So did you start with a loop of track?

Model Railroading is An Art that Can’t Be Rushed.

My grandfather was a conductor for New York Central and he had a massive N scale model in his basement. There mountains and a riverway, a town with people and animals. I had a small loop track in our basement my whole childhood. And always put up a Christmas theme train around my tree. I am recently retired and am looking to start an HO model layout.

I bought my son a train set for his 4th birthday. It took over the entire basement after a few years. I taught my son carpentry, how to work with plaster of Paris and similar materials, how to wire things up and later how to maintain things. He was into it for many years but eventually went his own way. I still run the lay out and maintain it. It's great therapy for the old man. I find using "stock" track with the attached road bed pretty limiting. I like using flex track over cork and a good plan. But it's good to get your first layout going. You'll learn a lot from that experience. Oh, and I should mention that a good layout is never done...

I got my first HO train for my 11th Bday. It was an oval with 2 switches to make a smaller oval if wanted. It wasn't much. My Mom talked about setting it up 'right' on plywood and going from there. It never happened. Other activities took over my life and the train went into a cardboard box. But I always thought about that train and what I (sorta) wanted to do. Many years later, I was now married and we had just moved. Going through boxes I found that old train and got it out. It had been augmented by another HO train that was in my Dad's effects, still in the box. I got them out and set up a small layout on an old desk in the garage. But again, I just didn't have time for it. Now that I'm semi-retired and have moved one last time, I am ready to finally do a nice set up. I even have the wife's blessing.

The imagination fills in the rest beyond the layout of model trains going round in loop.

This is so nice and I dont need to be doing DCC++ ... and raspberry pie-that's something I eat for dinner!

My Wife is Starting On her N Scale she Is Running Bachmann And Kato on her Table which is Big Enough I Know she Will Love it When she’s done.

Started with a Lionel train set in 1987 that I got for my 4th birthday from my grandparents. My dad screwed the track to a piece of plywood and I added telephone poles, signs, and other small things. I played around with it for about 4 years when I could get my dad to bring it in the house from out of the rafters in his shop. As I got older, I got tired of the train just running in circles and lost intrest. The trains got put away for a couple years until I was 10 years old. My grandparents had moved to a new home that had a nice building in the back yard that is around 15' × 22' that had been used as a chicken house by the previous owners. No chickens had been in it for a very long time. It had electricity and all it need was a good cleaning. I set up tracks going all over the floor in that building and enjoyed that for 3 years. That was about the time I found model railroader magazine. Then everything changed. I wanted the trains off the floor and wanted to switch to HO scale to be able to have more track and have it look like the layouts featured in the magazines. My grandfather decided I need a better building to built this new found dream in so he gave me and my father the money to build a new building at my house. We built a 14' × 24' building. The walls had sheetrock put on them and finished, and has a popcorn texture ceiling and linoleum flooring. The popcorn ceiling saved the expense of finishing and painting the ceiling that's why that was done. The linoleum was brand new and salvaged from a flooring store that was getting ready to trash it. We put a 4' × 5' closet in one corner at the end where the entrance door is. Its a double door entrance in the center of one end. We put two 8' florescent light fixtures running long ways in the middle of the ceiling. 4 electric outlets on each wall with 2 on the end wall opposite the doors. The lights have their own circuit, then there's 2 circuits for the outlets that have 5 on each, 4 from one side wall and one from the end wall. I worked on building an HO scale layout until I was around 19 years old. I put a home on some land my dad gave me and had a son myself. I put the trains aside for awhile and eventually took down what I had built of the layout when I was in my mid 20s. The building turned into a storage room up until 2 years ago when I built a small storage building for all the stuff that didn't belong in my train building and cleaned it out. Now I'm 36 and I'm soon to start building another layout. I'm not sure when it will be but it won't be long. I use the space now to build buildings and dioramas that I will incorporate into the layout when I do go ahead with it. So right now I've been absorbing information and learning so much from expert model railroaders like yourself that put out how to videos and observing layouts that people just post running videos of so I can get ideas for my layout. I wrote a book there didn't I? But you asked. 👍🎅❄🎄☃️ By the way I think this will be a great series and be very helpful to someone that's new to the hobby and even good for me because it will help me keep up to date on new technology in the model railroading world. Thanks for the great videos. 👍

In my late 60's, I am also finishing with this type of layout .... see my own KZfaq channel and my layout 'Sandy Creek' ........ Superb work Sir

Very nice ! . I started at age 5 I’m 32 now . I am watching this video because my Dad and I pulled some trains and track out tonight after my trains sitting 20 years untouched. I now have a boy also and tomorrow am gathering supplies to start a set up. Loved your video. I understood everything you said and it made since. Now that I’m older I’ll be a little better at setting something up than. Being 6 just playing viciously with these trains. I’m excited and so is my dad. He had a super Dad grin on his face while we set up just a line tonight and made engines go back and forth to just test them. Most worked.

