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A sturdy surface is a necessity:

Straight off, you don’t want to have a surface that is unbalanced and that will lean or that can be easily pushed over.  When you flaunt your new layout to your younger family members you don’t want the little tykes to be able to easily knock over your locomotives with just an slight touch. One bad instant and your locomotives could be in pieces scattered about the floor. What a horrorshow!  No, you definitely must have a nice well designed surface.  If you’re knowledgeable with your hardware you could fashion the table yourself.

Cool Tip: Here’s a cool tip. If you happen to own an good ping-pong table you don’t use any more, then stop thinking of it as your ping pong table and start thinking of it as your new locomotive table. Ping pong tables give you lots of room for any but the highest gauge designs.  Imagine how complicated you could make your HO circuit layout on a table of these measurements.  This is perhaps the easiest most cost and time efficient way of getting a great platform for your train set up.

If you like to go places with your trains, you must have a good hobby table:

Be ready to shell out a bit for a well designed hobby table. A quick web search will list a host of sites specializing in model tables.

Cool tip #2: Here’s a room saver: Lower your table from the ceiling.  Want your car port back for your cars?   Secure your table to the ceiling with a pulley system and your problem is overcome.

Domino tables:

The best bet when it comes to tables, though, is domino style tables that can be used in any setup. These tables can be connected in any configuration or layout. These domino tables frees your track plan to grow naturally. You control the limits of these tables. The light weight design is ideal for model train lovers.  If you want to take your model train down in the basement, you can just carry the table down to your work area. Its even no problem to fit in your car trunk. In fact, you might find yourself altering your track design on the daily.

A great toy train lay out is only as solid as the foundation it is constructed on.

Here is more information on N Scale Model Trains. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Model Trains.

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What are the cool collectible locomotives these days?  Here’ the large three:

Lionel trains:  

To start there are Lionel locomotives.  If you collected one of these historic model locomotives from every period in the last century you could arrange a pretty good record of toy training.  When you collect a Lionel train you are collecting toy locomotive royalty.  Baby boomers will remember the Lionel Holiday displays they saw as children.  Lionel’s classic toy trains are some of the best received and widely available trains around.  Famous folks like the rocker Neil Young and the actor Tom Hanks have been life long Lionel admirers.  Lionel has a well regarded literature that helps support it.  Because Lionel was dominated in the 1950s and because the post War period was the high point of model hobbying, it is no wonder that Lionel should be as prestigious as it is..  The fact is that Lionel was in the process of being overtaken by other train makers during that time and that most of us, like Neil Young, didn’t actually get Lionel trains as Christmas gifts only makes Lionel more popular now as a collector’s item.

American Flyers:  

Among hardcore collectors and toy locomotive enthusiasts no type of toy train has more cachet than the American Flyer S gauge toys that came out just after World War II.  A. C. Gilbert’s attempt to take the Midwest company and make it a competitor of the juggernaut Lionel ultimately failed. Many collectors will absolutely swear by the quality of these locomotives. The uniqueness of s gauge adds to the mystique of the American Flyer brand.  They are so popular among collectors and enthusiasts that Lionel LLC, the current holder of the American Flyer patent, plans on releasing many of the most popular trains from this period.  Watch out for them.

Ives:  

If you actually want to get a locomotive that no one has try finding an old Ives locomotive.  Ives was the third competitor in the Lionel versus American Flyer three way.  An old Ives toy train is a real find.  Like Lionel, Ives operates on O gauge. 

Clock operated locomotives of the Victorian era:  

These toy locomotives from the very early period of model training are really a discovery.  These are mostly shown at museums these days but if you can actually find one, you’ll have a train that is really a part of the genesis of model locomotives.   These clock operated locomotives, however, really give you a sense of how such toys were viewed before model training became so popular.   These vintage toy trains were clearly geared towards young people. No plugs, no batteries, no electricity—these are wind-up trains in the truest sense.  They were largely purchased by the rich back in the day and that’s who can afford to collect them now.  You can see how the plain style really could have appealed to small children.  These locomotives can really capture the imagination of another age.  In fact, you might say that model training came to us just like kindergarten.  Both were part of Germany’s obsessions with childrearing in the early 20^th century.

There is great enjoyment in restoring one of these old model trains.  You could choose a far worse hobby.

Here is more information on Model Steam Trains. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Model Trains.

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Get going by picking a exact time period for your metropolis that accords the locomotives you will be using:

We model train hobbyists are usually fairly good readers and there is nothing more annoying to us than noticing a 1950’s era American automobile on the cobblestone streets of European city near a typical 19^th century whistle stop. If you can keep your topographical details consistent with your type of model train it will impress other fans who pay attention to that sort of detail. There are countless possibilities for you to decide between when it comes to time period and scenery. If you got a Western motif stick to sheriffs and cacti and avoid cobblestone paths and Big Ben.

Start by planning the larger buildings and planning out the paths:  

It’s nice to have roads that segment your topography. Once you have these planned out you can structure your other smaller structures and figures around these major decisions.

Consider placing natural scenery into you city area:

Metropolitan areas are not just streets and houses, they have trees and pools and animals as well.  You might want to consider having some type of a canal leading into your city.  Some of the ideal designs I’ve seen include a central reservoir area in a city with a river that flows out and under the oval train tracks. This gives you the greatest variety of accessories and track designs.

