Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads

Online model displays

*Malcolm Houck displays his HO scale scratchbuilt NYO&W steam locos at the 2023 Northeast RPM.*

One of my favorite parts of a Railroad Prototype Modeler meet (RPM) is the model display room. I find great inspiration among the tables of models and always bring home new ideas that move projects on my workbench.

Organizing

Yes, I’m still unpacking. The boxes of stuff have slowed my modeling progress as I often need to find some part or reference to keep moving forward. Most of those items remain in moving boxes. My frustration levels grow each time I need to find something. Remember that final scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”? Yeah. You get it.

Westerfield Models kit guide update

One of the popular resource pages on this blog is the Guide to Westerfield Models for a 1920s model railroad. I had created this in 2010 to help modelers understand the availability of freight cars for 1920s era railroad modeling and to share details on the quantity of prototypes in-service that several models represent.

Since the last update in 2016, Westerfield Models owner Andrew Dahm has released a few new kits that needed to be added to this guide. I also added kit that was originally overlooked. Several of the listings have been updated with model images and a couple of prototype images have been switched out.

I hope the Guide to Westerfield Models for a 1920s model railroad will inspire your hobby efforts, especially if your modeling focus fits the 1900-1935 time period.

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Weight

Adding weight to some of our models can be challenging. I’m working on a couple of HO scale gondola kits and both of them need additional weight. Adding weight with a load is one avenue but I want these models to be run when empty, too. Time to review some options.

Resin parts prep

I fielded a couple recent questions concerning how I build resin kits. One question was repeated among a few different people in regards to prepping the small resin kit parts. Many kits come with a sheet of parts similar to that seen in the lead photo. How are those prepped?