that this mat adheres well and was advised to use a specific adhesive. Seeing an elderly seller in front of me, with a serious and professional expression on his face, I certainly believed him. "Cool" scientific glue turned out to be simple PVA in our understanding! And as it turned out later, the plastic did not stick normally. So be careful, double-check the advice, even if it is given with a serious air 🙂

I additionally nailed the edge of the mat to the slats with staples. In addition, the mat will be held by the rails, because we lay the rails on the mat and nail them through it to the plywood.

Now we will consider how we will lay the rails, for some reason this important point everyone ignores... You can immediately nail the rails onto the model, but at the same time vibration from the train may increase, especially since we have plywood, which will not effectively extinguish it and light cars can go off the rails. Therefore, a kind of bedding in the form of an embankment is placed under the rails. This The "rail pad" is called ballast. By the way, at first I thought it was purely for beauty, until they explained it to me. Ballast is often made from cork, in my case the ballast consisted of two halves, which made the task easier. First, we assemble all the rails on the breadboard, as expected, connecting them with contact terminals. We try to make the joints as invisible as possible. And then we plant them with special studs through special holes in the sleepers (see photo below).

Then we raise the rails like in the photo below ...

And we put the ballast under the rails. Next, we apply PVA on the model (but not on the rails) where the ballast will be and carefully lay it down step by step, repeating the configuration of the canvas. And we pin it with pins. Be careful with the glue, I got it on the arrow, I had to switch it for a very long time so as not to stick it! 🙂

Further, there is also an important point. Having laid any area, we press down carefully (!!!) rails and hammer in a carnation. VERY IMPORTANT:the head of the stud should not be pressed tightly against the sleeper! There should be a very small distance between the head of the stud and the tie, about the thickness of whatman paper or thick paper.

In the next article we will show you this in-game layout and tell you about our future plans.

PIKO is a German company that produces everything for railway modeling, was organized back in the GDR and is still one of the leading in the world.
"Copies" is a term ... Many people make models of railways very similar to their prototype, i.e. copy. At the same time, the trains are assembled so that the locomotive and the cars fit each other in terms of time of use, place of use ...
Remember that children can play with each other (or with adults), starting from about four years old, meaning interaction, for example, one child “drove up” in a car, waited while another loaded it and “drove” on. Before that, they play "in parallel", you can put it this way: "in the same sandbox, but not with each other."

Here's a breakdown of the basic layout of the HO.
We have made a new layout. Continuation of the topic .

Soon New Year, and it is better to prepare for it in advance - including on the model :) Therefore, I made for myself a New Year's diorama in my favorite scale - TT.

The diorama turned out to be 20 * 20 cm in size. The diorama is made on a homemade "box" made of plastic.

The tree is made of a brass tube with soldered wire branches. The needles are the usual NOKH-ovsky tinted flock.

The height of the tree without a star is 13 cm. Christmas decorations- different beads. The rain is a real rain, slightly clipped. The star is cut from a piece of plastic and sprinkled with shiny powder. There are four on the tree glowing garland of SMD LEDs in case 0603, 11 in each. Garlands can blink (a primitive circuit on a transistor and a capacitor), there are two modes: normal - simple glow, and blinking.

Snow is made from ordinary baking soda mixed with diluted PVA glue. The paving stones in the square are from Auchagen.

Ice luminous cubes - molded from plasticine and copied from transparent resin CrystalLine 940. Blue and white LEDs are "molded" into resin.
Figures - Preiser, self-painted. Figures are not enough - in TT "winter" generally few are produced. I think I'll remake more of the "summer" figures ...

Decorative gifts under the tree - cut out of cardboard and pasted over with paper from candy wrappers.

Machine - "Moskvich" from Herpa. Snowman - made of foam balls.

In general, the process of creating the square took a month - mainly in the evenings and weekends. If only I didn't have to go to work ... :)

The houses in the photo are not part of the diorama - they are just set for the background.

Day area

Christmas tree on four sides: