39 Building my first model railway - My 5 biggest mistakes making my 1st layout
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ธ.ค. 2023
- In this episode I tell you what are the top 5 biggest mistakes I have made in the past 2 years building my first model railway and what I would change if I could turn back time. Can you guess what they are? #modelrail #modelrailroader #modelrailway #modelrailwaymistakes
It is great to hear candid admission to mistakes made and should be avoided when building a model railway from scratch. Anyone starting off will learn a lot from this video piece.
Thanks John, it has definitely been a steep learning curve but also fun. I have learnt a lot from TH-cam so it’s nice to help others. Thanks for watching.
Hi Mark. Just come across your video whilst trawling TH-cam. Very honest but we’ve all made mistakes whilst building layouts. I think that’s half the fun! Concerning your 4% inclines, have you thought about installing DCC Concepts Powerbase? Might not solve the problem fully but would certainly help!
Good honest video mate new to the channel and the hobby...great tips on layout building
A very honest assessment, this is a video all beginners should watch. In previous layouts i made most of these errors. I can see you maybe thinking of a brand new layout using all your learnings? All the best
Thanks, hopefully it will help people who are just starting out in this hobby. Yes I think there will definitely be a Chappel 2 where hopefully I won’t make as many mistakes. Although I still have a lot to learn. Have a great Christmas. All the best Mark
I am about to dismantle my layout, move house and build a new layout. I will learn from you by carrying out a full assessment of all the good and bad things in my railway, take on board the lessons and improve. Thank you for your timely and honest reminder!
Thanks, glad it was some help. It must be a bit daunting having to take your layout down, as well as moving house but on the positive a great opportunity to build a wonderful model railway. Good luck
Thanks for the advice. Btw the sound is fine.
Merry Christmas and thank you for sharing your thoughts. My thought for your layout and the New Year: You know what needs to be done. A layout is never finished. Spend some time thinking about a fix. To me the obvious is to split the track if you have to keep a DC loop then rebuild the main and have your DC line/lines as a Vintage section. Change the two mains to have nothing more than 2% inclines. Make a little more room for your main line on the narrow side by splitting the boards and leaving a gap between the DC and upper level DCC. I like the on scene storage area and you could have more than one. Potentially hide a carriage siding under a maintenance shed with extra storage behind the shed.
Good luck with the layout in the New Year. All the best to you and your Family.
Thanks George, some good ideas there. As you say I need to take some time thinking about a fix and not rush in, that’s what I got wrong in the first place . I also like the idea of adding another carriage siding, that would definitely help. Certainly lots to thing about. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Hi Mark, someone has probably mentioned this, when you install the Hornby DCC clips it will resolve your power issues at the points. Others solder a wire across the points, from underneath, instead of using DCC clips. I use Peco Code 100, the points under DCC work differently to Hornby, when it comes to the Bus wiring...Simon
Hi Simon, ok thanks, I don’t really like soldering but might try that as the clips look like they might not keep a good connection over a long period of time. Thanks for watching
Thanks for sharing Mark. Have a great Christmas and Happy New Year I’m looking forward to seeing your progress in 2024.
Thanks Kevin, you too! All the best Mark
Hi nice listening to you John, I've also made similar mistakes and probably will again. Merry Christmas and a happy new year Mike from Bristol
Thanks Mike, hope you have a lovely Christmas too
You explained brilliantly , it's given me food for thought thank you . Merry Christmas
Thanks John, hope you had a lovely Christmas. All the best Mark
I am in the process of building my layout, track is down and ballasted, some of the issued you mentioned I encountered also, like you I only knew of set track but luckily discovered the flexi track before I started, you have a great looking layout there , Subscribed 👍🏻🙂
Thanks for the Sub and watching, it’s nice to hear that someone is learning from my mistakes. The main challenge when you start out is until you had a model railway you don’t really know what you like doing, how you are going to operate it and what will work well and what won’t. If you can get it right first time then fab but if not make sure you build in some flexibility so it is easy to adapt your layout as learn what you like on your model railway journey. And most importantly have fun and enjoy it. Thanks for watching and have a great Christmas
Hi Mark. Your layout is beautiful. Thanks for sharing your experience with us. No need admitting to more than 5 mistakes in my opinion. We wouldn't have known anything about them if you hadn't said. 🤣🤣🤣
Thanks very much. Despite the mistakes, I am still pleased with the layout. I have learnt so much about model railways from other TH-camrs that I just wanted to help others by sharing my experiences so hopefully they won’t make the same mistakes. 🤞Thanks for watching
Hi Mark - you made some good comments and for anyone starting out those five points need to be addressed. I spent at least 6 months watching hours and hours and hours of videos from model train layout builders, both N and 00 scale, from building base boards to laying track, etc. before I even starting on cleaning the shed out. Very early on I made the decision to go DCC for versatility and N scale due to the small size of space I had in the shed. This caused issues all along, mainly cost and scale, but I am glad you spent the time pointing out your "mistakes" which to be fair should be classed as "Learning points". Hopefully your advice and experience will aid a new comer to the hobby. All the best for the xmas break mate.
Regards
Steve
Thanks Steve. I have also learnt a lot from TH-cam so it’s nice to be able to share by experiences, good and bad to help others. I did initially wonder about using N gauge but with my poor eyesight I decided to stick to OO. I would still like to make
a small n gauge shelf layout one day. Good luck with your layout. Best wishes Mark
Thank you for the video, as I am just starting out with a layout, I have things to think about. As for the clips for the points to help get all live, if an engine causes a short, you can have a few amps going through those clips and can melt the plastic sleepers. Have a good Christmas.
Thanks Malcolm, I didn’t know that. I actually don’t mind them not being live all the time but as I said in the video the Bachmann locos really don’t like being isolated and then going live, not sure why! I might just buy a few and experiment a bit. Thanks for watching and have a lovely Christmas. Best wishes Mark
I forgot to say, instead of the clips, solder the 2 point rails togeter with a length of thickish wire on both sides of the point. There are many videos on youtube on the subject. 👍
Mark, I see your sidings which will be accessible from the inside line. How or where does the outside line pick up?
Great that you have an incline, it gives another dimension to the layout.👍
Hi Charlie, I have a crossover above the underground station so have to travel have way around the layout to get to get from the siding to the outside loop not ideal but it does work. It’s only in one direction at the moment so I may put another set of points in the other direction so I can cross both way. Thanks for watching. Mark
My layout is basically two loops with a four track station at one end .At the other end each main track has two passing loops/sidings.
I use them for storage though not ideal 👍
@@charlie1872 It sounds similar to mine. I am quickly learning that you can never have too much storage on your layout. I wish I had more 👍
good vid on channel keep up the good work thanks lee
Thanks 👍
Hi Mark. I should think that many modellers would put their hands up to making the "mistake" of choosing DC over DCC. Two things to remember: 1) this is an expensive hobby and, initially, DCC is more expensive than DC. 2) technology has moved on so much since many made their choice. In my case, I dived in at the deep end and bought locos (both analogue and DCC-ready) without doing my research and thinking about control. I now have both DC and DCC controllers and too many DC-only locos, which will be difficult to convert to DCC (I model in N gauge!). As you say: "Not to worry". Modelling is *always* a learning process. Wishing you a very Merry Xmas and all best wishes for the New Year.
Hi Paul, thanks for your supportive comments. I am not sure whether to keep a switchable option for DC operation on my layout or try to convert my favorite older locos to DCC, which I haven’t tried doing yet and I hate soldering. I think that’s going to be more learning and mistakes to come!! All the best for Christmas and with your layout.
@@chappelstation My plan is to try and find an easy way to connect both controllers (not at the same time) to my layout. There are a number of solutions available on TH-cam, but I have yet to decide which method I shall go for. It's an expensive option, but there are a number of TH-camrs (and others) that would do the conversion for you, hopefully at a reasonable price. If you decide to go this route, I can recommend a saying of my late father's "Little and often". Good luck.
HNY to you. I've made all of your mistakes and more! I've had to undo them in some cases.
My major mistake was expensive, I powered up the DC controller while the DCC controller was connected! I wasn't switching them at the time. I have a lot of DC locos as well as some new DCC ones.
DC v DCC and hard wiring - I'd not done soldering much in the past but it is quite easy to get proficient enough to hard wire a loco. My preference, where there is space, is to hardwire a socket. That way, you can a) run it as a DC loco until you can afford to buy a chip for it and b) can remove the decoder if you decide to change the loco for a more modern version or revert to DC. (You'll need a blanking plate too to run it on DC initially).
I tried clips, they're fiddly to install. My solution is to power up all sidings from the power bus and install separate switches for each siding to power them. It does mean a lot of switches, but it also means that sidings can be left powered (in your case for the Bachmann's that don't like powering up when the point is changed.) so can have lights on prior to moving, but if sitting doing nothing can be left unpowered. Especially useful for lit coaches in a siding that use track power.
I have a mixture of Peco streamline electro frog points, Peco set-track and Hornby points. My locos don't seem to mind which ones they go over.
