I have my son's layout almost done. its pretty much done, he likes it, there is a slight expansion planned....but I was playing with the atlas rail designer program and I came up with a stellar design. its a doughnut shape with 2'x6' for walking room inside it. The killer thing is is that it takes up a total footprint of 8'x5.5' ! the same amount of space needed to have a 4'x8'. Its not that the current layout is horrible or anything, its just fine.
so, now I wish i knew then what i know now.
anyone else ever have that? and what did you do about it? I dont think the wife would be too pleased to see me ripping everything up.
anyone ever just do that though?
Kevin
ondrek wrote: I have my son's layout almost done. its pretty much done, he likes it, there is a slight expansion planned....but I was playing with the atlas rail designer program and I came up with a stellar design. its a doughnut shape with 2'x6' for walking room inside it. The killer thing is is that it takes up a total footprint of 8'x5.5' ! the same amount of space needed to have a 4'x8'. Its not that the current layout is horrible or anything, its just fine. so, now I wish i knew then what i know now. anyone else ever have that? and what did you do about it? I dont think the wife would be too pleased to see me ripping everything up.anyone ever just do that though?Kevin
Quite the contrary, I wish I could actually FINISH one!
Due to onging house and yard projects in the last 3 years I have had to demo and rebuilt 3 times!
Each time I get to the "tracks down - trains runnin" point some other project comes along and necessitiates the demolition of my layout, finishing said project and starting over from scratch. I hate it, the last one was the longest break, 6 months while our garage was rebuilt. Now I have a new garage, got the benchwork up but its covered full up with junk I cant convince the wife to dump. Grrrrr.
Have fun with your trains
Oh, for sure! Already ripped out some trackwork and did it differently. Already don't like where some track is. And I know that as I expand my layout I'm not going to like what I come up with. It's frustrating, but maybe that's the part of model railroading they call "fun."
Vsmith, your post appeared while I was composing the above. I know exactly how you feel. I can't remember back far enough to when I first started this layout and I wonder if I'll live long enough to finish it, whatever "finished" is.
..... Bob
Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here. (Captain Kirk)
I reject your reality and substitute my own. (Adam Savage)
Resistance is not futile--it is voltage divided by current.
I have never finished one either. I follow the prototype way, they sort of plan and then adjust with each new customer and ecconomic change. I have not have not yet gone so far as to rip up 100 miles of track and make a running path.
Of course my life never went according to plan either.
ondrek wrote:so, now I wish i knew then what i know now.
Gandy Dancer wrote: ondrek wrote:so, now I wish i knew then what i know now.I am not certain I understand the original message. Is the donut shape the stellar design or the son's layout? Are you wishing you would have rather made the walk around 4x8 instead of the donut or the other way around?
My son's layout is a standard 4x8, i was a newbie when I started it.
My donut layout is designed to take the same floor space, but allow the train to run around the users engulfing them and also making it so there was less ground needing to be scenic'ed thus saving time, money and hastle.
I am at a point where i cant just start over. it wont go over well at all. so what I have decided to do is take about half of the new design and incorporate it into the future expansion of the current layout. kinda a mishmash.
itll work out.
kevin
What you might want to do is build in place so that the new design is accomplished and done.
Build a small section as a addon, transfer some exisiting stuff to it and demo a section of the old.
Eventually you will have your new railroad without the pain.
Is what you imagine something like what you see below? I must duck under one side of this layout that backs into a corner at close left. Once I am inside, though, I am surrounded by scenery. Marvelous. I have learned to keep my back and head down so that I don't bang them while scrambling under the facing side. Hurts too much.
yes, the layout is much like that.
so I am just going to work on a part of it and add it on to the current layout. we'll see how things go.
Crandell,
I'm just curious. How long and wide is your current layout?
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
This is what is known as 20/20 hindsight.
Early in my layout designing/building career (during the Truman administration) I floundered around, transferring what I could from the pages of Model Railroader to the realities of an impoverished schoolkid. I can't begin to count the number of times I asked myself, "Why didn't I think of that."
Later, I tried to design everything in excruciating detail, then build exactly what I had designed. (Can you spell frustration?)
At this late date in the learning process (the under construction layout is almost certainly my last) my basic design parameters are set in concrete. Everything else is set in Jell-O, and may be changed at any time for any reason or none.
Unless you qualify for full-rate social security, you will almost certainly build other, different, layouts in the future. Some ideas (like the donut with a duckunder) won't look so wonderful after age and arthritis have done their thing on your flexibility. Other ideas, like the use of narrow benchwork around the walls, will wear better. We all learn and grow, and the one constant is there is always a better way. Keep that better way in mind as you scheme plan your way to a bigger and better rail empire.
Above all, have fun!
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Believe me, you're in good company on this forum. We're all Layout Builders. What, I ask you, does a Layout Builder do once the layout is built? Well, there are only 3 options - build another layout somewhere else, expand the existing layout, or tear something up and build it again.
I've still got a year or so before my scenery will be complete, but I'm already planning an extension for a longer run and some staging. See you there...
