1970s style ho scale layout

[Railfanfanatic89]

Hello everybody,
I am new to this forum and I have a question about starting a layout for HO scale trains. I have many trains in HO, brands including Bachmann, Mantua, Tyco, and Walthers. Expect I would like my layout to be 1970s themed, with materials made by companies back then. However, I understand that the older stuff less less quality, but I already have replaced crummy horn hook couplers and other things to make them better. But as far as they layout goes, I do need some help with at least getting started. I have several hobby shops nearby me that are very helpful, but i thought it would also be a good idea to try something different.
Thanks very much,
Sebastian Marconi

[RAM]

It would help if you stated what type of help you need.  You said that you have hobby shops need by so you much live in a city.  Why don't you go to your local library and check to see what kind of book they have on model railroading.  It can be a great help.  By the way, Welcome to the forum.

[jbrock27]

What are you looking to find out, chief?

[Railfanfanatic89]

Thanks for your reply! It would be great to know how to add fake grass and a road. I already saw some great ways to use a roadbed made out of cork for my track, and I have buildings. I am also just 15 years old so I don't know much, but I am a life long train lover!

[jbrock27]

You're welcome RFF89!
A great place to look/search is YouTube-pictures worth 1,000 words and all that.  There are also many good books available on scenery, track laying, maintaining locomotives.  Just about all subjects.
Like your enthusiasm.

[JNXT 7707]

Sebastien - a 70s themed layout with 70s era stuff sounds like a lot of fun. While you are contemplating how to proceed, consider that the focus in that era was action accessories/fun/colorful not necessarily prototypical railroading. You mentioned the couplers - yes I personally use 99% knuckle couplers - but horn hook/NMRA/X2F couplers were the coupler of the day then and believe it or not, they work quite well. I have a Tyco passenger consist that I retained the horn hooks on, simply because they will never run together with anything else. One car is a transition car - or to explain - it has a knuckle on one end and horn-hook on the other. That may be a good way for you to run older rolling stock together too without the trouble and expense of converting everything to knuckle couplers....and it would be authentic!
There is a TON of older 70s equipment at train shows, flea markets, ebay, yard sales, antique stores. Some in exccellent condition. The biggest obstacle to your plan as I see it is what was mentioned earlier - the older stuff, especially Tyco and Bachmann for example - had some horrendous pancake motors. So perhaps you could retain the old shells and upgrade the drivetrain with a more current Athearn Blue Box or Bachmann Plus/Spectrum? Just a thought.
Above all keep it fun, don't take it too seriously....and enjoy!

[Irbricksceo]

Everything above holds true, if you were using older equipment though, and I know it is not exactly proper to say so here but if you insist on running equipment from the 70's, I would advise Locomotives from AHM/Rivarossi over Bachmann and tyco, simple truth is that in those days, the Bachmann equipment was highly prone to failure, in stark contrast to today's offerings.

[rogertra]

Everything above holds true, if you were using older equipment though, and I know it is not exactly proper to say so here but if you insist on running equipment from the 70's, I would advise Locomotives from AHM/Rivarossi over Bachmann and tyco, simple truth is that in those days, the Bachmann equipment was highly prone to failure, in stark contrast to today's offerings.

Athearn Blue Box diesels were the creme de la creme of diesels in those days with AHM and Rivarossi and poor second.  I just gave away around a dozen of the Athearn F7A, GP7/9 and SW7(1500) and PA diesels.

Cheers.

Roger.

[Irbricksceo]

Is that so? I never owned a lot of older Athearn equipment however the RS-3 I had used this awful Rubber band drive that gave it two speeds, 0 or 300 mph. I am by no means calling you a liar as one example does not speak for a whole line, however I do think one should watch out for these, beyond just the speed issues, the bands would wear away and any you obtain could have bands that have disintegrated.

[rogertra]

Is that so? I never owned a lot of older Athearn equipment however the RS-3 I had used this awful Rubber band drive that gave it two speeds, 0 or 300 mph. I am by no means calling you a liar as one example does not speak for a whole line, however I do think one should watch out for these, beyond just the speed issues, the bands would wear away and any you obtain could have bands that have disintegrated.

