model railroad Archives | Model Railroad Academy

Model Railroading: Where to Begin

August 7, 2019 By Josh Clark & filed under Uncategorized.

Most of us can remember our first experience with trains. It may have been a Lionel steam set under the Christmas tree or an afternoon trackside with your grandfather. For myself, I still remember sitting at Pig’s Eye Yard in Saint Paul, Minnesota. With a Happy Meal in hand and endless waves of SD40-2s, I…

Private Rail Trip: Part 1

November 9, 2017 By Allen Keller & filed under Model Railroad Academy Blog.

For over a year my wife and I had planned a trip on a private railroad car for our anniversary, so we were especially excited to arrive at Washington’s Union Station for the beginning of our adventure. The station sees over 100,000 riders daily many on Amtrak trains and many others on the D.C. area…

Installing Approach Signals for an Interlocking Plant: Part 2

July 27, 2017 By Allen Keller with Kevin Kizer & filed under Model Railroad Academy Blog.

Editor’s note: This blog is part 2 of a series on installing signals for an interlocking plant. You can read part 1 of this series here. We decided to use searchlight signals manufactured by Tomar Industries. We added a 4′ scale base made out of Plastruct tubing to help raise the approach light signal mast…

10-Minute Diesel Weathering

July 24, 2017 By Allen Keller & filed under Model Railroad Academy Blog.

This is a new HO scale E-7 diesel. It’s well detailed and runs well with sound, but it looks too toy-like to me. There are as many ways to weather a locomotive as there are model railroad track plans! I want to show you a quick way to make your engines look less toy-like. It’s…

Cleaning Up an Old Model Railroad Scene

June 15, 2017 By Allen Keller & filed under Model Railroad Academy Blog.

Perhaps you have a scene or series of scenes on your layout that have not aged well. They may be covered in dust or just generally need a little touch up. You’d be surprised how easy it is to clean up an old scene on your model railroad layout. In this post, I’m going to…

A Visit to the Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum

May 17, 2017 By Doug Hodgdon & filed under Model Railroad Academy Blog.

I recently made an inspiring trip to the Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum in St. Paul, Minnesota, that I would like to tell you about. The Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum is an organization that’s been in existence since 1934. At its inception it was housed in the St. Paul Union Depot which hosted the…

Installing Approach Signals for an Interlocking Plant: Part 1

April 21, 2017 By Allen Keller with Kevin Kizer & filed under Model Railroad Academy Blog.

On my model railroad of the Bluff City Southern there is a bottleneck, but it’s a fun bottleneck. The five railroads that I model come together at this bottleneck. It’s the wye at Bridge Junction leading from Memphis into Arkansas across the Mississippi River. When I designed the layout I knew that a busy junction…

An Overview of Glues for Model Railroading

March 24, 2017 By Doug Hodgdon & filed under Model Railroad Academy Blog.

I’m going to diverge a bit from my ongoing series of blogs to talk about something that’s vital to the pursuit of our hobby. Glue! We all seem to find our own favorites, and using a glue that doesn’t work for a particular application can be really aggravating. My previous blog about the 1/64 scale…

Basic Detailing for Model Railroads: A Day in the Southern Pacific

March 7, 2017 By Doug Hodgdon & filed under Model Railroad Academy Blog.

What about basic detailing? We’ve come a good distance in our blog series, so I think that we’re ready for the really rewarding part! If you’ve read my series (find the links to at the end of this blog), you should get my thought process for building a layout that you’ll enjoy for many years.…

Creative Ideas for Model Railroad Structures

January 20, 2017 By Doug Hodgdon & filed under Model Railroad Academy Blog.

Photo by Doug Hodgdon Model railroad structures are important in many ways, and by “structures” I’m including bridges and other man-made, primarily fixed elements that we include in our layouts. Structures can be assembled from combinations of wood, stone, concrete, or steel. They can be loading docks, a wooden pony truss bridge, a stone retaining…