Do-it-yourself model of the railway. Start in Science Homemade Rails for a Model Railroad

How to make a model of a railway with your own hands

Toy railways are inherently associated with childhood. Many of us at a young age used to have a plastic or iron railroad prefab. And those who could boast of a foreign-made model were considered lucky.

In modern times, the toy railroad hobby has grown into a major modeling industry.

Trees, houses, roads, cars, relief surroundings were added to the main attributes - a track and a locomotive with trailers. And a table with a full-fledged model of a railway, with many details and trifles, is already a real art.

Abroad, such products cost from 2 thousand dollars, but in this article we will tell you how to make a full-fledged model of a toy railroad with your own hands.

Table

You will need space for the layout. Ideally, this should be a separate table, but you can get by with a small table, or just a fenced-off area on any suitable surface. It all depends on your desire and scope. I recommend starting with a small place - for example, a part of the table, and then, if inspired, make a large layout. It's better to start small than to take on a large amount of work right away and leave it half way.

Starter kit

Without which it will not be possible to make a model of the railway - this is the railway itself. Or rather -, and for him, or just ready-made models of railways.

Sketch

To know where you are heading, you need to have a goal in front of your eyes. Make a rough sketch on paper - where what should be, and what the general appearance of your layout will be. Browse the internet, look at the many railroad layouts and take notes on what you like -,. You can make a mock-up of a half-station in the Wild West, or you can make a station in the center of a modern city. But be sure to decide before you get to work. And make markings on the table so as not to suddenly find that the track goes beyond the boundaries of the table, or that it will cling to a passing train.

The mountains

Through which the train will pass will be the decoration of the layout. To create a small mountain, you will need polyurethane foam, plywood, a knife, alabaster and sandpaper.

First, think over and, if possible, draw a sketch of the future mountain. Then knock a small box of plywood or other suitable material over the rails. Make sure that the size of the box will allow your train to pass freely through the tunnel. Then start applying the foam around the box, with pauses of one and a half to two hours, to allow the layers to dry and not sag under their own weight. After applying the required amount of foam, leave it to dry for at least a day.

In a day, pick up a knife (more convenient - a clerical one), and start picking the mountain - cut off excess pieces, giving it the shape you have planned. Cut out depressions, crevices, try to make it as natural as possible.

Then you will need alabaster. Dissolve it with water, and cover the entire mountain with a thin layer of up to 3 mm. It dries quickly, so dilute it in small batches. Then wait a few hours again until everything hardens - it is better not to use a hairdryer.

Now we need to paint over the mountain with gray. To do this, buy a primer bottle in any auto shop, the color of gray stone, and you can paint your mountain. Just test the paint on something else first to make sure the color is right for you.

Next, use sandpaper and rub in some places on the mountain to remove the layers of primer here and there. This will make the mountain more naturalistic, so that it is not a uniform color, but a shade from light to dark gray. You can repeat painting and sanding several times until you get what works for you. You can also paint individual pieces of the mountain white or black for more believability.

Finally, take a green paint and tint the pieces of the mountain in the color of greenery - this will make it even more naturalistic. Only the paint should be a believable, mossy color.

Your mountain (or slide) is ready. Congratulations, you have already done a fair amount of work. The next step is the rest of the relief details.

Here everything depends on your imagination, the size of the free space and the suitable details that you have. Fill an unoccupied table surface with, for example, a dummy that is sold in stores.

Soon the New Year, and it is better to prepare for it in advance - including on the model :) Therefore, I made a New Year diorama for myself in my favorite scale - TT.

The diorama turned out to be 20 * 20 cm in size. The diorama is made on a homemade "box" made of plastic.

The tree is made of a brass tube with soldered wire branches. The needles are the usual NOKH-ovsky tinted flock.

The height of the tree without a star is 13 cm. Christmas decorations - different beads. The rain is a real rain, slightly clipped. The star is cut from a piece of plastic and sprinkled with shiny powder. On the tree there are four luminous garlands of SMD LEDs in case 0603, 11 in each. Garlands can blink (a primitive circuit on a transistor and a capacitor), there are two modes: normal - simple glow, and blinking.

Snow is made from regular baking soda mixed with diluted PVA glue. The paving stones in the square are from Auchagen.

Ice luminous cubes - molded from plasticine and copied from transparent resin CrystalLine 940. Blue and white LEDs are "molded" into resin.
Figures - Preiser, self-painted. Figures are not enough - in TT "winter" generally few are produced. I think I'll remake more of the "summer" figures ...