My first layout was a circle! It was very fun, even with no scenery at all!

And yes, I did start off with a loop oval that my dad got me when I was about 7 years of age. Happy daze.

3:55 Cat hears noise, comes to investigate, Quick put it all away before the loco becomes prey! Lol.

Very nicely done. I've been in the hobby for a while and have done my share of landscaping and track planning, but I have an LGB with a simple oval and there's no way I can justify spending a ton to have a complex G scale layout. I came here looking for ideas. Thank you.

Interesting with the divide...makes for many diverse scenes

Excellent, informative, helpful, enjoyable, relaxing. Thank you. 🙏🏻🇺🇸🙏🏻🇺🇸🙏🏻🇺🇸

When I Started My Dad and I Put 3 4x8’s that was Ho when done put the Track down Looked Back and was Shocked how Large it Was Now I am deeply Hooked and love it.

Particulary good….thank you.👏

Excellent. Bags of free tips. Thank you.

Yes I started with N gauge under my bed when I was about 10 years old... It was wonderful. I did HO with my children and gave them everything when they moved out. HO is great but my wife like N gauge (it fits better in small spaces). Hats off for your Information section... I am determined to build the N gauge layout this year and your documentation and "store" should make make this easier easier for me...

Super helpful! I too bought a Kato starter set along with the passing siding and rail yard packs. I currently have a small switching layout above my work bench where I build scale models (mostly aircraft and ships 😂). Here soon I will be building a kato layout on a 3x7ft hollow core door above the same work station. This loop with sidings for industry will work very well. I have already started using my scale model skills by painting some locomotives in the US Sugar scheme that runs here where I am in South Central FL. Along with sone CSX and Florida East Coast.

First own railroad in board unser bed. Thank's dad!

Awesome 👍

I, like everyone, started with a Lionel loop. Progressed to American Flyer. Been doing n scale for about 35 yrs now. My youngest son got interested at 3. He is now planning a new layout for him & his son. Family tradition!

This is a great series.

My Dad Brought Home A Train set in the Bed of the Dodge truck a 4x8. Hung it To the ceiling in the Basement then I knew I was Hooked and To this Day I will Never stop Model Railroading.

Under a tree then front window at Christmas I loved trains since I was old enough to understand an 61 now

Sir, you are an excellent presenter. Thank you.

4:20 it is one of he best illustrations of this concept I have ever seen.

Very good video, that helps to demystify all the magic. The possibilities are endless.

I Love Watching these Videos Dosen’t matter from Anyone they All are Very helpfull.

Food for thought, thank you.

I started out with a simple OO Gauge loop as a kid which my dad expanded on and built me a layout from. After learning my love for models I soon discovered N gauge and marvelled at the tiny scale of it all compared to my OO gauge trains. However I didn't have the money to put into an N gauge set up at such a young age. Jump to my late teens and I finally got a job and a child came into my life (not my own) whom I decided to try and build an N gauge layout for as it's more compact and had always been in the back of my mind, plus I have fond memories of the layout my dad built me. Before I was able to complete it his (the child) mother left me and the whole plan went out the window. Eleven years on I am now building another N gauge layout, primarily for my own enjoyment but also, as time has healed the wounds I am able to see the boy again and he's much more able to appreciate it now anyway, for him too. This one didn't start out as a basic loop but a full track plan with two loops forming a main line, with a branch and sidings, built to the best of my ability and in the style of an exhibition piece.

Thank you for this. Learned a lot. Its been decades since i've had an HO layout, but i just got a Kato N-scale starter set and will be building one shortly with pretty limited space.

My brother and I got a model train set for Christmas when we were really young....he broke it within a month 😡

Nice video you got here!. You probably answered and helped a lot of others with their questions regarding Kato unitrack and converting mm to inches.