Don’t forget to include the tiny details that bring out the realism of a village layout:

Tiny details are at the center of good model railroad city. Make your cityscape as complicated as you can imagine. Your efforts will be well rewarded in the end.

This is a rewarding aspect of the model training world that you can involve the entire family in.  Almost all children enjoy painting and coloring.  There is a great enjoyment in linking parts together and adding tiny weathering details to buildings and paths. Now’s the time to get that fledgling artist in the household involved with your beloved pastime. You can really use this as a bonding experience for the whole family. This is a rewarding way of forging lasting family recollections and customs.

Here is more information on Model Train Track. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Model Trains.

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These are the trains of your past: 

If you’re of a particular age these are the model trains you first became aware of.  They’re the toy trains from the Christmas displays you remember as a kid.  Many of us wrote these trains on our Christmas lists in the hope that we might wake up to their whistle on Christmas morning.  They were the Model Train Set that the well off family on the block got and that you hiddenly envied your entire childhood.  They are part of the imagined world where all our most desired wishes came true. Now that you are an grown up these trains can be your locomotives.

O toy railroads are more often than not Lionel train railroads:  

It was Lionel (now Lionel LLC) that popularized these locomotives.  Lionel is probably the representative toy locomotive making company in the United States.  Lionel has been around for so long that you can trace the history of model training by following their round about course through the volatility of the marketplace. Lionel’s aggressive adversiting in the pre-WWII era is the reason why you associate model locomotives with holiday.  It was these tactics that made them the top dogs of the model training world in the early previous century.  It was mainly because Lionel started to corner themselves at the higher end of the market that they opened themselves up to usurpers.  Lionel became the high end train that no one could buy and eventually filed for bankruptcy and was purchased in the the late 60’s. But Lionel has been re-invented as Lionel LLC and, though still plagued by financial woes, remains one of the central toy train makers around.  No other toy locomotive producer has the cachet that Lionel currently carries.

Weathering and detailing are a breeze with O scale locomotives:  

tinier train just can’t match the ease and joy of O gauge locomotives.  O scale locomotives are a lot larger than HO scale locomotives.  Real world trains are 48 times bigger than O scale toy locomotives.  You don’t need tiny hands or precise coordination to pigment and decal O gauge locomotives.  O scale locomotives are perfect for those of us who don’t have particularly matured fine motor skills.  Even if you can’t paint the side of a barn you will find O scale a easy toy to work with.  Because these are such big locomotives people will actually appreciate your handy work.  The O gauge human miniatures have discernable features and the locomotives can be detailed to the point of making individual sleeper windows look open or closed. There is just a lot more that you can do with an O scale model railroad.

Hobbyists love O scale because of its varied history:  

Fan’s of toy locomotives just love O because of its association with Lionel locomotives.  Many hobbyists enjoy designing their own O Scale Model Trains from scratch. 

But O scale is just a wonder in itself. It really is the ideal scale for a toy train and it is well worth the added area that it takes up.  Given Lionel’s extensive track record it is improbable that this gauge of locomotive will go out of production soon.  Even if all Lionel died, it is likely that forward thinking model train makers would design a train of this scale.  Just ask the rocker Neal Young who loved O gauge trains so greatly that he was at one point part owner in Lionel and is still kept on an advisor to the company!

Here is more information on Model Train Scale. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Model Trains.  

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Use trains as a secret vehicle for our traditions:

Try to make your set-up period and location specific. Imagine a set-up that is set during Reconstruction in the American Southwest.  You can feign ignorance and get your kids to “help” you figure out what would make for appropriate scenic details to your setup.  They might read about the telegraph and add telegraph lines next to the tracks.  Or they might create a vibrant town near the tracks to symbolize the boom cities that were the winners in the railroad speculation game.  Maybe even have a few washed out prospectors still panning for gold in the nearby stream.

Historic toy locomotives are also a good alternative to the usual diorama or scale model:  

Diorama and similar craft projects are fine but if you’ve already gotten your child into toy locomotives why not take advantage of his or her hobby to really impress at his next school presentation.  You will need to set it up on a portable table and possibly help your child bring it in on the day that it is due, but the combination of historic detail and the fascination that such trains foster simply on their own are likely to really go over well. A picture of Jesse James is fine, but what if you incorporated toy trains to bring the locomotive robber’s life details and cultural context to life.  As your period specific locomotive rounds the curve there are Jesse and his whole gang just waiting to pounce and continue his wrong headed crusade.  It’s your youngster though, who will be stealing that A right out of his teacher’s grade book!

Visit a toy locomotive Museum:  

If you’re anywhere in the American West you are never far from historical locomotive sites and museums where toy locomotives are often featured.  If your local historic train site doesn’t have model trains consider suggesting they incorporate some to the curator or manager of the site.  Some rolling exhibits may come around as well. Just do an internet search and you are sure to come into contact with your local model locomotive society.

All of these things are sure to place your child on track to greater national literacy.  Even if you just do model training without even considering the educational possibilities you will inevitably foster a greater sense of historical knowledge simply by handling these little mechanical doorways to the past.  

Here is more information on Model Steam Trains. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Model Trains.

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