How many more layouts are you good for?

[FJ and G]

The Reaganesque phrase: "Mr. Gorbachav, tear down this wall," has somehow gotten stuck in my brain and I guess it is used to define his presidency (Clinton had a defining phrase too, which I won't repeat here but starts out with, "I did not have s...).

Anyway, the question is: How do you know when the right time to tear down your layout is?

It goes without saying that tearing it down occurs during a move. But, what about at other times? Is it possible to get sick of your scenery or track plan; perhaps because you have become envious of a nice layout in a magazine and wi***o do a Martha Stewart remake?

Or, did you get tired of the Pennsylvania Railroad and decide to rip out all of the trees and put nice Santa Fe or SP desert scenery?

And lastly, how many more layouts are you good for in your lifetime? There's actually a formula to compute the number of layouts you have left before you expire and meet JLC in toy train Heaven.

Simply add up the number of layouts you've constructed and compute the number of years you have left to live based on the average life expectancy (add or subtract years based on your lifestyle) and you will be able to come up with a reasonably close number, assuming you change layouts at a consistent pace.

Dave Vergun

[Jim Duda]

I have built my last one...

[cnw1995]

Well, I guess I'm new enough never to have looked at it that way. As a youth, I had a HO figure 8 atop a pingpong table that I ran with my brothers, but my dad really set that one up. The only other permanent layout before the current one with my N scale folding tabletop I paid someone else to build the benchwork or rather table with folding legs and put down the track, and spend a happy few years scenicking and trying to get the little suckers to run...There were probably 30 years inbetween them...Now I started on my 'first' O layout on two foam boards last Christmas. Now, it's grown to 4 boards. I hope by this Christmas to add 2-3 more boards to cover the entire crawlspace...so I guess this is the one and only layout I have within me -- and I hope to expand it or make it better over time. I'm doing everything 'wrong' - making up the track plan as I go along - using what I have instead of what I'd have to buy anew, etc.

[Anonymous]

Still working on my first.

pax[dinner]

[Anonymous]

Hopefully at lease five.
I still have to complete my first one too.

Angelo

[ChiefEagles]

The one I'm getting ready to build unless I get a different house or build a train building [which is a possibility].

[Anonymous]

I'd like to get the one I'm building "right". I've had several fairly large layouts that never got finished to the level I had hoped for- some due to moves, some a dimming of interest. With the progress in track planning software, and the variety of materials available for track, scenery, signals, and rolling stock I can't imagine a better to to be able to build a quality layout than now. I also can't imagine what quantum leap is left in O gauge model railroading hobby in my lifetime that would get me to start over again.
Bob

[dougdagrump]

Hopefully two.
#1. The trainout layout as soon as I have a space.
#2. Mine.
If I'm lucky I can finish #1 ahead of #2.[(-D]

[Anonymous]

Hopefully, we'll build the addition next year, and, hopefully, the layout I build in there will be the last one. But you never know.

I'm only 44, so I should have a few years to go. Maybe we an fit one or two more in there somewhere.

Tony