Decorative gifts under the tree - cut out of cardboard and pasted over with paper from candy wrappers.

Machine - "Moskvich" from Herpa. Snowman - made of foam balls.

In general, the process of creating the square took a month - mainly in the evenings and weekends. If only I didn't have to go to work ... :)

The houses in the photo are not part of the diorama - they are just set for the background.

Day area

Christmas tree on four sides:

And here is Ippolit Georgievich :)

Square at night

Photos taken with different exposure

Photo of the process

Christmas tree frame. After soldering, I painted the frame green.

Christmas tree with flock. The flock has not yet been painted in the desired color.

The wheels of the entire train must be the same. They can be turned on a lathe, each one individually. Ten carriages, counting eight wheels per carriage, will make 80 identical wheels grind! And in each of them six knitting needles have to be processed - the work turns out to be grandiose and very painstaking. Therefore, especially if the rolling stock is not limited to only ten cars (which is very small for a good model), the wheels should be cast.

They can be cast from lead or its alloys (garta) or from zinc. If the wheels are made solid, without spokes, the shape is made very easily on a lathe. A template is cut to the size of the wheel and a mold is cut out of soft iron or cast iron or even from aluminum (if we cast from lead) a mold according to Figure 55. A hole is drilled in the center of the mold along the diameter of the axle to insert the axle into the mold before casting. The molten metal is poured in with a spoon (fig. 56). Then the axle with one cast wheel is turned over, its other end is inserted into the hole of the mold, after which the second wheel is poured: the finished slope is removed from the mold. To prevent the wheels from falling off the axle, in those places where it comes into contact with the metal, it is necessary to make two chisel notches or file it slightly with a file.

If the mold is made of metal and heated before casting, the wheels are made from lead and zinc very precise and do not require further machining on the machine.

For spoked wheels, if you have a lathe, you need to make a more complex shape. The investment of time on its manufacture will pay off with the result: the accuracy of the wheel, its clean appearance and the possibility of a very simple and mass casting force to devote time to making a good shape. A thousand wheels that can be quickly cast in it will more than pay off the costs: cutting out the spokes in each wheel separately will take much longer.

The form consists of four chiseled parts. Its cut is shown in Figure 57. First, the workpiece is sharpened b: its upper end must exactly match the inner rim of the wheel. Then the casing a, in grinding, sits on the cylindrical part of the housing b so that a void is formed in the upper part for casting the wheel rim (Fig. 58). The gating part c (Fig. 59), which has a groove for the axial sleeve d and four holes: two for casting with a funnel and two for air outlet, is installed on the upper part. In part d (Fig. 60), the upper journal is carefully polished, since after the wheel has been cast, it is removed from it. To prevent the axial sleeve from falling out during casting, there is a sharpening on it at the bottom, which is held by a special hook (Fig. 61 and 57).

Workpiece b is processed on a milling machine or shaping or by hand so that slots for the spokes are obtained, as can be seen in Figure 62. This is done after careful marking and very carefully: the spokes of the wheel must be exactly the same, otherwise the wheel and the entire slope will rotate unevenly and the wheels will come out inelegant and ugly.

Casting is done through one of the sprues when the entire mold is assembled and heated. Casting tides on the back side are easily removed and the wheel, after a simple file processing, is completely ready for assembly.

This shape, we repeat, is necessary for the mass casting of wheels of the entire rolling stock of the model. For a steam locomotive, where the wheels are of a larger size and of a different design, and the wheels of the bogie are of a smaller diameter, special shapes will have to be made of wood or plaster: the locomotive wheels will need much less than the wagon wheels.

Rails

Model rails can be made in a variety of ways. We'll look at two of them. One, approximately the one that is used in the factory production of tin rails for toy railways. These are rails made of strips of tin. In cross-section, they take the shape, as in Figure 63, which shows how many folds a strip of tin has. Recently, presses have been designed in Germany that, in one blow, produce a ready-made straight rail, which forms both the head and all seven bends. A semi-finished product of such rails can be made by dragging, having prepared two dies (Fig. 64), between which a strip of tin is dragged through. You can make rails without double folds on the sole, as in Figure 63 on the right. Rails with the latter simplification, when carefully fastened to sleepers, are quite strong, and their broaching and final bending are greatly simplified.

Upon receipt of the workpiece, the final design of the rail is done using pliers (Fig. 65) or two iron rulers, which clamp the neck of the rail in a vice along its entire length. On these rulers, the reverse heel folds are pressed with a hammer and the rail is straightened.

