Building the Layout

 

On this page, you will see the process of building the Strasburg Layout! I would like to specify once again that this is a stylized layout based loosely on the real Strasburg Railroad. I am not going for scale 1:1 accuracy. This is all about having fun. If you are a grumpy old man who doesn't like a bit of "fun" on his O gauge layout, I'd highly advise you to stop reading and continue enjoying your $2,500 model locomotives. With that said, there are three operating locomotives on my layout. Lionel's 475 locomotive, their 90 locomotive, and a customized 3D printed Thomas the Tank Engine mounted on a Lionel BEDT 0-6-0 switcher model locomotive. Lionel's 475 and 90 models are highly inaccurate. But I did not buy them for accuracy. I bought them because I thought it was cool that an official model train company made official Strasburg models. There was once a time where that did not exist so I am very thankful for it! Perhaps in future I could grab more "scale" locos, but I feel it would detract from the toy-like whimsy of the O gauge layout as it currently stands. Here is a fun fact: the bulk of the layout was actually made in just one night! It was an all nighter, but it happened! With all of that said, I hope you enjoy seeing the process from the very beginning. Let's get rolling!

Like many model train beginnings, it all started with a simple 4x8 piece of board attached to handmade table legs. Thank you Dad! This layout simply would not exist if not for your skills and expertise, for which I am extremely grateful. At this step, none of the track was laid down. My fellow modelers and I were simply placing track on the table to begin devising a track plan. Interestingly, as this page goes on, you will see that we opted to "flip" the direction the track is going in so that the parking lot and fence faces the viewer rather than being against the wall/backdrop. Here you see some Lionel Fastrack and I believe Super O track? I am unfamiliar with this, but large amounts of it were gifted to me by my uncle. Maybe someone in the comments has an eye for detail and will let me know. We ultimately decided to go with the Fastrack even though the alternative looked more realistic. Why is that? Well... because we had so much of the Fastrack! May as well save a solid hundred dollars sticking with the track you got!

Yes, yes. The silly technicolor faced train. Hey, Strasburg built their own Thomas that is completely steam powered and it operates usually three times a year. For once, putting a Thomas on a layout is actually realistic! But all jokes aside, I included this picture for a reason. Do you see a square piece of paper towards the right of the picture? It is hard to make out, but was essential to the creation of the layout. This was a cute little simplified overhead drawing of Strasburg's entrance/yard that was given out for free at Strasburg Railroad just to tell visitors where everything was and what times the locomotives were running at. This overhead illustration helped us immensely as we got to see where to put every switch, every straight, every curve, and every tree. While we did not get every line of track, that just adds to the stylized and simplified nature of the layout. The track plan was slowly coming together. 

I have included these two pictures of my fellow modelers Lucas (first picture) and Caleb (second picture) working hard on details. For some reason, one of our right hand Fastrack switches was defective and would cut power to the whole layout every time a locomotive rolled on it. Lucas drilled holes into the table and rewired the switch himself so that power would remain constant on the layout. He was simply looking over the layout before details and scenery began (take a look at the purple bag of chips on the layout - a guy's gotta eat!)
Caleb can be seen in the second picture repainting a Lionel station. At this time, Lionel had not made a model of East Strasburg Station (which they later released in 2020) so Caleb was trying his best to make this station look like Strasburg's. And it's a valiant job! His painting skills truly brought some new life to the station and really made the whole layout come together. Also... take a look outside the windows in the garage in the first picture. It is quite dark, isn't it? Well, this was all happening close to one in the morning! Never a dull moment on Little Strasburg!

Here is a picture of Lionel's #475 locomotive pulling two Lionel Strasburg passenger cars (the earlier releases before the Lionchief set). I am showing this picture as I do not have any in progress pictures of the details and scenery being added. To be fair... it was around three in the morning! So allow me to break down how we went about things. For starters, we did NOT use a grass mat. There is nothing wrong with using one, but we personally found that we wanted there to be an earth tone color to the bottom layer of the ground on the layout. So we went outside and used REAL dirt from the yard (and made sure we grabbed it from places without any bugs)! That may sound silly, but you would be surprised the difference it makes once you add that next layer of grass. For that, we used everyone's favorite Woodland Scenics grass cover. We used differing shades to add some dimension to the grass. We sprinkled the dinner with thinner grass and then sprinkled on top thicker grass to resemble blades of grass or very small bushes. Interestingly,  that red water tower over there towards the left... that is a soup can spray painted red! We added a plasticard top/roof to it and made a piece to hang off the tower to go into a loco's water tank/boiler. This did not stay on the layout long, we just simply forgot to buy a water tower. Thankfully we have one now though. But this old tower is quite nice to still have. You may also see some discarded engine pieces towards the right. We added this to resemble the scrap Strasburg has sitting outside their yard but eventually removed it. It just didn't look right. 

And what about all that ballast? Did I just buy a bunch of Woodland Scenics ballast and spend over a hundred dollars on it all? Shockingly... no. This may sound crazy, but hear me out: this is kitty litter! Yes, you read that right! I have heard some people argue that kitty litter is bad for model train track as something about the chemicals in it all can get the track dirty. But it has been years now and my engines run like a dream so I can verify that is not true. The reason I went with kitty litter is because I needed a lot of ground to cover and it was significantly cheaper than buying "modeling" ballast. It worked out very well, and has stayed on the layout since!

And there you have it! Little Strasburg! As of July 2018, the Strasburg O Gauge layout was officially finished. But there is a difference between finished and completed. It was finished... for a time. But is a model train layout ever truly "complete?" Well, I'll leave that up to you. But what I do know is while the biggest details are all set up, there are still a lot of tiny details I intend to add to the layout. Cars in the parking lot, lighted light poles, many O gauge people walking around the station, fences, more trees, etc etc. The list goes on and on. But unlike the building of the layout, I do not intend to complete this all in one night. Now I am slowing down, taking my time grabbing these bits and bobs when I feel particularly inspired. Thank you so much for taking the time to read all of this. I hope, in someway, my modeling has inspired some of you just as the Strasburg Railroad has inspired me. I had a lot of fun with this layout, and I feel that is truly what this hobby is all about. Whether you work in N scale or G scale, whether you have a loop or a layout, whether you are a scale modeler or casually modeling - it is all about having fun. If you are not having fun with the hobby, is it any fun at all? My methods may seem laughable to some. Well, everyone's a critic. I can safely say that some of the people who bash my work are no more than juvenile teenagers online who don't even know how to hold a paint brush let alone make a model. The good amount of thinking, reasoning adults I have met have found some fun in this layout! But ultimately, I did not make this layout for them or anyone, really. I made it for myself. And I am happy with it. I think that is all that truly matters.

I hope you have enjoyed reading the process of this and I appreciate you taking the time to read such a lengthy post! Feel free to check out the rest of the blog for more updates, some reviews, pictures of the layout, and more. See you in Paradise!