Hi, Happy New Year and thanks for watching. Some useful feedback and ideas. I used to alternate between DC and DCC but was afraid of frying my locos by mistake so have now gone fully DCC but now can’t run my old locos. My next big job is to convert my favourite DC locos. Can I ask which make of DCC sockets have you used to hardwire. Most of my old locos are hornby and lima with the old ringfield motors in. I have ordered some clips but if they don’t work then I will do the same and run feeds to each siding, I hadn’t though about switching them, thats a good idea.Thanks Mark
I have two main regrets in hindsight. I agree with your point regarding a lack of a fiddle yard, as although my station has quite good storage in the sidings, the through lines in the station also have become used for trains which are stationary, restricting station shunting and destroying the illusion of a train arriving from somewhere else. Secondly, I over engineered my baseboards with cross members to prevent warping but failed to think about point placement. Initially I had not intended to fit point motors but then realised that the constant leaning across the layout to switch points had become unsatisfactory. Alas, the cross members seemed in many cases to prevent the fitting of below baseboard point motors, so I had to opt for above board motors instead. Not a disaster with creative disguising of the motors, but it would have been better avoided. Like you I started with DC, but upon conversion to DCC, I lifted all the track and soldered droppers before relaying. The other thing I did was to take up any Hornby points and replace them with Peco ones to improve running. I use insulfrog ones and find the Peco one are fine.
Hi Peter, I know what you mean I have had to chop the cross struts so my faller car system and tube trains can run under the boards! I might still change my points that I haven’t ballasted yet. I am just not sure whether to get insul or electro one! Thanks for watching. Good luck with your layout. Mark
Hi, informative video indeed. How about double heading or adding bankers to longer takes. As the layout & main line seem to represent a hilly region... 😅 may just add some more interest...
Hi, thanks for watching. I haven’t tried double heading yet, that might help. Forgive my ignorance what is adding bankers? Thanks Mark
Hi. Great video and can relate, definitely when it comes too points. I started with using hornby insulfrog points and but was lucky too be able too switch them all over too peco before they layout advanced too far, in hindsight I'd rather use peco electrofrog simply for the better running, espically with short wheel based locos. I also started with DC and I'm currently working towards converting everything over too DCC. Don't know if this would be any use but I found a video online that shows you how too setup a system where you can switch between running dc locos and dcc locos on the same layout, although not at the same time. It means you can either run your dc locos or run dcc locos.
Hi, can I ask with the peco electrofrog points do you have to worry about switching the polarity to stop shorts. I could still change over the points I showed in the video. It would be a bit expensive though! I am going to eventually have my layout switchable between dc and DCC. I have installed two bus wires for each loop and have isolated joiners between them so I can switch one over to DC and still have the other running DCC. It it works I will make a video showing how I did it. Thanks for watching. 😊 Mark
@chappelstation I'm not sure. I think you can wire it up so the frog will automatically switch the polarity of the point for you, but I think it's done within the point motor. I'm still new too the electrofrog as I intend too use them on my next layout for now I'm sticking with insulfrog, from switching hornby too peco I've had no bother other than when using short based locos, mostly 2 wheel. The layout is too far advanced to start swapping them over. It's just one bus wire under the whole layout feeding into a switchable box I made with two feeds coming into it, one from each controller, and I switch between the two.
Ok thanks, I might have to buy a set of electrofrog points and test them out to see how they work. The world of DCC can be a bit complicated, especially points! Have good Christmas. All the best Mark
I always wondered if your station was only on one side on purpose or by accident, have you thought about having a low relief platform on your outside track. You're right about deciding what you want before you start, but you can fall into the trap of becoming an armchair modeller who never gets a train running if your try to be perfect first time , happy modeling in the new year.
Hi Philip, unfortunately it wasn’t planned. I am not too worried but I might try to make room for a low relief platform on the outside when I build the second station above the underground. I agree that you can watch too many videos and never actually start. The only way to really learn is to have a go. Thanks for watching and Happy New Year. Mark
Great video. A beginner should never be scared of just having a go. Having to plan ahead can kill any start in the hobby. The message to beginners should still be: Just get a train set and get started.
To clarify: The Hornby track geometry and the geometry of PECO Setrack (which it looks like you are mostly using) is the same. It will not help a beginner to ditch Hornby track and go for _any_ PECO track. So you can say that your mistake is not using Hornby track, your mistake is not using flexi track, wider fixed curves and wider angle points. Setrack straights can be a great way to achieve long straights. Also, most locos will negotiate R2 and above. Using fixed track geometry is not always bad. Personally, I use a mix of fixed and flexi - and mostly Hornby mixed with the large selection of PECO wide angle points.
