Ripping out the old - you too?

[bsteel4065]

After thinking it over, rethinking it, convincing myself it's a good thing to do, I'm ripping out my old layout. Benchwork, wiring, track, buildings, rock faces so lovingly put in place, everything. The emotions in doing this are many. At first I thought, I'll keep the gorge with the rock castings in place and the hand built wooden trestle and the river way below. Then I thought, why? I can cast the rocks again, hey, build anew, brand new. So, as I got into it, I began to remove more and more into the trash. All I have saved are the buildings, the cars and trucks, the Preiser people and, of course, my trains. It's a whole new world waiting to be built. Regrets, no, not many. It's a chance to use all that previous experience. And it's going to be fun again. Anyone else, starting again?
BJS [^][^][^][^]

[Anonymous]

I have just finished my rebuild.
Pop down to Alverstoke on Sat. Nov 6th and see it at the Gosport American Railroad Group meeting.
Enjoy yourself.
Bill

[Anonymous]

BJS,

I guess this puts you in the same league as Tony Koester. Not bad company if you'd ask me!

I also bet that your new layout will be better than the old because of newly learned/improved skills and lessons learned from the school of hard knocks!!

Good luck!

Dave

[snowey]

I also am starting over-this time, though, in N scale-(I was in HO)-and I had mixed feelings in having to rip up my HO layout, but then I realized it's a chance to start over using materials and technices that I either didn't know about, or came out recently, or became popular after I had no use for them. Things like foam for a layout base and hills and things.

---

Basicly, it's a chance to try new things!

[tomwatkins]

I didn't rip it all out at once and start over, but over the last several years I've rebuilt most of it. I did it one section at a time. I'm glad I did. The "new layout operates better, is more reliable, and more fun than what I had previously. I'm a lot happier with it and consider it time well spent.
Have Fun,
Tom Watkins

[Anonymous]

I completely demolished my old 4'x8' and started work on a new u-shaped 7'x9.5'x10' in late July. I built the benchwork and got 3rd PlanIt to design the layout. After MANY iterations, I finally got a plan I liked and that fit the space done about 2-3 weeks ago, and since then I've got about a 1/3 of the sub-roadbed installed. It's way fun! I figure I'll do a bit more sub-roadbed done in the next two weeks before I go on vacation, and then start laying roadbed and track on the mainline on the parts along the wall that'll be a bit harder to reach for construction later on. Spent most of today building a Walther's trestle/deck bridge that'll carry the track across the window in the room, so I can still access the window.

I'm also converting to DCC, and have about 1/3 of my older locos converted already, plus two recent Atlas engines I bought that come with decoders already, and two plug-in decoders ready to go into some recent Stewart locos I bought.

I figure the first trains will start running on the new layout sometime in mid-late November -- at that point I hope to have enough track down to make it worth it.

[NZRMac]

I bought a used 8x4 layout with two very used locos, ran it for awhile, pulled it all to bits, thought I could do a better job on the 8x4 board but it got too big. I added extensions, made the turns too tight (15" HO) got some advise from you good people. Now I've started over 8' x12' x8' u shaped 21" radius turns, two levels and just got a good deal on a Lenz digital plus compact for a dcc start.
I'm Lovin it!!!!!

Ken[:D]

[CNJ831]

In my experience there seem to be two distinctly separate groups of modelers within our hobby. The first builds a fine, often large layout and continues to use it with relatively few major changes over many years or even decades -- they enjoy viewing and using (operating) the fruits of their labor. The second group honestly gets their greatest pleasure in the hobby out of building new trackplans and creating new vistas -- often their layouts don't ever reach a state of full completion (or do so only very briefly) before being torn out.

There is nothing wrong with either way of thinking, it's that their goals are just different.

CNJ831

[Anonymous]

Well, I hope to be in the first group when I fini***his layout. The 4x8 was ok as a learning experience, but I plan on spending a long time scenicing this one once I get the track laid. At most I expect to do some minor modifications as things progress, but I don't plan on tearing this one down until I've retired and we're moving to a new house. [:)]

[Anonymous]

After some half@$$ attempts, I'm finally building my new layout. It will run 100% of the time(unlike 0.0000000001% as on my older layouts) Have fun w/ the new construction,
and be thankful you're not 14 years old trying to beg money off your parents

[davekelly]

Qwerty1,

There are advantages of being 14. You have many more years of a great hobby to look forward to!! Believe it or not way back when model railroading did help me in high school, college (mech eng major) and law school. It was pretty cool to know about things like dynamic brakes (mechanical engineering class), overhang in curves (civil engineering class), the Penn Central (bankruptcy class), and how a turntable worked (tort class in law school). Besides, when you graduate and get a job think of all the bucks you'll have to build a super great layout (after themortgage, car payment, insurance, electric bil, student loans etc etc etc)!

You're 14. Enjoy being in a great hobby that will last a lifetime!!

Hint: Get your parents involved. Get one hooked on the hobby and guess who'll be paying the guy behind the counter at the hobby shop!!

[Jetrock]

One of the nice things about going sectional is that I finish modules (ideally) one at a time--although my Module #1 is actually less complete than Module #2 (but the first one has complex trackwork, in-street track and a lot of structures, while the other is a simple yard with only a couple of small yard buildings, thus easier to build.) That way I can have an operating, completed section that I can appreciate, but still have things to build. Of course, I haven't run out of space yet...we'll see what happens when I get there! Considering that it has taken a year or so to get this far, I'm in no hurry...