Portable Layout

[Anonymous]

Our club is considering the possiblilty of building a layout in a tow-behind trailer. Something we could tow to an event, park, plug in, open some side doors...and have a running layout that people could view.
Does anybody have any experience or opinions on what we need to consider, pro and con, on the idea?

[orsonroy]

Having worked with conventional modular layouts in both HO and N, here's my take on having a layout in a trailer:

PROS:

No real setup time. Plug in the power supply, add the trains, and start running.
Easily portable.
Setup in the great outdoors.

CONS:

Limited size dictated by the trailer.
Where do you park it?
Can only use layout during nice weather.
unless REALLY well lit, the layout will be DARK, and barely visible.
Duckunder access.
Bad headroom in a trailer.
Weather changes, bugs, vermin and leaks will destroy the layout.

Club politics: invariably, SOMEONE will either wander off with the trailer, want it off their property, or make some sort of play for "ownership" of the trailer (or want their part of the startup cash back).

I much prefer modular layouts, especially when the individual modules are owned by individuals. If someone leaves (or is booted out) the layout as a whole doesn't suffer. Andf considering most train shows occur during the fall & winter, a true modular layout is more versatile, because it can be set up indoors, and conforn to whatever space is available.

I have seen a couple of layouts on trailers. There's an Ntrak club that has the bulk of it's layout built onto a flatbed trailer. It's very nice, but it takes a lot of space to set up, and can only be set up inside when the venue doesn't mind a truck inside(no high school gyms, in other words).

[Anonymous]

I don't think I have ever seen a layout outside at a MR event, with the exception of live steam...

You could easily fill the trailer with lots of modules, and then set up your layout at whatever venue you are going to. My local modular group sets up, tests, and has running 200-300 feet of modules in less than 4 hours, and tears it down in less than one hour. It can be a different layout every time too, since you can change the order of the modules.

I think that the trailer would become too limiting for the reasons listed by Ray (above).

I have quite a bit of info on module construction. Start with this: www.hotrak.ca and let me know how it goes!

Andrew

[GerFust]

locoS2:

At one train show I saw a layout in a trailer. If you are thinking that both the viewers and layout would be in the trailer, there may be another alternative.

Viewers of the layout didn't go inside, however. The sides hinged up to become awnings, under which viewers would walk. The trailer had plexiglass walls looking in on the layout. As I recall, this particular layout had canvas walls dropping down from the awning so that viewers could be funneled in one end and out the other. The scenery caused a natural view block, and the scene was automatically at eye leve (and above). Step stools were provided for kids. Viewers walked around the trailer in a U-shape strarting from front to rear, around the back end, the back up to the front.

Over the hitch area was a operator's booth with a mirrored window overlooking the layout. The trailer must have been 40 long. There were hidden access holes in case of a derailment throughout the layout (which was needed once while I was viewing it).

It was inside the exhibition space when I saw it, and I doubt it would be good for outside if weather were poor.

-Jer