Tin rails are connected to each other using pieces of several sharpened wires, on which chisel notches are made. These notches, after the wires are inserted into the rail head, make it possible with the same chisel to strengthen the wire in the rail (Fig. 66). In this case, such a point in the right rail will enter the adjacent link of the right rail, and in the last link, the connecting wire will be in the left rail. Thus, the rail links adhere very firmly to each other.

Rails made of tin are inconvenient, however, in the sense that curved sections cannot be obtained without a special machine, the so-called "zig-machine", beading. It is, however, very simple and consists of two or four rows of rollers, between which a finished rail is stretched, which gives it the required curvature, but it makes sense to make such a machine only when the rails are mass-produced. Not that many are needed for a model. Therefore, it is necessary to recommend preparing rails from iron wire of a suitable diameter. It is not difficult to make the necessary roundings on a wooden template cut in advance from strong wood (oak is the best). The template - the shaded part (Fig. 67) - is cut from a wooden plank along the track width, along the length of the rounding and along its radius (dotted line). Along the edges of the template, straight rail blanks are upholstered with light blows of a wooden hammer.

The wire is cut into pieces and carefully straightened (straightened) with a wooden mallet on a board. It is best to immediately clean all the pieces with a sandpaper. Then the segments are bent along a curve drawn in advance and calculated, how many and what roundings are needed. According to the patterns cut from wood, these roundings are prepared in the required quantity.

The wires can be fastened in several ways. One of them is making tin soles according to Figure 68. In this case, you can make a full sole A from two parts; B without folds for the sole, without folds to support the wire C and, finally, D on one square. All methods are perfectly acceptable. For straight sections of the track, when the rail is straight, a tin square, which serves as a neck and a foot, is made along the entire length of the rail, at roundings it is made up of pieces or the sole resting on a sleeper is trimmed in several places or cut to the neck with small squares to be able to round off the rail. Along its entire length, the wire rail is neatly soldered to the tin neck.

You can use a more simplified method of making a rail - without a neck and a sole. A segment of such a pair of rails is shown in Figure 69. Here, small rectangular rifled pieces of tin are soldered to the wire, slightly bent upward from one end (Figure 70). It is even better to stamp the tin linings according to Figure 71, where a concave bed is made under the wire: it holds the rail more tightly, slightly raises it above the sleeper and is easier (on both sides) to be soldered. Two holes in each tin make it possible to nail the rail to the sleeper.

Rails can be fastened to sleepers in many ways and sleepers can be made of both tin and wood; tin cans are lighter in weight. If the track often has to be folded and removed, then the rail links and sleepers should be made entirely of tin. In this case, the latter are bent into two folds and look like in Figure 72. Before the fold, slots are cut in each sleeper, which make it possible to fasten the rail to the sleeper, if it is also entirely made of tin. When cutting slots in a sleeper, it is necessary to mark them carefully in such a way that the track width is strictly observed everywhere. Wire rails can also be attached directly to tin sleepers by soldering without soles. If the sleepers are made of wood, the rail is attached either as shown in Figure 73, or with studs to the sleepers. But since a relatively heavy sleeper can tear off the soldering, it is better to fasten the rails to special extensions, and then to the sleepers (Fig. 69).

With this design of the track, the individual rail links are fastened very conveniently - with pins on the sleeper (seen in Fig. 69); tin sleepers are fastened with special brackets (fig. 74).

Before attaching the rails to the sleepers, prepare a gauge gauge. Such a template made of iron is shown in Figure 75. It is bent into two folds, on which holes are cut out with a round file; the centers of the holes are at the exact track gauge distance. When soldering or fastening the rails, a template is applied to them so that the rails lie in the holes; this will ensure that the track is correct and accurate.

Rounding the track requires one more device: some lifting of the outer rail over the inner one. Figures 76 and 77 explain the reason why this is necessary. On a straight path, only two forces act on the train: traction - forward and weight - down. On the rounding, a horizontal force arises, tending to push the carriage off the rails. The component of these forces, the diagonal a, if both rails are on the same level, goes beyond the rails and can overturn the entire train on the rounding, as can be seen from Figure 76. To prevent this from happening, the outer rail is raised relative to the left and the component remains inside the rails (Figure 77 ), i.e. the composition is protected from falling. This must be done in our model as well, by raising the outer rail with a lining made of a piece of cardboard or tin by an amount a, depending on the curvature of the turn. This value in models with a gauge of 45 millimeters ranges from 1 to 3 millimeters (Fig. 78).

