How To Build Model Railroad Benchwork - Joe Adaire's HO Scale Model Railroad Benchwork. 

Shortly after midnight this morning, I ran my railroad's first excursion train of 2023

Happy New Year, Toy Man Television! Pretty cool video.

never understood the L girder method from a description. With the visuals, I now understand it. Am so used to the tabletop method my dad used on his Lionel.

Happy New Year !

It doesn't get more down to the bones of the matter then with this video... makes doing the filling in the gaps rather easy... extrude polystyrene foam is a marvelous thing. The idea of using masonite/hardboard for a road is really ingenious. You could use a 3 ply or 4 ply flooding underlayment cut across the sheet to do the same thing and be able to use nails in it. Most flooring underlayment plywood has the grain of the wood running the lengths of the sheet so going across the grain makes it easier to bend.

Very informative. It is quite different from the foam construction I use.

Good stuff.

Happy New Year 2023 : All Aboard may the rails be with us : 🐢 🚂 🐢 🚂 🐢 🚂

Happy 2023! Still want my Flying car😁

Happy New Year!!! Nice tutorial on the making of the bench. Cool!!!

Happy New Year. Love you both. I of course love the content but I really appreciate the interaction between you both.

Happy New Year to you both very cool video

Happy New Year to both of you!

Happy New Year you two. The L Girder system goes way back to the article published in MR in September 1963 by Linn Westcott. IMHO it is still the gold standard for layout construction and I have been using it for years. Keep up the good work. Always fun to listen to and watch your adventures.

I wish i had seen that years ago. I started building my toy train town on table I made from "found Materials". The legs are 4 X 4 blocks that I got from work. They were the cribbing from the truck loads of steel that comes in. I found after I started working with it that it was OAK! I had to drill holes in it and bolt everything together. I burned up a few bits even when trying to use coolant! It is a very sturdy base, but I will never do that again! The top is a discarded ping pong table that was lengthened and then cut out to fit my idea of what fits in the room. I am still fitting and working on getting everything to work together.

That was very insightful for me for doing bench work. Thank you. HAPPY NEW YEAR🎊🚂🎊 Can't wait to see what you show us this year 2023. GOD BLESS 🚂💖🚂💖🚂💖

Dear Dale and Karyn, excellent example of the L-girder building method. Love the Masonite splines. Great to see the ease going into the curves with the spline. Cool tool to twist those wires and make the bottle brush base for the trees.

hi guys great video as always one easy way of twisting the wires is by putting one end in a vice and using a variable speed drill on the other to twist or instead of using two pieces of wire use one piece long enough and bend it in haft. use to use that method to make Christmas trees before we could afford to buy one

Interesting as always ! Happy New Year !

Happy New Years to both of you. I first saw an article on this in a second hand copy of MR. Shortly after in MR, the project layout was the Kinninick (?) Railway and Dock Company. Lots of ideas. Never really got anywhere but one can dream.

Lots of great information . looking forward to seeing your railroad in operation

For the wiring, use 'suitcase' connectors. Makes wiring much easier when connecting leads from the wiring bus to the track. Drop the leads, insert into the suitcase connect and clamp shut. Works like a dream and a lot less soldering needs to be done. Happy New Year ! 🙂

Be interesting to see how they go about doing the scenery in between the track sections

Hi Dale and Karen , happy new year ! I have been watching videos on such things as end cab switchers ! I miss seeing those , when in my younger years back in my former state of so cal ! those end cab switchers could be seen rolling down the center of Alameda Blvd in greater Los Angeles , doing switching at various businesses and pulling cars up from long Beach / San Pedro ! There was nothing like the sound they made starting to move under load , I loved it ! Also watching a video on scenic railroads , I saw a shay , one of my favorites ! and it made me think ? On a standard steam locomotive narrow gage or otherwise , the boiler is centered between the rails so the weight is distributed evenly , but on locomotives like the shay , climax , and heysler , where the boiler is offset , I was wondering if the outer rail under the boiler side , had to be stronger than the inner rail under the drive train , to support the weight of the water filled boiler , or if it didn't matter !

Thanks

42 inches = 1066.8 mm (I am a math teacher and preparing a lesson on measurement and conversions, hence the adjustment. That does not factor in the significan digits which would make it 1100mm.) End of lesson. :) This lesson will be in my first class next Tuesday. Welcome aboard!

happy new year Mr. and Mrs. Toy Man

Happy New Year! I also love the SP railroad and the dog bone track design. Very cool layout. I was looking at some old pictures of the railroad by my house and it turns out that during the 50s and early 60s SP trains used to run near my house. These days I usually see UP, BNSF, and Amtrak trains use the line near my house. I've been thinking of redoing my railroad so it could be set up as modules but this video is still very inspiring and informative. Thanks for sharing

I have bench work that is L girder. Homesote is easier to work with than Masonite. Wiring with a bus makes things much better and easier to work with like you said. The scenery protects you. By the way why does everyone have to pick on Hooker Chemical. Hooker no longer exists. They put chemical waste in drums and buried them. It is an involved story. I am sure you’ve heard of Love Canal. Never boring and always unique!

if it involves trains I'm so there 👍👍

I think that l girder, homosote are outdated forms of building a layout. Scenery and electrical is much lighter today. I have a simple module construction and foam top. The tracks sit on 4" of foam that can be carved or built up. Since I model N Scale in Texas, I don't need anymore then 4" of depth. As for switch machines, where those are located I use 1" foam under the switch.

I prefer a deck table which is a table frame with a sheet of plywood on top

How is the splined Road Bed attached to the risers?