I love trains the visiting the rail museum in Delhi was an epiphany for me, sadly the days of steam ended before i had a chance to see them.

VC sir is that first loco (electric one) brass?

That Krokodil is a classic. Its the original orange issue. The new ones come in green i think.

Yes that Krokodil is a classic and no, it is not made of brass. There is some history behind this model. I picked it up in 1993 in Mumbai for a princely sum. Once I got it home and inspected it closely, I found it to be heavily damaged. Many fittings like grab rails, lights etc were missing / broken. Took it to a studio, had it photographed and sent the photos to Roco in Austria, requesting for help in restoring it.

A few months later I received a small packet via airmail from Roco. It contained the entire fittings kit along with some other items for the engine like spare axle rods. There was a bill enclosed. Dad happened to be based at Brussels then, and he arranged for the payment. However, Roco had sent the parts as an act of grace and were really not expecting any payment.

Pradheep sir where do i get the gravel that i see used in your layout in india?

1. You can buy something like Profi track manufactured by Fleischmann or else, you can follow the next step:

2. Technique of making HO Scale gravel:

Items required:

Aquarium gravel
Mortar and pestle - metal
Kitchen / Juice Strainer with 0.5mm/1.0mm square holes

Take the aquarium gravel and gently pound it in the mortar and pestle, sieve it through the strainer. Voila! You have created HO / OO scale track gravel!

Thats brilliant. Do you have a technique for grass and what they call scenic cement? i saw a tutorial on how to make pebbled roads but it needs a silicone mould to press on the plaster to make it look like a pebbled roadis there an alternate i can use?

Could you also help me choose a 4x8 layout, i found these on the net

http://www.modeltrainguide.com/index.php?mode=displayarticle&section=3&article=3

I want it to be a dark gloomy dirty layout not all bright and green, something taken out of the industrial era of europe coal mines or steel foundries and the like.

I also need help with scale sizes of buildings and stations and factories.

Thank you

Yup...VC is right. Its always great to find a DIY alternative to the packaged material. I use marble chips or "dana" and run it once in a kitchen dry grinder and then sift it in a wire mesh. Repeat till all the "dana" is used. Then I mix up various shades of grey with acrylic or white plastic emulsion with black tint medium and chuck all the sifted gravel into them, let it soak for a minute and then lay it out to dry on a newspaper. It dries in clumps but its easy to separate.
90% of my green scaping is sawdust in various grades soaked in various shades of green and yellow acrylic paint and dried. Larger tufts of bushes etc are sponge or foam from discarded or old cushions torn into chunks and run through a blender with water. The resulting stuff is again dyed diff shades of green, yellow and brown. Taller grass is made from bristles of old paint brushes and fibre from ropes suitably dyed.
Everything is glued on the layout using a diluted mixture of Fevicol sprayed on with a bottle sprayer.
As for track plans, avoid 3, 6 and 10 as they require insulated track joiners or reverse loop circuits. Also avoid 7 if you dont have a turntable. The rest are simple enough oval or figure 8 plans on 4x8 ply that are all a good place to start.

Pradeep Sir +1. I couldn't have put it better.

FT - Go to your nearest household/kitchen equipment store and pick up some nylon strainers. They normally come in sets of 3 in different sizes. One plastic frame and 3 nets that you can clip on and off. This is an invaluable equipment for scenic modelling. Grass paper should be available at artists supply stores. But it can only be used for depicting mowed lawns in country dioramas. For the industrial layout that you are aiming for, get your hands dirty.

BTW Sir, is the family aware that you used the kitchen grinder for crushing dana? I almost went through a divorce when I pondered aloud the same technique for powdering Potassium Nitrate for my rocket engines. Ended up making my own ball mill.

VC, I haven't survived 37 years of marriage by being an idiot! I GOT MY OWN MIXER GRINDER WAY BACK! Actually purloined the one discarded by the kitchen in the process of mixer grinder upgrading.
Works well with pot nitrate and sulphur too.

Pradeep sir and VC sir, thanks. got to learn important things

I got a site junglee.com of amazon.com. There are locos available, but to ship they charge 690+270Per KG.
My question is what is the approx weight of locos ranging between 2.5K to 4K.


Thanks

Ok i have decided to go with the figure 8 layout in the attached pic. I only have lifelike power lock tracks so gotta see if buying the additional tracks required for this layout will be economical vs starting afresh using standard tracks.

This photostream will form the base for modelling my track. Time to start on the lumber mill  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/imlsdcc/sets/72157624901223715/detail/?page=5

This could take a few years to complete.

Thanks for all your help.

Each loco would weigh around 250 - 400 grams on an average.

This is one of my favorite layouts ever. Maybe some day

Hi,

I model trains in HO scale and my main interest is in logging and mining layout. I had a mining layout in my house. It was L shape and had incline more than 8% (not advisable!! But i used it due to limited space). It was ZigZag layout. I performed operations like ore hauling, loading ore in bigger ore cars. Main interest was banking operation. Here is video of it:



Here are some photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12758928@N06/3588526581/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12758928@N06/3588526441/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12758928@N06/3588526229/

Best regards
ashutosh

what is HO and OO?? I am not a train modeller...

Difference in scales.

OO is 1/76 and HO is 1/87 scale.
By the way Asutosh, your layout looks interesting. What space did you occupy? Any plans of restarting?

In simple words HO (HO:1/87.1, OO:1/76) is scale at which the models are scale down from Prototype, where as gauge is distance between tracks. HOn30 is HO scale on narrow gauge (prototype 30"). N gauge track is used for this. For us in India it is ideal scale as we can model all narrow gauge trains (2' gauge, like Matheran railway) using easily available HO scale rolling stock and N gauge track.

OO scale is more popular in UK, in fact started in UK. Motors which were available that time were not able to fit in HO bodies so gauge remain 16.5 but scale was 1:76. You can run Hornby OO trains on HO gauge track. But they tend to 'Jump' on turnouts as they have bigger flanges.

My layout was in L shape. Width was just 1' and length was 4' in L shape.

Now I am concentrating more on small layouts called as Pizza layouts, where I try to stick accurately to scale and add more realistic details. Size of layout is 2'X2'






Best regards
ashutosh

Today first time I came here while surfing for train modeling. Read this thread thoroughly and wow! introduced to this hobby. Actually I'm unschooling mom and following our interests is our learning. Yesterday my 7 year old son surfing on net for train & toy train he want to make...he found many videos of rail road making etc. and was hooked to it. In fact he's tinkering guy and not satisfied with just passive toy and everything he want to make himself with help of parents. Reading this thread found Pradip Sir & VC Sir too are interested in this hobby since childhood. I hope I will get some valuable guidance from you all experienced people.

Sejal

Hello All,
I have lot of HO scale stuff for sale Used but in very good condition find the following link for details.

my email- vcjain.bpl@gmail.com
With regards,    
V C Jain, Contact No. 8871380316  (9 AM to 6.00 PM)
for details visit my face book forum link
http://www.facebook.com/groups/296108230479296/

Hello,

One HO scale layout  of size 6'X1.5' for sale in (Engines) running condition.
With regards
V C Jain
here is the link of my video on Youtube

&