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Rule #1 in model railroading: A layout is NEVER done!
Rule #2: Xacto knives have a thirst for human blood (but thats another story).
I've torn apart and rebuilt a number of times, and most of the time it was to put a layout back into the same place, so it wasn't due to a move or anything. I've changed a track arrangement more often then I've rebuilt.
Does this look familiar to anyone? (Leaning sideways against the garage wall!) Bet most of you have had the bones of a former layout hanging around your house somewhere at one time or another, huh?
Each layout is a learning process, and thats why they're never done. As you build, you learn more. As you learn, you change things "for the better". Sometimes, you can make minor changes. Other times, it's time for demo.
If your son is happy, I'd wait until he starts to get bored, then get him on board with a new project. If you take on the new project while he's still interested in the old, you may find that it becomes JUST your project. With him on board, you both get to enjoy the building experience!
This is what they have now: (well, its better than this, this pic is a bit old)
This is the layout design:
He IS bored with it already. 6yrs old and bored. he wants to be able to have the passenger train stop at the station, pick up people and then leave to another town and not return for a long time. he currently takes the train and stops it in the tunnel. well, thats ok as long as he is the only one running trains. otherwise it blocks the rails and is no fun for other people to watch. So, how to expand a 4x8 without redoing most of it? I got lucky and that one turnout over on the left, I can take that out and put in a 19 degree cross over. That step is done. what will happen is there will be another route that will be just beyond the table top and will be behind a wall. the run will come back around on the right hand side and connect to the once storage track next to the engine house. It will require expanding the layout from 4x8 to 4.5x9 as seen here:
The red square line is the table, the 4x8, the thick black line near the top is the wall that the expansion goes behind.
This now will allow him to take a train have it leave town and he can even stop the train for all I care. I have not decided 100% on weather it will be a double line back there or not. the question of weather he will remember which way the turnouts are set to is a factor. for me too for that matter.
Now, this is what I just designed the other night....
I like the bottom part the best with the run a round. So I am hoping to figure out how to tack that on to the layout we already have. At the same time see if i can make it the same as it would be as if it was in the new design, that way maybe some day the new layout could replace the old and half of it would be already done. and it leads itself to an around the wall layout pretty easily too.
Of course all of this is just wishfull dreaming i suppose. the only known thing is that there is a cross over instead of the turnout on the original layout. will it ever get built? who knows. I am also trying to work on the Gscale in the back yard....(20 minutes at a time)
I was just wondering if anyone ever came up with a layout design they liked so much they were considering scrapping their entire current layout regardless of how close to complete it is.
Im looking at the first layout picture and see that the passenger train has to negotiate a bunch of switches coming and going. If the child is already threading switchwork at 6, I dont think you have anything to fear.
Heck I only drooled and giggled at the big O gauge train going very fast at that age.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
Safety Valve wrote:Im looking at the first layout picture and see that the passenger train has to negotiate a bunch of switches coming and going. If the child is already threading switchwork at 6, I dont think you have anything to fear.Heck I only drooled and giggled at the big O gauge train going very fast at that age.
he can manage the switches that the train must go through to get to the station. they are all manual throws. the thing about the one behind the wall is that its out of sight and that means out of mind. I would have to set up a control board like many do. I just was trying to avoid that. no reason why, i just wanted to keep the switching process manual.
Medina1128 wrote:Somedays, I wish I had made mine an around the wall, but I have a stairway, furnace and hot water heater more or less in the middle of the room (basement). In your layout's case, the one thing I did NOT want was a duckunder, then when wiring my layout, I discovered that I can sit in a roll-around office chair (laid back) and roll around UNDER my layout. My layout height is at 44". I don't know what yours is, but it may save some bumps and bruises on the head and back if you roll under into the center.
thats a good idea, keep it heigh enough to roll under while in a chair. I think that we will have a lift out section, so no ducking will be required. in fact the way things are, if this expansion ever happens, the layout will need to be assembled when run as this expansion will be 4' in order to make it so we can stand within. then when not in use the extension will be wheeled away to a corner. and it could be used as a shelf switcher alone if i desired. reason 2 for doing it i suppose.
You can still keep the switches manual.
Get a lenth of piano wire (Me? Owner of Kato Unitrack Switches talking ground throws?)
Submerge that length in a plastic tubing and bury it in scenery that has sufficient reach from edge of layout to the switch.
Then install a knob or something to that Piano wire and mark it (In- mainline, Out- Siding or whatever)
No control panel needed... yet.
ondrek wrote:He IS bored with it already. 6yrs old and bored. he wants to be able to have the passenger train stop at the station, pick up people and then leave to another town and not return for a long time.
... what will happen is there will be another route that will be just beyond the table top and will be behind a wall. This now will allow him to take a train have it leave town and he can even stop the train for all I care.
I like the bottom part the best with the run a round.
I pre-trained the spouse on trackwork.. she might see a small yard one day, runaround the next and perhaps a crossover in the same space later in the month.
That way there should be no problems rebuilding the railroad with the sectional track.