Very helpful! Thank you

That was an excellent video

Really helpful video, thanks! 🙂

My first loop was in my living room. My parents were buying a new Sleep Number bed at Sleep Train back in 2004, and me and my brother were laying on one of the beds, watching the store's G-scale train running on a loop. At the time, Sleep Train was running a promotion: you could either get free pillows, or a train set. Said train set was a Bachmann HO set, The Challenger, with a UP F9, a BN hopper, an MSL hopper, a UP caboose, and a circle of Steel Alloy EZ Track. It was my very first true exposure to model railroading. My next loop came later that year, another Bachmann HO set, The American, with a UP 0-6-0, a Quaker State tanker, an MSL hopper identical to the one from the first set, another UP caboose, and an oval of Steel Alloy EZ Track. Both sets didn't last an entire year. I was young, and I'm pretty sure train sets like aren't meant to really last. My third and current loop was my first serious foray into model railroading. In 2007, my late grandpa, who was a sheriff's deputy of Santa Clara County, California, built me a 4x8 table. Right after picking it up, we went to my local hobby shop, D&J Hobby & Craft, where I acquired a locomotive (a Bachmann GP38-2, also my first DCC-equipped locomotive), some cars (including an Exxon tanker, a CSX hopper with C&O reporting marks, a UP 50' boxcar, an ATSF flatcar, and an ATSF caboose, all by Bachmann), a DC power pack (also by Bachmann), and The World's Greatest Hobby Track Pack (yes, my entire layout was Bachmann at the beginning). The intention was to build the Madison Central seen on that video narrated by Michael Gross. Some progress was made in 2008 when additional cars were acquired (including an NADX 50' reefer with Safeway branding, a pair of cylindrical grain hoppers, one for Canada Grain and the other for ATSF, and a track-cleaning tank car), as was the classic Atlas passenger station, a Model Power sand bunker, and a Model Power pre-built strip mall with a tow truck. In addition, the foam board was put down, the track was glued, the road was drawn, and Lake Mendota was cut out. At this point, progress on the layout stalled out as I became distracted with video games and the internet. But I never lost interest in the hobby, and in 2015, I joined a model railroad club, and in that time, acquired a Walthers box car lettered for Yreka Western and an undecorated BL2 with horn-hook couplers from the club; any other cars I got were for the club, including one acquired from the Colorado Model Railroad Museum. Recently, our club received a massive donation of locomotives, rolling stock, and a few misc. items like containers. Having been threatened with the layout being thrown out due to lack of progress, I claimed a bunch of cars (mainly hoppers for Glacier Gravel Co.) and a new locomotive and caboose, with an eye towards re-equipping 99% of the layout's rolling stock (the old GP38-2 will find a new home at the club, along with another BNSF GP38-2 I claimed from the donation; the new power for my home layout is an SP GP40-2; the BNSF Geep doesn't have a decoder, but I hope to get help installing one and then pairing it with the ATSF Geep, after the latter has had some BNSF patches applied). I am now dead-set on completing this layout (though part of me wants to start over and build, say, the Cripple Creek Central from that one Model Railroader book).

This great for new modelers, and even veteran looking forward to seeing more and how you bring it all together....thanks for sharing....Jack & Happy Holidays to you and yours 🎄🎉🤩

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas. I have enjoyed running a point to point shelf switching layouts for many years. The last 10 years I have explored TTRAK Layouts with multiple clubs joining modules. Now I am considering Rokuhan Z scale multiple loops and passing sidings.

Just getting started can be daunting. Great video, very helpful.

What a Boss! Thanks JC ThX 🙏🏻

very helpful info for beginners. and maybe even for some of us old timers, lol. Angle the track plan. very smart thinking, you went from a LOOP to a DIORAMA

Awesome video John!

Wow! thats very interesting ...thanks for sharing John.

This was very informative. Cheers!

Thank you for pronouncing Kato correctly.

Excellent video looking forward to the series

Very useful video for beginners. I am on the lookout for these kinds of videos to encourage parents and children to get into model railroading Douglas Margison, Fredericton Model Railaroaders, New Brunswick

Wow I've just found your channel ! Thanks a lot for this video ! It's amazing!

I’ve started making the first episode of a show about Railways with a blue blanket, a green blanket a, white rug, a bachmann ez track oval, some pillows to make hills and a crappy I-pad mini 2.

Excellent! 6:00 I realized I had the siding wrong so I switched it like I see in your vid and voila! Everything is fine now!! Wiring problem solved (for now anyway). Thanks!

