My most recent layout featured a river running through the center of one of the tables, constructed from standard 12″x12″ scrapbook cardstock. Here’s how you can build your own.

Acquire your cardstock squares

In the U.S., the standard scrapbook cardstock size is a 12″ square, but the exact size doesn’t really matter so long as it’s large (at least 8 inches) and roughly square in shape. U.S. cardstock squares are actually a little longer in one direction to accommodate the barcode label and that excess length is trimmed away with a paper cutter.

The more squares you have the more flexibility you’ll have in your river shape so get more than you think you need. Each square is a foot long, but youll need some overlap to ensure a seemless river. A good rule of thumb is to have 25% more length in cardstock than you need on your table.

Make sure your cardstock has the same color or pattern on both sides. You’ll have more flexibility in forming your river if you can flip the pieces over.

Cut your squares in half

Divide each cardstock square roughly in half using a wavy cut. The center cut will become your shoreline. Experiment both with center-to-center cuts and with offset cuts so that you have pieces that can both widen and narrow your river.

Consider having your tiles hot laminated for durability.

Arrange your river tiles

The straight edges should be in the center of the river and the wavy cuts should be on the outside. Overlap the pieces as needed to sensure a smooth shoreline.

Here’s what the above example looks like in a layout:

Experiment with rotating some of the pieces, as well as having more overlap, in order to give you more options on shaping your river. As you can see in the layout photo below, I made use of angled tiles.

This layout is one that I finished over the holidays, though I’d been tinkering with the design on and off for the past couple of months. I had three primary design goals:

1. Design the layout specifically for battery engines. This meant using mechanical switches for the primary track switches and graded supports in place of traditional ramp tracks.
2. Include a full amusement park, assembled from the new #33730 Roller Coaster Set and the vintage #33220 Amusement Park and #33221 Merry-go-round sets.
3. Have a river running through the center of the layout, or at least a large part of the layout, instead of placing the water along an edge.

The river was formed from standard 12″x12″ scrapbooking cardstock. Each square was cut in half roughly down the middle with a wavy pattern, giving me two shorelines per sheet that were arranged in a winding path. To create the bend, I joined two paths at an angle and used circles to smooth out the joint.

The real challenge was the roller coaster because its large footprint threatened to eat up valuable space that I needed for track. I solved this problem by overlapping the two so that trains passed underneath the coaster.

The town is created from three generations of the Town set: the mid-60’s version with two wide skyscrapers, the 70’s version with one wide skyscraper and the first generation wooden trees, and the 80’s version with the taller and thinner skyscraper that most people are familiar with.

The track plan is shown below (click to enlarge).

BRIO’s battery engines, especially those that run on a single battery and have only two drive wheels, are not very good at climbing hills. A single engine on its own can probably manage to climb a ramp track (type N or N1), but attach a load to one of these engines and it will start to struggle. As the video below shows, attaching multiple cars to an engine all but guarantees that it will bind up on the ascent.

Notice that even the 4WD Rechargeable Engine struggles here and in fact does worse than the Freight Battery Engine. What happens is the flexible wheel base for this engine allows for two of the drive wheels to separate from the track on the ascent. Because the engine is much heavier than the standard battery engines the loss of two drive wheels stops it in its tracks. The Freight Battery Engine is actually a nice little performer, but with three loads it needs a boost to clear the hill.

So what do you do if you want to run these smaller battery engines in a layout that makes use of bridges or other multi-level track and accessories? The answer is to use the #33354 Graded Supports. As shown in this video, the gentler slope makes climbing hills a much easier task.

Unfortuantely, BRIO retired the graded supports back in 1998 so you must either find them used or opt for 3rd party equivalents such as the Jesse’s Toolbox Graduated Riser set. I like BRIO’s risers because they are all one-step risers, so you have significant flexibility in how you use them. You can also use the graded supports that were made for the Thomas Wooden Railway system, though be aware that you cannot mix Thomas and BRIO risers in the same stack as they have different widths. The Thomas risers were also retired several years ago, but this does provide you with more options on the used market.

Graded supports do require more space than a single ramp track, however. But, you don’t have to ascend in one-step increments and I’ve found that two-step increments along a piece of A track is a reasonable incline and that’s what I use in the video above. The standard BRIO riser is equal to six graded risers.

Note that I offset the riser at the top of the hill to place it under the peg connector rather than under the joint.

This prevents the peg from sticking up significantly above the track level and accidentally tripping the autostop switch on the engines.