Part of the fun of model railroads is being able to build the scenery around them. Once you have gotten tired of setting up the train set around the Christmas tree and putting it away after Christmas every year, you might be ready to build yourself something more permanent.

While you may have ideas about your layout, having a strong and well built base is just as important. Model railway trains can be fun and exciting, and a good benchwork is an important part to model trains. There are two different ways you can go with this base. One is to buy a kit, which has the benchwork that you simply put together. One of the advantages of a kit is that they are precut pieces, and have holes for wiring and screws already there. You can take the kit apart if you need too, and move it to other parts of the house, or even take it to shows.

The other way is to build your own. While this may be a little more complicated, and take extra time, you are able to customize you model railroad layout to your own ideal vision. There are some things to think about when building your own model train's layout, how big it's going to be, if you are going to expand it later, and how to utilize the space you have available. The top is just as important, and you have to figure out if your setup is going to be an oval, rectangle, or somewhere in between. You also need thick plywood, at least 3/8" thick, to support the weight of your layout, and all the wiring and accessories. You should also consider whether it is going to be a permanent fixture, or if you want to be able to take it apart and move it around. While most benchworks have a height of around 28", this is up to you and what your comfortable with.

Keep perspective in mind when you are building the actual model railroad scenery. The goal is to make your layout appear larger than it is. You can try using different levels of scenery to help with this. Placing larger trees in the foreground and smaller trees in the background or on the tops of mountains helps with this illusion as well.

Your scenery should also reflect the theme your have chosen for your landscape. For instance, if you are running a logging train on your line, it should be running through a rugged mountainous area filled with a ton of trees. You can also place a sawmill or lumberyard close by. Other aspects that you can have in your landscape are tunnels, grassy meadows, fields, rock formations, roads, and bridges.

You can also incorporate towns or villages filled with houses and buildings. Plus, you should also add fine detail to your scenery. Fine detail includes signs, telephone poles, fences, underbrush, bushes, flowers, hedges, people, and animals. A really nice touch is including bodies of water like ponds, rivers, streams or even waterfalls .

Want to find out more about Cool Toy Trains, then visit Winston Tietgens site on how to choose the best Model Railroad for your needs.

Posted under Model Trains