Planning Track for Model Train Village

Series Summary

Even the most casual model train enthusiasts are rarely satisfied with just a train line. They have to build a world around it, recreating landscapes, towns, parking lots, even road hazards to make their layouts as realistic as possible. Their hobby soon grows to include model cars, home construction, precision painting of miniature figures. And of course you have to have a landscape to put all of these things on. The end result can be truly amazing with train lines running through whole villages recreated in basements and garages across the country.

In this series of free hobby videos, you will learn how to create your own model trail village. Our expert will help you to create a styrofoam base for your landscape, then suggest how to add buildings, cars, even sidewalks and roads to your model train layout. Watch this series to learn how to plan tracks and route your trains to create a fantastic world of your own.

Video Transcript

"My name is Kevin Blankeney and we are going to show you how to lay a track for your new model train village. The first step is to select your track. Now there is a lot of different manufactures. This is a more realistic model with the road bed already ported for you. Some of them have connectors that hold the track in place whether it is glued or nailed. This is the Styrofoam base that we aer going to start with but we would get into scoping later. So as you lay out your track you want to first look at your area this is about a 4x4 space which is perfect for a circular track plan. You can also do different track plans elongated, oval. There is a lot of speciality pieces such as crossing, sidings, all different chooses that you can use. Now you want to make sure that your track has connectors on it. These insure proper electrical glow through each rail and probably the most important piece in your track plan. Now as you are laying this out you want to first center it. You can do off center if you like but you want to leave room later on for sculpting. So once you have selected your track you'd laid out everything, you are ready to talk about your base and that is the next step. "