30 Rapid Fire Model Railroading Tips and Tricks 

A tip i'd like to add is to lay out all your track and test it with your locomotive before you ever start putting your base scenery together. Just connect it all and test it on the bare benchwork first. This way if you find there is something that your locomotive doesn't negotiate right you can make changes before you have to worry about moving any scenery features.

As a beginner in model rail roading (starting layout construction in October) I appreciate the amount of information you mix in with enjoyment. I have learned a lot and gained the confidence to proceed. I continue to look forward to your videos. Thanks!

I love Number 30! Best advice

Thanks for the confirmation that I am doing some things right!

I like number 30 the best. Thanks for all the advice.

Great video, your tips are just right for newbies and veterans of the hobby, we all stray away from the basics at times. Thanks Jimmy, all your videos are keepers. But this one tops them all.

Another great one Jimmy. I particularly loved the final point. This is the most important one.

A cheap source for latex scenery paint is the mis-tint section of the paint store or big box store. I got a light brown and even a sky blue for my backdrop that way. 😊

As a beginer i just fricking LOVE this channel! Hope you will have a great week! Greetings from Stockholm Sweden /Victor

Hi. Very new to this hobby and like a railroad, I am building those connections and memories with my grandchildren now that I am retired and have time. I've been lurking for about a month now, trying to get a grasp of it all. It's a lot of stuff, but as I understand it now, you need to know a bit and then, learn along the way. Found your channel a couple of weeks ago and I like this video most of all. So far. 30 tips, 8 minutes. Why isn't that a rule somewhere? Now I love the deep dive too, like in the Rasberry Pi Arduino stuff. Also very cool btw, but when it comes to bambo skewers for decoupling and how to make better trees, I need this. So, it's the age old "lets put a train under the tree and through the village" hook that got us this year. Now I know, just a nice simple train this year, Probably n guage, but now we start to buy rolling stock and track, control and start some modeling setup to make more scenery. Grandson number one loves running trains, Granddaughter number one, is gaga for the village people. (yes I just said that and it's correct). The other two grandsons are a bit short yet but I see already they have a mind for this. Plus those clever little fingers can get into just the tiniest spaces. (Which isn't exploitation) it's passing on a hobby by participation. lol My son is a lead programmer for a major gaming outfit and so, while I start with the Adruino programming, it's a Tom Sawyer whitewashing a fence gambit. Yes, the evilness of one's elder years, I know. Thanks for the tips!

I’m a bit of a procrastinator & perfectionist with a side of OCD & ADD. I spent nearly 20 years stuck in the design phase and planned for a O gauge layout 13’ wide at the side and 23’ length. I discovered I liked building things and got sidetracked more than once getting my basement layout & wood shop constructed and when I finally started laying track I got hurt at work, ended up selling all my train stuff and only running trains on two 4’x8’ pieces of plywood, less than a dozen times; don’t be that person.

Great advice. I have to give two thumbs up for SCARM - and I paid the $50 for the full version - that helps the guy who wrote it continue to work on it

Great tips, Jim! Thanks for sharing.

A ton of great pointers ... thanks.

Great ideas, enjoyed watching. Have an awesome day jimmy.

Hey Jimmy, thankyou for the tips! Only 2 min’s in and I bought Rail Modeler Pro for my layoutdesign. I’m not sure what I want with the tracks, so this helps me a lot! So thanks again for the tip! Now I’m going to finish watching the video :-)

Great tips, pretty much how I got to where I am. Again another great show. Operate on Operator 👍😀

I believe that #30 is the most important of all.

Awesome Tips and Tricks. these apply to all railroaders!

Great tips!

Nice summary!

Very helpful. Thank you.

Great tips as always

Great tips Jimmy! Now, just how many cups of coffee were downed in the making of this video? That was fast!

You really can’t read any of the names on the Patron scroll. It might be time to switch to a higher frame rate export so they run smoother or jump to fade in/out title cards instead. You’re just getting so popular 😝🤩🤓

Agreed with designing track and layout...digital software and even a tape and paper will expose problems before you set it in concrete

All great points, When building a layout you have to think ahead. I think you will agree scenery needs to be planed out because the star of the show is the train. one of my friends had to tear out a section because he wanted a scenery look that just did not have ample space. Great scenery takes a good layout to Great.

The "++" has recently been dropped from DCC++EX name. The new, simplified designation of DCC-EX is much less a mouthful and helps distinguish the new version with a complete rewrite of the original coding. Thanks for your videos building this DIY command station. They gave me the confidence to venture forward and build my own.

I was having a drink of coffee when you said op session. For a 1/10 of a second I thought you said obsession🤣 I thought there was some real help coming with that🤪

Hey! Great video! You’ve hit on some very important and noteworthy points here! Unfortunately for me, RU-vid wasn’t here when I did my first layout. Now for the question! I am laying down extruded foam insulation board for my sub roadbed. I noticed you waited until you laid your track to paint it. I wanted to completely paint it with flat latex paint, before I lay down any track. Would the paint cause issues with the cork roadbed sticking properly? Just curious.

My layout is 4x12 from an Atlas track planning book (Scarm wasn’t available) and when I had to move the movers just shuddered when they looked at it! I had to cut it in half and I’m still debugging turnout connections etc. it’s free standing but if doing it again I’d go shelf around the wall. Maybe I can expand it like that as it didn’t turn out like the one in the book.

One problem I'm having that doesn't seem to bother anyone else is my use of SCARM and the lack of parallel tracking that I can place down. There's no easy way for me to make parallel tracks perfectly every time (or as close to perfect as possible). I also have very little self confidence and would like to avoid using as much flex track as possible even though I know it's like the one and only savior for model railroaders. I'd like my set to be as 'piece by piece' as possible until I'm forced to use flex track. Some basic things I need to know is roughly how far apart the tracks need to be for a uniform look/feel. I've heard everything from 1-2 inches and like 3 on curves or something like that but nothing concrete. Also there's too many brands to choose from, like way too many. I'd like to know which ones work best or best TOGETHER so I might be able to combine two brands to get that layout that I'm after. Ideally I was thinking a 3 track mainline because I'm really into Thomas and have a few trains at my disposal right now, but even though I can fit 3 tracks on my table going back and forth on both sides, I don't think that's necessary. I can just have 3 tracks on the main inner loop where I'll be controlling and observing the trains and then have the middle track split off into the 2 outside tracks via a Y switch so I not only have a passing track, but also a runaround if I need to.

I am looking into getting into ho scale railroad. I am interested in late 1800 Era trains especially those in the western US in that time frame. Can someone point me to where I can figure out the type of cars a specific engine would typically haul. I like the 2-8-0 UP consolidation but I am lost as to match that to rolling stock

N scale can fit so much in a tight area but I do HO. I've thought about going N but can't convince myself. Always loved the size of HO. Unfortunately can't fit a basic HO layout anywhere. I could if I was N scale...

😊

Here’s a tip when first starting out buy some ez track and lay it out on the floor and make a design of track you like for your space then buy the buildings and props you wanna use and just place them on the floor in areas you like around the track. This will give you a visual look at how everything will look before you tackle the bench work and start building things.

Designing a layout is for psychopaths you are totally wrong!!!