Arrows

A railway track can intersect with another track at right angles, at any oblique angle, and finally, the tracks can merge. In all these cases, special devices are arranged on the tracks. Consider first the case of a right-angle road crossing. In this case, each rail is soldered at this angle on a square tin, as indicated in Figure 79, and the junction of the rail is cut with a file at the same angle. Four such corners are soldered onto a square tin, and between the corners, segments of such length are soldered so that the gaps between the segments and the corners are sufficient for the passage of the wheel ribs (Fig. 80).

When both pairs of rails are soldered, cans are soldered to them. Four counter rails with short ends (7, 2, 3, 4) and long ends (5, 6, 7,8) are soldered between the rails, according to Figure 84. The short sections of these counter rails are used to smoothly transition the wheels across the track to be crossed. The long part serves to guide the wheels so that they do not go off the rails when crossing the gap between the rails.

To transfer the train to another track, you need to build a special device - a turnout switch or an arrow.

The arrow has a movable part of two bent and cut from one end of the rails.

How does the train go through the turnout?

Figures 85 and 86 schematically show an arrow of a real railway with one pair of wheels (slope).

The wheels move from the bottom edge (fig. 85) upwards and can go, depending on the position of the arrow, along the main track or along the side track to the left. The ABN arrow moves so that the tail of the H arrow can adjoin one side of the main path, then the other.

In Figure 85, the left cut off end of the rail (arrowhead), the arrows will adjoin the left rail of the main track; in this case, the right end of the arrow is moved away from the right rail. The left wheel, rolling forward, will move to the left end of the arrow rail, from it to point A it will go along the left rail, so both wheels will automatically follow the main path forward.

In Figure 86, the right arrow rail is adjacent to the right rail of the main track; the right wheel along the right rail of the arrow will move to the side left track. Both wheels will follow the side track.

The arrows are made so that both sections of the rail rotate about points A and B, while the opposite ends of the arrow H, when translated, adjoin either the right or the left rail of the track.

A general view of a section of a railway track with an arrow is shown in Figure 87.

This is how real arrows are arranged, and this is how our home-made ones will be.

First, make the stationary part of the arrow - bifurcation of the rails, as shown in Figure 88. The bifurcation has one straight rail B, one with curved B and two rails at an acute angle from two rails slightly sawn off at the end. All of them, laid on the continuation, are stuffed on a wooden board. In the middle, on screw A, another plate with two pieces of rail will rotate (Fig. 89-90). One rail should be bent and sharpened so that, at one extreme position of the plank, one of the short rails adjoins the straight line and leads the train to the left track, while the other section of the rail should not interfere with movement. When the plate is turned over near the screw A, as around an axis, a straight segment of rail B will adjoin the rounded rail, and the curve will move away from its own and lead the train along a straight path. During its movement, the board must be limited by two locking studs a (fig. 88).

The switchman translates the arrow with a wire rod, one end of which is hooked on the tab's ear (Fig. 88), the other - on the lever with a counterweight made of lead. The lever has a loop twisted in a spiral shape (Fig. 91-92), through which the lever with a counterweight is screwed to the rack with a screw, and it can be rotated with this screw. By bending the lever away from himself or towards himself, the switchman switches the arrow and directs the train along the path indicated to him by the timetable. Another translation construction is shown in Figure 93.

When moving from one path to another, parallel, you have to build two arrows, as in Figure 94. Having made a single arrow, you can easily build a double one.

The ature railway is the dream of almost every child. It is enough to see how children “stick” to exhibition stands and museum pieces that simulate a railway. It is very interesting to see trains and carriages, which are a miniature copy of the real ones. The trains can be controlled, they stop at stations, give sound signals, drive through tunnels and enter the depot. It is a very beautiful sight, but it is not at all easy to do all this.

In order to assemble a model of a road, you need a lot of time, skills, materials and financial costs. A child cannot do this. But many adults are ready to spend time, effort and money on creating their own model of the railroad. This is very fascinating activity, and the reward will be a layout that can be developed, improved, added rolling stock and landscape details.

The history of the appearance of layouts

The directions of modeling that fans of layouts are fond of are different:

Collecting rolling stock, rails, carriages.
Collecting full-fledged models of railways.
Manufacturing of miniature roads.
Making copies of real-life trains and trains.
Create outdoor park models.

