Ok, need some help i have a big christmas project. :) I want to build a thomas Ho track layout for my son, I really dont know much about trains at all other then my father inlaw has trains and know some about them. I want to have the stalls for all the trains to be in. and i was told all the trains have to be decoded so i can run them all on turn outs and turn tables out and of the stalls? Another thing is can anybody help with a list of stuff i need to do this right.trains, track, control, etc. would be a great help. My layout that im planning on bluiding in going to be about 71/2'x4'. L shaped out to about 6' on one end please tell me if that is big enough to start with or does it need to be bigger. i know im know to this but i would really be thankful for the help. have to get this do his going to love it he has just about all the wooden track stuff he can get and wants more but what he dont know is hes about to have the real thing ;D
Well, Tidmouth sheds will barely fit on a 2 by 4 because it is about 3 by 3. It sounds like your in for a challenge. Not only in decoding the engines but the price is really expensive with the round house being $192 not including the two expansion packs to have 7 stalls like in the TV series. What kind of track plan were you thinking of having? My layout can be seen in my series on YT Here is the link. http://www.youtube.com/user/calebtrain (http://www.youtube.com/user/calebtrain) I would advise simply a 4 by 4 sheet for the round house and make it connect to a 4 by 7 sheet with and oval and a switch leading to the roundhouse. Good Luck!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bachmann-HO-Tidmouth-Sheds-w-Manual-Turntable-BAC45236-/160508630824?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item255f0f5728
Tidmouth Sheds RRPs at $192 but it's very easy to buy it much cheaper. That can really be said for every engine and item Bachmann (or just about any company) sells.
To help make Tidmouth Sheds smaller, follow this technique: http://sodororient.blog76.fc2.com/blog-entry-587.html
A band saw might not be the -only- way to do it I'd assume. Dunno though.
I would advise not using EZ track. It's good for starters but can limit layout potential.
So your layout is.. 71 feet? 2 feet by 4 feet? Sorry, bit lost here.
well you've come to the right place my friend. prepare to spend your child's collage fund away.
you will need as follows:
1.) Engines - depends on how many you want to buy for him
2.) track - also depends on how many loops you want. i would go for 18 radius curve track and 36" straight sections, they cover alot of ground, switch track (optional), bumpers (for end tracks, and also optional), and rerailers for powering the track
3.) power- with that said you will need a power supply, bachmann makes speed controllers that are easy to set up and use, they are simply plug and play. no screwdrivers needed! :D
4.) rolling stock - no you have your engines and track how about some rolling stock for the busy little buggers to pull around. this covers freight cars and coaches
5.) destinations - now you have your engines and rolling stock and now they need places to go. they have a light house, Cranky the crane, a new Knapford station (literally just came out) a windmill coming soon ( possibly around november/december) and Tidmouth Sheds for the engines to rest. Tidmouth's turntable hooks up to the 4th track to the left of the crank knob. this will let the power distribute to any stall the turn table is in front of. you can add up to 16 stalls, the original shed has 7 stalls but i might go for eight and no more. why? because as i said earlier the turntable distributes power to the stall it is in front of so that mean if you have a stall on the other side of the turntable, too, will distribute power to that engine as well as the one you have chosen to take out. most kits are snap together and no glue is necessary, unless you don't plan on moving anything or modifying anything.
so that's it in a nutshell. if you have any questions Thomas, scenery, or train related you know where to find us. you can also check youtube for videos on how everything works, and how the kits are made. you're going to love making it as much as your son will enjoy it. and i would do my research on prices modeltrainstuff.com has great prices
A great choice of engines would be the new Donald and Douglas!
Quote from: Toony Thomas on August 31, 2011, 01:42:07 AM
A great choice of engines would be the new Donald and Douglas!
Listen. I know you are excited about Donald and Douglas but for a begginer I would reccomend Thomas, Percy, James, Gordon, Henry, Emily, Edward so they can all go in the roundhouse. Besides, they better known characters. No offense since I love D&D too but it's just a fact. For rolling stock, Annie, Clarabel, Trouble some trucks, Gordons coaches and Emilys coaches. If the budget is tight for engines and rolling stock, Thomas, Percy, James. Annie, Clarabel, 2 Trouble some trucks and a mail car. ;)
whoever told you your engines need decoders is wrong. you can add them if you like but they are not a necessity. as a matter of fact, the thomas series engines do not ccome with decoders in them, you have to figure out how to install them yourself. you only need the decoders if you are running your trains with dcc, an electronic form of control.
that said, the best way to learn about how to build a train layout is to get a book and read it. one of the many excellent books out there is "seven step by step HO railroads" by atlas. the layouts are shown using atlas track but similar designs could be built using ez track. this book shows how to build a train table, lay the track, and wire it for dc, which is what you'll want to do.
Quote from: Edward the Great on August 31, 2011, 10:15:47 AM
Quote from: Toony Thomas on August 31, 2011, 01:42:07 AM
A great choice of engines would be the new Donald and Douglas!
Listen. I know you are excited about Donald and Douglas but for a begginer I would reccomend Thomas, Percy, James, Gordon, Henry, Emily, Edward so they can all go in the roundhouse. Besides, they better known characters. No offense since I love D&D too but it's just a fact. For rolling stock, Annie, Clarabel, Trouble some trucks, Gordons coaches and Emilys coaches. If the budget is tight for engines and rolling stock, Thomas, Percy, James. Annie, Clarabel, 2 Trouble some trucks and a mail car. ;)
I think he should let his child decide what characters go on the layout.
It wouldn't be a bad idea to buy a "starter set" if you plan on using Bachmann's EZ Track. It is simple to set up and helps you get into running trains. There are some very good starter sets available now from Bachmann.
