Tips, Tricks, and Design Ideas for Making a Layout

Hello guys! In today's Instructable, I will be teaching you some tricks, tips, and layout designs you can use as a guide for you model railroaders out there! There's everything in here I can give to you on my knowledge of model railroading. Me personally, I have had a pretty good expirience with this hobby for a good while now, and I'm happy to share some info for beginners too! So without further ado, let's get going! Also, in the design pics, you'll see a white light. It was kinda dark when taking the pic originally, so I just decided to use the camera flasher, but the pictures still turn out well enough to see what it is!

Step 1: Tips #1: Getting What You Need

In my "Building A Layout" Instructable, I told you guys what kind of tracks you need for a layout. If you're a beginner, you could use the E-Z Tracks (left), and when you get more room and want to make a whole entire railroad, lots of people, in which I have seen their layout at train shows, have the other kind. Now I'm not 100% sure, but I think those are brass (right). I use both on my "roomed" layout (the layout in my room). Also, if you don't already, get at least 1 locomotive to put on your layout with some cars.

Step 2: Tips #2: Materials for Fixing Locomotives

Basically, what I use, is Labelle 108 and kinda recently, back on March 20, 2022, I was at a train show and ended up getting some grease. I haven't used it yet, but I know by the time this was posted, I would be using it at some point. I've seen a few other people use grease as well to fix locomotives.

Step 3: Tips #3: CLEAN THE WHEELS!!

Always clean the wheels!!!! They will oxidize. Clean them when they need it. Always check to make sure they are clean and good. Black stuff will appear on the wheels, from my perspective. Use nail polish remover with Q-tips, or get a paper towel, put some rubbing alcohol on it, put it on the track, and put your locomotive on it and turn the power on (the movement of the wheels will clean themselves while you move the locomotive back and forth). You can also use a fiber glass pencil. I've seen other model railroaders do that. There are other things but I can't name them because I don't know the name of one of the things.

Step 4: Tips #4: Have Room to Walk

If you have a small setup in your bedroom, make sure you know that you have room to walk. You don't want to be tripping or knocking over your rolling stock and locomotives.

Step 5: Trick #1: Keep a Roster

Have a bunch of locomotives that you want to keep track of the type and builder of them? Make a roster! Label it "Locomotive Roster". Have 4 columns: Locomotive road name and road number, the type of locomotive (ex: GP35), the builder of it, and any notes you want to add to it, like for example, "Is a power tork". My roster up here is an example of what it should look like (I don't know why some of these are highlighted in blue, it just so happened, but I guess it's a good thing for recognizing the steam locomotives).

Here's an example on what to have:
Golden Eagle 1102 C6-30M Tyco Is a power tork

Step 6: Trick #2: Keeping Organized

Keeping organized is important. Maybe you're not an organizer, but for those of you who are, I recommend getting shelvings (for locomotives) or stacked containers with either locomotives (what I do), rolling stock, tracks, bridge props, track connectors, track connecters (for you brass track people), cleaning materials (the track cleaning car is accepted as well), or accessories like trees, people, cars, roadbed (for the brass track people) etc. Pretty much, it would be nice instead of having to go thru everything in one bin. That's more work to do!

Step 7: Trick #3: Workspace

What's that? Wanna work on locomotives, broken cars, or simply wanna clean some tracks by hand? Be sure to have yourself a workspace, whether it is a tray to a big table, to a bench, have an area where you can work on your things, just like I have in the pic above (yes, it's a bit cluttered, I have quite some stuff to work on).

Step 8: Trick #4: Steam

Have a new steam locomotive that produces steam but don't have anything at the moment and you don't know what to get? This is a good thing here! Useful! Find a video on how to use it, BTW.

Step 9: Now Some Designs!

For those of you with a layout in your room, here are some ideas that you can have for your layout (if that is, if you have enough space)!

Step 10: Design #1

Having a basic circle or rectangle is a little basic, for very beginners. If you're more experienced, this is something you can do! This is kinda shaped as a boot, but not. This design involves the yard outside the mainline.

Step 11: Design #2

This next design is cool! You can have your yard lined with the mainline. There will be a switch to lead into the yard, and a switch lined to out onto the mainline and vise versa, depending on which way you are running your locomotives. You can have it a long yard or have it short, as demonstrated in the drawing design (1st pic is the short, 2nd is the long) and also depending on how much rolling stock you have.

Step 12: Design #3

Have a double crossover! The only thing you need to worry about is having 2 power supplies. Why? Power will only go to one of the tracks. The other will be idle. I have this kind of situation. I use one power pack. I switch the track power to the other that was not previously active.

Step 13: Design #4

You can have a siding along with design! It adds a bit of extra "room", if you will, for another train. If you wanna switch trains, stop the train on the mainline, aline the train in the siding to the mainline, pull it out, then stop it once it clears the switch. Re-aline the switch to the mainline, and aline the other switch into the siding, then pull the train that was previously on the mainline into the siding.

Step 14: Design #5: Loop, Yard, Engine Storage, and Rock Facility

This was a layout I have created before this was posted. It may be still up today, or it is taken down (as of this type, it is up). I've used it multiple times, and the new CN C44-9W sort of works. So that will be used in another layout. The rock facility (at the time of this) still needed to be finished. I've got the majority down, I just need some other things added.

Step 15: Have Any of Your Own?

If you have any other ideas, leave a comment on what design idea you have! If you can, draw it out or have a pic of the design with your comment. I would love to see some other ideas you guys created!

Step 16: That's It!

I hope you all enjoyed! Hopefully this is useful to you model railroaders out there! Any questions, comments, concerns, or topics I didn't put in as a tip, trick, or design for layouts in a room, feel free to put it in the comments down below! I'd be happy to answer these! Until next time, I'll see y'all along the rails!