So I returned to my first love, N scale, and I'm about 95 percent done with my layout. I love building train layouts that feature small-town U.S.A. and a rural farm area.

Modeling the small and delicate N scale can be intimidating, especially for beginners. However, with the right setup, you can get the most out of the available space you might not find on a much ...

John: The N scale layout is a three main-line layout that’s 12-by-48 feet. There’s 350 feet of track with 48 switches. It operates on four transformers and can run up to four trains.

The whole thing is just 5.5″ x 12″. This N-scale layout was three years in the making, mostly because [Peter] was waiting for just the right little powered chassis to come along.

The main challenge here was the extremely limited space available: the track in N-scale layouts is 9 mm wide, meaning that the whole system had to fit in just 23 x 20 mm 2, the frontal area of a ...