The first models appeared in Germany in the second half of the 19th century, and later the scale in which they were produced was adopted as a basis by other manufacturers.

Layouts that copy shapes and sizes real trains, are very different from children's toy roads with trains. Almost a century has passed since modeling became an exciting pastime for adults. This forced many firms to start producing improved models of trains and rails, to produce houses, switches, traffic lights and semaphores, and landscape details.

Miniature roads are available in digital and analogue versions. Management of an analogue railroad is reduced to the management of the movement of trains. With digital control, the functions are greatly expanded. Using the remote control, you can turn on the light in carriages and steam locomotives, give sound signals, and move the arrows. This is very interesting process, but it is no less interesting to create such layouts yourself.

How to make a layout with your own hands

It is worth starting with the collection of information. Many people are passionate about model building and share their experience, give advice, post photographs and videos showing the models they have collected on the Internet. Various structural elements can be purchased and assembled. First of all it is worth identify with i am with a place for the layout. This should be free space. A table about two by one and a half meters may work. There are ways to arrange the layout on a folding or retractable table top. Then you need to select the scale of the layout. There are five main scales:

HO, track 16.5 mm (1:87).
TT, track 12 mm (1: 120).
N, track 9 mm (1: 160).
Z, track 6.5 mm (1: 220).
G (1:28 or 1: 22.5) - garden or street scale.

The road to scale is very common. It is sized to fit the model in the house, and consists of fairly large elements that are easy to work with and play with. It is also interesting to use smoke generator, a sound decoder for the reproduction of noises during the movement of trains, and security systems.

For another widespread TT scale, many German firms produce models and accessories, for example, Tillig, Berliner T. T. Bahnen. Such models are also produced by other European companies Piko and Roco, Russian manufacturers "TT-model", "Peresvet".

The choice of scale depends on the location allocated for the road. Z is too small and the layout will be difficult to assemble and work with. The most common are TT and H0. When choosing a scale, one must take into account minimum radius crooked. For rails of scale (1:87), it is 380 mm. When passing large locomotives with five axles and long wagons, this minimum radius must be increased by 1.5-2 times.

Based on this, you need to calculate the required space for placing the rail track. At a scale (1:87), it will be three by one and a half meters. You can select a smaller scale (1: 120). The minimum radius will be 275 mm and a width of one meter is enough.

You need to start building a layout by creating a diagram. At first, it can be simple, one circle with the composition. New branches, arrows, semaphores, houses and other elements will be gradually added.

Making a children's railroad

Having determined the dimensions and drawing the diagram, you can start making the layout:

You need to start with the manufacture of a sub-model of the selected size. This can be a tabletop or just a sheet of thick plywood. Next, you should transfer the diagram to the model, drawing the rail tracks, the installation locations of the switches and semaphores, the location of houses, depots and station buildings. A complex arrangement of paths is designed in a special application on a computer.
After drawing the diagram, you need to lay the rails. They are glued or nailed down. Rails can be purchased or made from copper wire yourself. In this case, they need to be given a rectangular shape by rolling on a machine. The sleepers are also made on the machine. They look like thin pieces.

The rolling stock requires an electrical circuit. The power supply unit can be homemade or purchased with a voltage of no more than 16 V. As an electric motor for a locomotive, you can use a motor taken from a toy or purchased in a store. The trains will be powered through the rails. They need to connect taps from the power supply. Electrical wiring is supposed to be done using copper wires and connectors. It should take into account all the places where there will be traffic lights, semaphores, lanterns.
In order for the track to have a realistic look, it is necessary to fill in the ballast. For this, you can use aquarium soil or special model gravel.
To give the layout a finished look, you need to think over and complete the landscape, make mountains, tunnels, build roads, put houses and figures of people. You can buy a powder for soil, grass, trees, or make a mountain and a tunnel using polyurethane foam and paint with acrylic paint. Papier-mâché, paper, wood, plaster, cardboard and other materials can find good use.
Very interesting models of trains and carriages can be made out of paper. To do this, you need to download from the Internet and print the diagrams. They need to be folded along the fold lines and glued. This is an easy way to fill the layout with new interesting models.

DIY modeling is an exciting experience and an ongoing creative process. It takes a lot of imagination and skillful hands to bring your plans to life. It will be doubly more interesting to make a layout together with the child. This is a good reason to instill in him the skills of manual labor and to show how interesting the process of designing and making models can be. Joint creativity brings together and enriches.

Attention, only TODAY!