Design and Planning

You can make hills in a variety of ways. The tried and tested way is with chicken wire and papier mache. This is a good method as there is very little weight to the finished hill. If you just want a hill in the middle of your layout, I would...

Bear in mind that Sundeala is designed to be used as a pinboard or notice board. As Sundeala is not actually a wood and is made from recycled paper, it is not the best thing to be making the base board for your railway layout. There are several...

How big is your farm? If your farm is predominantly dairy cattle, then you may only have 50 sheep however if your farm is mainly sheep then you could have over 400 sheep. The trick is to have enough to make your layout look believable. Putting 10...

Once upon a time I would have said a newly bladed junior hacksaw and some warding files, but these days I would have to say get a pair of track cutters (not to be confused with sprue cutters which are entirely different). The reason why they are...

As we all know it takes 360 degrees to create a circle, a standard curve is 22.5 degrees and a double curve is 45 degrees. So to create a circle using double curves you would need eight pieces of track, and to create a circle using standard...

7/02 wire is a wire made of 7 strands of 0.2mm wire. Stranded wire has the advantage of being flexible while solid wire is more difficult to bend. 7/02 size usually used for model railways for most connections. For example, this would be used as...

In my experience, stranded wire is preferable over solid wire. Stranded wire is more flexible than solid core wire, which gives you more flexibility when routing cables under your layout. Also, if a strand of wire should break for what ever...

In theory, the only limit to the width of your layout is the amount of space you have available. The reality is slightly shorter: bear in mind that if you have a derailment you will need to be able to reach your locomotives, coaches and wagons....

You can buy ready-made roads which are ideal if you do not have the time to create your own. They are available in most scales and with all the features you might need like markings, potholes, etc. Alternatively, you can make your own with road...

The track is connected using rail joiners, also called "fishplates". They are thin metal plates that simply slot into the next piece of track and should be tight fitting to allow for the power to flow seamlessly to the next piece of track. They...

The time old tradition for laying ballast is to lay your ballast under/around your track and add watered down PVA glue mixed with a couple of drops of washing up liquid to ease surface tension. You can also find ready to use ballast glue which is...

How you remove ballast would depend on weather you are trying to remove excess ballast after laying and gluing your ballast, or if you are trying to remove an existing section of track for replacement or re-landscaping.If you are just removing the...