Quote from: Sparks on August 31, 2011, 01:45:48 PM
Quote from: Edward the Great on August 31, 2011, 10:15:47 AM
Quote from: Toony Thomas on August 31, 2011, 01:42:07 AM
A great choice of engines would be the new Donald and Douglas!
Listen. I know you are excited about Donald and Douglas but for a begginer I would reccomend Thomas, Percy, James, Gordon, Henry, Emily, Edward so they can all go in the roundhouse. Besides, they better known characters. No offense since I love D&D too but it's just a fact. For rolling stock, Annie, Clarabel, Trouble some trucks, Gordons coaches and Emilys coaches. If the budget is tight for engines and rolling stock, Thomas, Percy, James. Annie, Clarabel, 2 Trouble some trucks and a mail car. ;)
I think he should let his child decide what characters go on the layout.
I know. I was just suggesting what I thought were the best when I first got Bachmann. I agree with you sparks. :)
Well thanks for everybodys input. And my layout is planning on being around 7 1/2' x 4 the L shape out to about 6' on one end. Or would it be better to build it in the floor? If i did that it could be alot bigger. Either way though i can make it bigger. And about the decoder part. I was told that yes i had to decode them myself and that if i was going to have all the track hook together and run them all on it they had to be decoded?????????
somebody told you a lie. dcc is a recent developement. generations of model railroaders ran multiple trains at the same time on their layout using block control. it is fully explained in the atlas book, it's tried and true, and requires no modification to your locomotives to use it. best of all it's cheap. two dc controllers and all the necessary block switches can be had for about the price of a decent dcc controller. you save the cost of the decoders, which can be upwards of $20 per locomotive.
don't get me wrong, dcc has its place. i run dcc and install most of my own decoders. but i've had years in the hobby. somebody just getting into the hobby shouldn't be trying to install decoders in their locomotives. and with the thomas locos that's what you'd have to do. other locomotives are available with decoders already installed, but so far nothing has been said about doing the same for thomas.
as far as putting the layout on the floor......don't. you don't want carpet fibers, dirt and lint to get into the mechanisms of your locomotives. build yourself a table and keep them off the floor.
Thank you very much. This book you talk about sound like a must have. i will be finding one soon. And for the floor deal i really didnt want to do that either.
If you wanted to run each train individually on the same track, then you'd have to install DCC decoders into each engine. But if you want to run multiple engines on the same track all going in the same direction, at the same speed, etc, then you don't need to.
thomas
why are you telling people that. it simply isn't true. don't go by what you THINK you know. do some research before you post.
there's alot more to model railroading than connecting two wires to the track.
well im lost ""If you wanted to run each train individually on the same track, then you'd have to install DCC decoders into each engine. But if you want to run multiple engines on the same track all going in the same direction, at the same speed, etc, then you don't need too""
i think what he's trying to say is that, with dcc, you can run thomas clockwise, percy anticlockwise, while henry waits on a siding.
with dc, if you put all 3 on the track, they will all run the same direction.
that's true as far as it goes. but if you divide the track into sections (blocks) each controlled by electrical switches, you can do the same thing as dcc without the decoders, as long as the 3 locomotives are all in seperate blocks. this is how we did things from probably about ww2 until dcc became popular. that is why i said to thomas what i did. i've run trains under block control for over 40 years, and still wire my dcc railroad for block control. as a matter of fact, in the atlas books they recommend you wire the layouts for block control whether you use dc or dcc. it lowers the drain on your power supply when you can park a locomotive on a track and turn off the power to that track.
Decoders or no decoders? Easy decision.
Do you want to use the locomotives one at a time while the other locomotives sit idle in the roundhouse or on a siding? Then forget decoders, stick to dc, and use toggle switches to turn those roundhouse tracks and sidings on and off. When gapped (no electrical connection through the rails) these storage tracks are dead and the locomotives will not run when the toggles switches are all off. To run a locomotive, simply turn on the toggle switch for its storage track, making it live, and run the locomotive. On a small layout, running one locomotive at a time is a good choice. It is also a good choice for children too young to multi-task.
Or do you want to be able to run two or more locomotives at the same time, each controlled separately, on the same track? Then you need decoders and a DCC system to do so. Running two locomotives at once can be hard enough for an adult and may be impossible for a younger child. Running decoder equipped locomotives one at a time has no advantages unless it/they have sound decoders. Even if all your locomotives have decoders, it is still a good idea to have all roundhouse tracks gapped and controlled with toggle switches, otherwise you run the risk of a locomotive running unnoticed inside the roundhouse until it wears out the wheels or the tracks.
There are two other ways of running a couple of trains at once without DCC, neither of which I recommend for your layout but which I mention for completeness. One of them is "block control," which having been mention, need never be mentioned again. The other is to set up two independent loops of track, both with their own power packs for independent control. This works well for a display layout that just sits there running by itself. But the minute you add engineers, particularly junior engineers, you will be overwhelmed with questions - why can't this train move over to that track - followed by requests/demands - lets take this train off this track and put it on that track.
My suggestion is this: why not skip the decoders and DCC system for now and stick with running one locomotive at a time on dc, at least until you and your son strongly feel the need for DCC. This will come when your son it old enough to run the trains unsupervised, freeing you up to run a second train at the same time. Alternately, it would allow your son and a friend to run trains together, each running his own train.
DCC can be added as easily after the layout is build as it can before, as long as you wire for DCC from the start. This basically means running heavy bus wires under the layout and lighter drop wires from the tracks down to the bus wires. There is lots of information on other fora on this website on the use of buses.
Jim
Well i did it i got it done by christmas. well i got a good start anyway. thomas and percy are going good. will try putting some pic on here as soon as i get our tunnel/mountain painted and done. My son loves it. And i believe im having more fun with it. Thanks to everybody for the help