For the model railroad enthusiast, immersed in building and designing your own custom model railway layouts, the rolling stock is only one small piece of what may well become an exhaustive, and possibly life enhancing project. This will no doubt however be thoroughly enjoyable, possibly very time consuming and a great opportunity to meet new lifelong model railroading friends.

The major part of establishing a model railroader project is the design and implementation of the model railway layouts, the diorama with model railroad scenery, structures and appropriate scale track for operating the model trains.

The size of the model railroad layouts you can design, build and operate depends on the amount of room in which you have available to set it up. Some layouts can be quite small shelf-top designs that can be accommodated in a very small space. Others can fill part of a room, or even a whole room, attic or basements are ideal for this.

For a small, simple train layout, a table will usually be adequate but most model railroaders will aim to establish larger, and more permanent layout, which they won’t have to keep dismantling and reassembling the railway track. These will usually require construction of suitable benches, often fixed to the walls of the room to provide a high degree of stability.