Kato track is a great start,many options to explore

Yes a a young kid a long time ago it was loop. My first layout was a switching layout when I got into the hobby as an adult. Currently my layout is Black River Junction Kato set for HO. So it is still basically a working loop layout.

I'm getting restarted again.. thanks for sharing and keep up the great.. Lance

Thank you this is a great video I am just getting started and this has helped me a ton.

Excellent information, thinking of starting in n gauge, subscribed.👍😎🇦🇺

Excellent video looking forward to followup. The wife and I are buying an M1 set in the near future and this is very informative. We'll add the v2 next and go from there one step at a time.

Love it I'm just getting into train's I'm hooked I'm ready to build a model in my basement

This is a great series for beginners. Well done. -Mark

My dad got a 6x4 plywood board and put it on hinges in the garage. It would fold up onto the wall when I wasn’t using it. Definitely limited the height but at 10 years old I was more interested in the train itself than the scale detail with my first set.

My first layout started as a simple oval on 4x8 plywood. It did not take long for my father and I to add on several more loops and reverse loops. This was when I was 10 (60 years ago). My current HO layout is a single loop with a sliding and a narrow gauge (n30) with double loop and yard area. I like what you have done so far. Thanks for sharing.

111k in views! Impressive, Most Impressive

Yesterday I finally my Ho outdoor layout

a-ha moment at 04:46! Well described! I wish I'd done Kato track when I was doing my N Scale layout, but I've moved on to Lionel! Really like how you're describing this!

Man, I started with an HO oval, it was my dads. Then he did it up big. Switches, tunnel, waterfall….. we had so much fun down the old basement. now….. he’s moving to a double 4x8 “L” shaped. And now im a dad myself, getting a 4x8 n scale going. It’s gonna be amazing. Or a disaster. Only time will tell!!!!!

I started out with an Athearn GP38-2 set (Of course) of the BNSF variety my dad got me when I was like, 11-ish? He planned on me setting up a layout on a table in our apartment and later in a garage of a house we moved into. He got me a second set of track, some more locomotives (An old Southern Pacific 4-6-2, an Amtrak California F59PHI, and a Santa Fe 8-40BW), as well as more cars, structures, etc. It wasn't super well-done or far along; it did have a mountain tunnel and a little town with some trees and roads, and being as I was only 12 it of course was garbage, but he didn't care, he supported me and he liked the trains too. Whenever we took a drive into Oakland we'd stop by Just Trains, a huge railroad-only hobby shop with a 90-foot layout and I'd go to town in there. Fast-forward about 17 years and a lot has happened in my life and railroading had to take a seat in storage. Recently we moved into a house that we plan on being ours and ours alone. After having my love of trains reawakened, I realized that with a little work I can have room for a good sized layout now, even with all of our stuff and all that is going on in life. I still have a lot from back then, though: I kept all the trains, cars, the Model Railroad Magazines from that time, etc., they all still in amazing condition (Except the 4-8-2 but that thing was old when I got it and needs work) and I'm planning on them being a part of the new Layout that will likely be set around the Los Angeles Junction in the 90's. But I dont know where that GP38-2 and the caboose went. It aggravates me to no end because I have a bad suspicion it got accidentally donated to Goodwill with a bunch of other stuff, even though I specifically remember it being packed in with all of my other trains. Sure, it wasn't the best engine in the world, but it was the first train my dad ever got me, and he's no longer with me. I just hope whoever got it is taking good care of it. As average as it was, it never once let me down. . . . It fell a couple times, but thats different I suppose. Regardless though, I plan on doing a lot of what you mentioned in this video. The layout isn't going to be huge, maybe around 15x5, and I dont have a desire for super intricate track work (I mostly like seeing trains just run and take the whole scene in), but because it will be taking place in a very dense and busy area, with lots of tunnels, overpasses, huge buildings, concrete flood channels, etc., there are countless opportunities to make the railroad look far more dynamic than it will actually be laid out as. I love the video by the way, and I am subscribed. As much as I have studied up in preparation for a serious layout, it still benefits to listen to someone clearly more experienced than I am.

very informative and well put together series JC. Should be interesting to see whats next. Merry Christmas, Rob

very well done - thanks!

thanks this helped me inspire to make my own kato ho scale model railroad thanks for the videos and tips

My railway which started on a door with one point/switch in 1979 is now a tourist attraction! Look up Saltspring Railway on KZfaq. The railway runs both indoors and outside and we have a camera on the front of one of the trains so you get to see the driver's view. Great fun, great hobby.

