model railroad tips
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3:59Realistic Corrugated Plate Roof
MRA Contributing Editor Martin Tärnrot creates realistic corrugated plate roof for buildings in a layout. Numerous ways to create it exist – the advantages of the method presented in this video are that it comes out self-adhesive and that the method is valid for both glass-fiber semi-transparent roof and corroded plate roof. (Another method for…
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7:30Homemade Pro-Level Ballast
MRA Contributing Editor Martin Tärnrot makes homemade professional-level ballast. If you have a large layout, you need a substantial amount of ballast. By using this method, you reduce the ballast cost by at least 70%. (For a video about laying the road bed, tracks and ballast, see Martin’s “How To Ballast Fast and Easy.”) BUYING…
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9:01Realistic Lumber Stacks
MRA Contributing Editor Martin Tärnrot makes realistic, scale-correct lumber stacks (post 1960 style) that you can put on your layout, on center beams or bulkhead flat cars. THE OLD WAYS There are a few ways to build lumber stacks, including scratch building them from thin pieces of lumber, gluing them together and wrapping them. This…
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14:22Bob (Chooch) Rivard – Track Car Cam Montage Part 2
In this tour of Bob Rivard’s HO scale Soo Line, we visit three places of interest along the layout, including New Brighton and Cardigan Junction, Minnesota. In the first part of the Bob Rivard Track Car Cam Montage, we were outside in Bob’s yard viewing his G scale layout. Now we go inside the house…
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7:02Simple Details That Make Your Locomotives Unique
Model Railroad Academy Editor Ron Marsh shows how adding just a couple of details enhances the realism and prototypical look of a locomotive or piece of rolling stock. These details can also take a nice but ordinary locomotive and make it completely special to your layout. THE LOCOMOTIVE Ron recently bought a brand-new Atlas model…
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13:48Upgrading Rolling Stock from Swap Meet to Layout
What can we do with older cars to make them great additions to our fleets on our model railroad layouts? Model Railroad Academy Editor Ron Marsh recently attended a model railroad swap meet and picked up a few older cars. In this video, he shows ways to upgrade new old stock cars with mechanical upgrades…
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5:26Modeling Gravel Roads with Martin Tarnrot
In this video Martin Tarnrot demonstrates his method of making HO scale roads, and in particular, gravel roads. There are many methods to achieve a nice looking result, but the method he has used throughout my entire layout. For this video instruction, Martin made a small diagram, made from two inch thick Styrofoam. He prefers…
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7:11Working with Curved Easements with Martin Tarnrot
In this video with modeler Martin Tarnrot, he will discuss how to add curved easements. This adds to the appearance of the railroad and the functional reliability. The subroadbed is a 12 mm thick plywood sheet. This first step in laying the track is to mark the centerline of the track. He uses a homemade…
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4:41How to Ballast Fast and Easy with Martin Tarnrot
In this free video lesson, modeler Martin Tarnrot shows you how to lay model railroad ballast fast and easy. He learned this method from a friend after he expressed how difficult and time consuming he found the process. The base material he will use is styrofoam and the track bed is Woodland Scenics ballast in…
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