Never even knew Athearn made an RS-3, let alone a rubber band drive one until the rtr model release a few years ago.  If they made a rubber band drive it must have been pre-1970 as that's when I started to model North American and the only decent RS-3 was the cast metal and later plastic Hobbytown model.  A quick Google doesn't turn up a rubber band drive RS-3 Blue Box model.

In the 1970s the Blue Box range that I owned was the F7, GP7/9, it had details of both models and had the over wide hood, the SW1500 (Actually a good model of a SW7), the GP35 again with the over wide hood, and finally the PA.  They also made a Baldwin switcher among others.  My RS-3 models were Hobbytown models, which I still have.

Cheers

Roger.

[JNXT 7707]

Is that so? I never owned a lot of older Athearn equipment however the RS-3 I had used this awful Rubber band drive that gave it two speeds, 0 or 300 mph. I am by no means calling you a liar as one example does not speak for a whole line, however I do think one should watch out for these, beyond just the speed issues, the bands would wear away and any you obtain could have bands that have disintegrated.

No, there was not an Athearn RS-3..... but regardless, I should have been more specific: I was not suggesting using the older "rubber band" drives, but the later Athearn "blue box" drives had flywheels and geared trucks that are identical to Athearn's current RTR. These are plentiful on the second-hand market.

[Doneldon]

Sebastian-

Welcome to the hobby and this forum. I think you'll find that model railroading, and its second cousin, railfanning, are great life-long hobbies. I've been at them for nearly 60 years and I still learn new things.

I must say that you impress me in having already determined that the old horn hook (aka X2f or NMRA) couplers leave something to be desired. In addition to looking much better, knuckle couplers, and especially those made by Kadee, are the way to go. Installed correctly, they will last virtually forever.

I do have a question to clarify my understanding: By "I would like my layout to be 1970s themed, with materials made by companies back then," do you intend to use models made in the 1970s? I ask because there is a lot of outstanding 1970s era merchandise made now. Current models have two advantages over the ones made back then. First, they run more reliably and, second, today's models have superior detail. The older models are certainly available for lower prices, but you might find that you need to spend anywhere from $4 to $9 to bring older freight cars, for example, up to current operating standards. Unfortunately, you'll still have that older detail level. I'm NOT trying to tell you what to do -- one of the prime directives of model railroading is that the owner of a model railroad gets to do whatever s/he wants to do on his/her pike, no matter whether somebody else likes it or not -- but I do want you to understand both sides of the trade-off in choosing to run older models. It is certainly possible to bring the older ones up to date, both operationally and in appearance, but it can get expensive in terms of both time and money. That can be especially true for locomotives.

I must admit that I envy your access to real hobby shops in your area. Having the expertise and merchandise at hand is a real help to a model railroader. There are two hobby shops in my general area, but each is a ways to go and they both sell everything at full MSRP. And there's only one where they actually know anything about model trains.

There are at least four ways to go to put some grass on the ground. The easiest is to buy a sheet of scale grass at a hobby shop and glue it to your model railroad. This is convenient, easy and reasonably affordable, but the colors are too bright and too uniform. If you look at real grass, you'll notice that there are variations to the color because of different grass species, weeds and textural differences mainly due to how high the grass is. Also, except where grass runs up to an actual block like a sidewalk or edged garden, grass doesn't suddenly stop like the grass sheet does. The second way is to buy some short-napped fake fur at a fabric store and then clip it where you want shorter grass, and spray paint it two or more shades of green. This can look pretty good when done carefully and it will nestle down into your terrain very well, but you can ruin the effect if you get too much paint on the fur. You can also do this method with dyes if you start with very light-colored fake fur. A third way to go, and this is the most commonly used, is to paint your terrain surface with either a medium gray-brown or a medium gray-green and then use dilute white glue to attach what's called "fine ground foam" from your hobby shop. You can vary the coloration and depth of the ground cover to get a pretty good effect. It's no accident that this is the method preferred by most modelers in all scales. The last way to do this is to use an electro-static grass applicator. This is kind on neat. You spread (brush) diluted white glue over an area on your model railroad, attach one wire from your applicator to the wet glue and then sprinkle fake grass from the applicator (in several lengths and colors) onto the wet glue. The applicator gives the grass fibers an electrostatic charge which causes them to stand up in the wet glue. When the glue dries, you have very convincing grass. The applicator is rather expensive but you can make one for less than $10 with a bug zapper and a tea strainer. If you want to do this, do a Google search for "static model railroad grass."