I definitely enjoyed this video and I have intrest, but I'm a HO scale guy, I'll be looking into Kato for beginners and following your advice.

We had a clockwork windup train set as kids. I repurposed the engine (with its reciprocating arms) as an imaginary machine gun to play "shoot 'em up". Later, couldn't afford a better set so i used to draw layouts and scenes and then imagine trains moving around the track.

Excellent video.

I am in the mist of getting my 2nd Board done it’s gonna look real good when I get it done taking it slowly.

You deffenley know your subject you keep it simple and interesting. Good instructer

Excellent tips and ideas

I started with the Kato M2 (2 year ago, N scale) and slowly added a bit more track, learning by reading, watching, and attending train shows. I recently begun to think of doing a loop. I now have, basically, something like and “L” shape layout. I hope to learn from you! When possible I have stop using folding tables and do some bench work, etc. Thank you for your video.

Beginners how to. Liked that.

Great stuff, really helpful thanks, Paul

Great advice for a Newby like me. Very much liked the idea of dividing the loop. Pretty funny for me (in Australia) that finally you guys have to convert back from metric to imperial with Kato track. We're usually forever converting from imperial to metric. From our point of view, you make something really simple like metric and convert it to something highly complicated 😀 Loving the step by step build

Very good video Thank you!

Our family lived in Stratford Connecticut. So I grew up with American Flyer from AC Gilbert in New Haven. You couldn't get me to model in N scale at the point of a gun. At going on 80 years old O scale is starting to get small LOL Thanks for the video. If Kato made O scale track... Talkin' 2 rail... I'd buy it LOL. Their stuff seems pretty dependable especially when you're putting a layout together and then a few days later taking it all up and building something else. Thanks for posting

Interesting channel, subbed~

Well I decided to go 2 Lines instead working on the Rail yard for a Feature I have a Closet for Line 1 and Looks real Sharp and I Like it.

Great video !! Very helpful tips thinking of building a small ho layout. I have alot of necessities already ( locos rolling stock ez track etc.) But havent decided quite how to do it yet

I was at a trainshow and wanted to start my first ever layout. Everyone suggested I get a unitrack loop kit so I could go home and run some trains. 3:53 shows just how quickly I would get bored with that. Instead, I decided to do a proper layout and I am happy I did. I'm filming my progress, which is slow, but it's been fun to build so far.

I got a GWR set handed down to me from my dad. I've been toying with the idea of a full layout for around a year now haha

Fantastic little film Really helpful 00 fifty eight year old wannabe

Well, I started our great railroad empire by picking up 3 used starter sets. The kid was 10 at the time. However, also working on advanced degree. Five years later I have the Masters and a train that still goes in a loop. The kid has moved on to video games.

I saw a vision you can go to an F layout off the Regular 4x8 or an L shaped I saw you could try an Formation on that N scale.

Christmas tree and Lionel, since I was old enough to remember.

I started out with a Tyco train set in 1976 Christmas. The engine was numbered 241 Sante Fe Plymouth switcher. I have learnt through the years that you shouldn't run the track close to the edge of your work space so you can put scenery in to make it more realistic. You should leave 6 to 12 inches from the edge of your work space

I had the circle in the basement for a childhood , and it grew from there. I like the metric system much better then imperial

I started with less than a loop of track. It was a 3 foot section of brass "flex" track that my dad and I pushed some HO cars he'd built back and forth to each other.

Great Video

A few years ago I built a table top Christmas tree frozen mountain for my Christmas tree, using model train techniques and a small toy battery powered Christmas train that came in a small tin. It actually sits on my “Amish fireplace”, It’s pretty good, I got ice ledges and snow and bears and a frozen waterfall into a frozen skating pond. The characters are all “fairy garden” figures from amazon which were not only the perfect size but also very comical, mostly gnomes and such. Been wanting to make a new one that’s a bit bigger and can use my little actual model train. I want to the train to loop it’s way up the frozen mountain, but I haven’t figured out how it gets back down yet... Edit: can’t I just make a steep downhill run hidden in the back, the train would never have to climb it...I’m talking the mountain is about 18-24 inches tall and the train winds around up it, then into a hidden tunnel which is a steep downhill run to the far side, so say ~20inch drop in 3ft of track?