Building model railroads can be one of the most enjoyable and engaging hobbies. You can keep at it for hours on end without getting bored for a second.

The great thing about this hobby is that it is an activity that can be fun when you do it on your own, as well as when you have your family and friends involved with operating your model trains. If you don’t want to start the task on your own, or if it becomes too time consuming or too difficult to handle by yourself, you can always make a project out of it. Your kids (if you have any) can help you look for various supplies, painting railroad buildings and even searching for items out in the yard for scenery. You can get your friends/family to suggest ideas or do some research for you, make some prints or even send you some objects from abroad. There are many ways to get your family involved in this thrilling activity.

Constructing your own scenery can be an interesting if not a somewhat strenuous task. It can become hard at times, mixing just the right paints or using the perfect products to come up with scenery that looks completely life-like. But hey, this is where all the fun is right? Downloaded paper model buildings templates can be not only a time and money saver, plans of the paper models are printable and highly detailed ready for assembly. Paints, or airbrushing is not needed, because the paper model building templates are already highly detailed and pre-weathered ready for use.

One thing that most new hobbyists find difficult is lighting up their model railroad buildings. If you too have been having difficulty in doing this, here are some excellent lighting tips for you.

Miniature Bulbs

These can work wonderfully for model railroad buildings. You put them inside as well as the outside of the downloaded buildings. Of course you would have to be careful with the wiring or you may cause a fire, or end up getting a complete blackout in your miniature model town!

Tiny LED Lights

LED’s are a true life saver for model railroad lovers. They can be installed anywhere and are available in a variety of colors. Depending on the model scale you use, you can select very small or medium sized LED lights. They are easy to install and there are relatively risk-free when it comes to electrocution. Safety is a serious consideration when putting LED lights inside plastic models or paper model building templates that are glued to card or corflute. That’s not to say the model buildings will burst into flames, but you will need to carefully monitor the heat output on any LED used inside a structure.

If you have a carnival or fun fair in your model railroad layout, you can place many colorful LED lights to display a life-like scenario. Imagine how wonderful they would look on the merry-go-round and the Ferris Wheel.

One other option for LED lighting is using LED strips. These are available in a variety of lengths and you can stick them anywhere inside a building. They last for as long as 50,000 hours, which means around 6 years if you keep them on 24 hours a day!

Fiber Optics

This is one of the best options for when you want to light up a structure that is so small that small bulbs or LED’s don’t fit. What you have to keep in mind though is that fiber optics doesn’t exactly project light, so they can’t be used to ‘see by’. You can place fiber optics in places like theater marquis, accessory lights like lamps, TV, amusement parks, etc.

Tip

Make sure to secure all the wires. Not only does it protect you from an electrical blackout, it would also make your scale model railroad safer for kids. Also, don’t keep the lights turned on all the time. Only switch the lights on when you are displaying your trains or structures made using downloaded paper model building templates.

The printable kits for these model paper building templates don’t require painting or weathering. That is already done to a high quality for you. So you won’t need an airbrush, weathering pastels, india ink or anything like that. The weathered stratches, cracks etc are already on the downloaded template designs. All you need to do is to download and print out templates for the model plans (PDF) and glue them to cardstock or some corflute. Then follow the simple instructions to complete the kit assembly.

You can print out more than one copy of each paper model buildings template using the same printable PDF plan, so it’s not like buying plastic model kits where you would need to buy two plastic kits to make two scale model buildings. As an example; the telegraph office on this web site could be printed out several times using the same plan. You might decide to make a row of little railroad houses from the plan instead of making a stand alone telegraph office. Paper model buildings templates are certainly very versatile, strong, and wonderfully real in appearance.