I think you have some great views alltogether. A good baseplate is definitely important. I totally agree.
Hi, thanks for your comments, yes I do agree, just getting on with it isn’t always a bad thing. The trouble I had is I didn’t really know what I wanted and liked until I started my layout so it inevitably developed. I think wider angled points would have been better for me but then they need more room. I do have some good straights but I also like it when you see a train coming around a sweeping curve and it gives some more room for scenics behind. It been a real learning curve but also a very enjoyable hobby so far. Thanks for watching and have a lovely Christmas. Mark
@@chappelstationThanks Mark. I totally agree. When I started I had an idea on what I wanted, but as with so many others, that idea developed into something completely different. Down the line I have sold off some of the stuff I bought back then to finance new adventures. It is a wonderful hobby. Merry Christmas to you too! Cheers!
Regarding updating your track. I have only recently returned to the hobby. Was planning to use code 75 flexi track and electrofrog or the newer unifrog points.
But decided to use Peco settrack but used the medium and long radius insul points.
Advantages being far quicker and easier to lay and was able to take time operating layout and being able to adapt the track plan.
Electrofrog point wiring would be just to complicated for my brain. The Peco insulfrog points are fine as all my locomotives are new Bachmann are long wheelbase with multiple pick ups so run great. Even have a second hand 08 diesel shuntet that crawls over the points and never stalls. Im now going to fix the track down after 6 months of use. Will be adding extra Peco power feeders for extra power supply. They already have fishplates soldered on.
Cheers Mike.
Hi Mike, yes I know what you mean about electrofrog wiring, polarity changes etc!! Interesting to hear that the peco inulfrog points don’t cause any issues on your locos even the 08. Might have to get a couple to try out. Good luck with your layout especially the next stage of ballasting the track down, that can be really scary. Thanks for watching and have a lovely Christmas. Mark
@@chappelstation thanks for reply. Yes I would try buying a couple of Peco Streamline long or medium radius insul Frog points.
I initially bought from a model shop a broken up set, mainly for the controller but had oval of track including a standard insulation point. So relieved to keep it simple, especially as I don't think I will use point motors. Virtually all points are reachable from my chair so will probably use wire in the tube method.
Sometimes it's best to just keep it simple and not over complicate things.
Thanks
Hi Mark, some very good advice but as you state, just 5 of the most common mistakes that will cause headaches 'down the line !' I'm sure your video will save a lot newbies from cursing. Returning to railway modelling after more than a 40 year absence, and starting from scratch, I was surprised to discover a completely different way of building a layout. Fortunately for me I chose to talk to a local railway model shop where the help I received avoided most of the pitfalls that await the novice. Whilst it is easy to buy stuff online without any conversation, I would urge new modellers to seek the help of your local retailer by having a chat about what you wish to do. If you haven't got a local dealer then at least talk to them on the phone before proceeding. I struck up a good relationship with my local dealer and in addition to receiving the best advice, I received a discount for a decent order. As you say Mark, once errors have been made they can be worked around and possibly modified but with good advice they can be avoided.
Thanks Mick, you make a good point about getting advice from your local model railway shop, if you are lucky enough to have one. We do have a small one in Jersey but he is very traditional so good for basic DC stuff but not DCC. I have to resort to TH-cam for that advice. I also think making mistakes is all part of the learning but the key is to not make expensive ones!! Thank for watching and Happy New Year Mark
Have you thought about adding weights to the locos that are struggling?
Thanks for the suggestion. Yes I did try it with my Hornby TTS class 37 but because it wasn’t over the driving bogie it didn’t help!
The good thing about making mistakes is having an excuse to rip apart parts of layout, buy more 'stuff' and have another go. This unforgiving hobby just keeps on giving. Embrace the mistakes! 😁
Very true, the key is to be flexible and imaginative so the layout can evolve. I never planned on having an underground line but I do now!! Thanks for watching and have a great Christmas
I really should confess that my first mistake as a viewer was misreading the title of this vid, I thought it read 39 mistakes building my model railway. I thought that’s quite a specific number of mistakes, maybe a top 5 or 10 or even 30. Can’t teach stupid 😂
That’s funny, although I probably have 39 mistakes over the last couple of years making my railway but that would be one long video!!! Thanks for watching and have a great Christmas
My number one recommendation is, before you do anything, watch youtube videos like like where people share their mistakes, my railway is making very slow progress but it dies feel like each little bit I do, I am doing better than without all these tips.
Thanks Dave, yes TH-cam is a great source of information and inspiration. Hopefully this episode will help others as other TH-camrs videos have helped me. All the best with your layout. Remember the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time 😊 Have a great Christmas and thanks for watching