The NMRA Mid-Continent Regional convention was hosted by the Gateway Division NMRA on May 30 through June 3, 2012. The event featured clinics, layout and prototype tours, model contests, operating sessions, a train show, and a banquet at the Museum of Transportation....

The Dodo Burger served Belleville for many years. This article details how to easily transform the Model Power Hot Dog Stand into a version of an American icon....

A hose level was used to create the level areas required for the layout - so I thought they were level. But my free-rolling car wheelsets found the minor variations in benchwork construction and decided to seek their own level. Nylon mono-filament fishing line to the rescue!...

Bill Giese's Des Moines Area Rock Island HO scale model railroad features highly detailed city and industrial scenes filled with cars, trucks and people. The railroad, set in the late 1960s to early 1970s, is a walk-in design with a 76-foot single track main and 24-foot branch line us...

The Streator Connection models the connecting point of the Santa Fe and Conrail railroads at Streator, Illinois. This 30’x32’ HO scale layout has 32" minimum radius curves, a maximum 1.3% grade, and is a loop-to-loop design with two independent mainlines. The layout features a large f...

The Sedalia & Warsaw is based on a Missouri Pacific branch line in western Missouri extending 43 miles from the connection with the Missouri Pacific at Sedalia to the Osage River at Warsaw. There are four intermediate stations - from north to south they are Mora, Cole Camp, Tahoma and...

Herb Gilden's 1950s-era HO scale Hy-Sioux Southern Railroad, set in Tennessee and the Carolinas, was featured in the May 2000 issue of Model Railroader. Extensive scenery and structures populate this walk-in with duck-under design model railroad with DCC Digitrax Empire Builder Radio ...

Fred Houska's completely sceniced N scale model railroad is an around the walls with peninsula design featuring DC control....

Mike Wise's completely sceniced HO scale model railroad is a walk in loop to loop, single track main, point to point switching district design with a 78-foot mainline run. This freelance layout, set in St. Louis in 1966, features highly detailed city and industrial areas filled with c...

Don Morice has built an HO scale detailed recreation of the Illinois Central Railroad St. Louis Division in Southern Illinois, Carbondale to DuQuoin, of the 1955-1960 (steam to diesel) era....

Ron Schlueter's HO scale San Jose Southern is based on the 1950s Denver & Rio Grande Western at Tennessee Pass, Colorado. The layout uses a linear walk in with lower level staging design and Digitrax DCC control, features 145-feet of mainline with a 3% grade, code 83 rail, and a 30" m...

This freelance 30’x33’ railroad connects Chicago to Seattle. The area modeled is on the Columbia River in western Washington. Great Northern has running rights on this 1947-1970 era layout featuring code 83 main lines and code 70 yard trackage, lots of mountains, and some river traffi...