Truth be told, all of these methods have both good and not-so-good features. I think it's safe to say that many (most?) model rails use more than one method on their pikes. You might want a terrific lawn around the houses on your layout but don't need so much detail, or such a well-maintained lawn around your industries or in the background. And once your grass is in place, you might want to go back with coarser ground foam to add some texture, weeds or shrubs. And, of course, then you'll need trees! There are lots of ways to do this, too.

There are (I know you won't be surprised to hear this) many ways to make roads, too. Some of that depends on whether you want dirt, gravel, black top or concrete roads. You'll probably want more than one kind. For example, you might want a main street in a town to be concrete but it's okay if the side streets are blacktop. Country roads might be dirt, gravel or black top, and highways might be concrete like Main Street or black top like the better rural roads. Dirt roads can be made with actual dirt from your yard (strain and bake it before you use it on your railroad) or with scenic materials from one of your LHSs (local hobby shops). The LHS is a great source of materials for gravel or black top roads. I sometimes use the sticky stuff they sell for track, painted dry wall mud, the back of roof shingles or 3M Tri-M-Ite abrasive paper for black top. Dry wall mud, the gray backs of white-face cardboard or styrene sheets can be used for concrete streets. Don't forget to add stripes -- yellow ones between lanes going different directions and white between lanes going the same way. Be sure to add appropriate repairs, expansion joints, ruts, cracks, potholes, dark shadows from dripping lubricants and manholes to give your roads some street cred. (Sorry. Sometimes I just can't stop myself.) It's the details which will sell your roads, not the basic structure. In fact, that's true of most of things we model.

I hope I've given you some ideas about your road and grass questions. Feel free to try different methods to find the ones you prefer. That will be just like the prototype, that is, the real world. Take a few minutes to look carefully at some real roads and you'll see that they are all a bit different, even roads made from the same materials. And none of them will be perfect so don't expect perfection from yourself. Perfection is the enemy of model railroading because it is unachievable and trying to obtain perfection takes too much time. Plus, it will ruin the fun. Oh, you can't be too careful with your track work and coupler mounting, but give yourself a break on the other stuff.

Please keep us informed about your progress.
                                                                      -- D

[Doneldon]

the RS-3 I had used this awful Rubber band drive that gave it two speeds, 0 or 300 mph.

Irbrick-

I'm sorry to hear that your old Hi-F drive RS3 could only go 300 mph. There must have been something the matter with it. We had a Hi-F Athearn Geep which went so fast it would jump the track on the curves, fly out the window, do two or three laps around the world and land on our friend's model railroad down the block. Some times it would land just right so it was on the rails and everything. If his railroad was running the Geep would accelerate again, take off and come home after another visit to space. That's why we always turned our layout off when the Geep went out the window.
                                                                                                                                                                               -- D

[jbrock27]

RRF89, pass on the AHM, old Bachmann, Tyco, Life Less (Like) and old Athearn Blue Box locos like the ones Brick is referring to.  People forget or overlook that Athearn produced locomotives known as "Blue Boxes" over a span of decades.  Of course ones with rubber band drives are going to stink.  But their latest version, made during the '90s, before producing the Ready To Roll series, had very good reliable motors and running qualities if a little effort is put into them.  To say all Blue Boxes are created equal is the same as saying all Bachmann locos are created equal, simply not true.  Another reliable "old brand" of loco you could look for from the '70s era are Atlas.  These are the ones made in Austria by Rocco or made in Japan by Kato.  I know jward did not have good experiences with the Katos, but both Atlas types are widely known to be very reliable runners.

Coincidentally, I just renovated an Athearn Blue Box SDP40 loco for a friend at work who is getting his son involved in model trains.  This thing was made between 1966 and 1970.  It now runs as quiet as anything I have that was made currently.  The drawback to it is that is has brass wheels, hard to clean compared to nickel which is much easier to clean.

[Irbricksceo]

I made a mistake by the way, I meant RDC-3, not RS-3, two very different pieces of equipment! But I second that Atlas is a decent brand, still are in fact. A tip though, when buying, be wary of the dreaded "As-Is for parts"