First off next month I will be 81 and am in fair health and still fully mobile and just recently tore down my 15x17 garage layout due to my deciding to move into a villa after 55 years of home ownership (I wanted to give the children their inheritance while I am still alive and was fed up with home maintenance problems). I am now a renter and limited to what I can do and not do to the garage for a new layout.
All this leads to the question would you start a new layout at my age. I was thinking of just making a few modules one being of the Highland Terminal and the other the Tenderfood layout. Both of these are switching shelf layouts and that is what I prefer rather than continuous running. The other layouts I operate on are all continuous running and very heavy on switching so I still have access to larger layouts. So in a nutshell have any of you started a new layout at 80 and what size did you build if you did or at 80 would you start a new one?
Bob D
Bob D As long as you surface as many times as you dive you`ll be alive to read these posts.
The average life expectancy in the U.S. for an 81 year old male is 8.34 years. And that is the average life expectancy, so since you are in "fair health", you should outlive that average. So, get started with that new layout, times a' wasting.
Rich
Alton Junction
I'm 68 and after I move this summer, to a home with a ground floor master bedroom, I will expand my modules quite a bit. I was thinking I was a bit crazy to embark on the project. I admire your ambition.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Why not??
Wouldn't working on the layout be better then sitting there wishing you would have ?
I'm only 72, so take this for what you want.
Age does not matter near as much a physical health and desire to do it. You say you are healthy enough and want to, so DO IT.
At whatever age, don't stop living.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
This is interesting, and got me thinking of my layouts and ambitions through the years at different ages.
The list of my six STRATTON AND GILLETTE LAYOUTS:
1) High School Layout, N Scale, 21 square feet, 14 years old: This layout was started with big ambitions for it to be part of my future permanent lifetime layout. An N scale layout that grows. It had an engine terminal and two loops of track. Expansion tracks on both ends of the layout were intended to make it part of a peninsula on a much bigger layout in the future.
Oh, the many track plans I drew that included plans for the expansion. Looking back on them now, they were all terrible ideas.
It went to the landfill when I was 19 and moved in with my cute-punk-rocker-girlfriend Jeanna. She was much more interesting at the time. The layout would have lasted longer.
2) Dream House Layout, N scale, 800 square feet, 21 years old: Within a period of less than 12 months, I broke up with Jeanna, met my wife, got married, was blessed with a step-daughter and had another baby girl on the way. That was fast.
My wife and I both had money going into the relationship to build a life with. We bought 1 1/2 acres of land and had my dream house built to be our forever home. I designed this house in High School. We were so happy and everything was looking great for us.
I don't like to get into the ugly details of what happened to us next. We encountered severe financial hardship and went into complete despair from a position of being flush with cash. We were very lucky and got out of the house and out of debt, but our credit was shattered.
The dream house layout reached the point where I could run a train from one end to the other, but it never really became operational. I amassed an amazing collection of around 75 Atlas/Kato locomotives and 400 MTL train cars. Only about 20% of these were ever were painted. Almost all of them were sold off to help out any way they could.
The house was torn down less than two years after it was built.
3: The Misfire Layout, N scale, 20 square feet, 23 years old: This layout was intended to be one end of a much larger N scale layout. After we left the dream house we moved into an 800 square foot 3 bedroom duplex. I had a small wall in the dining room I used for layout space. This section had a helix to staging, the turnaround loop, and some interesting scenic features.
The track plan was horrid, and it was no fun to run trains on.
In short order I decided to switch to HO scale, and this layout came down. The helix worked great, and was the basis for the design of my friend Randy's helix on his NORFOLK SOUTHERN N scale layout.
4: The Master Bedroom Layout, HO scale, 16 square feet later enlarged to 24 square feet, 25 years old: Based on a track plan from Model Railroader this was simply a switching module, I guess an ISL would describe it quite well enough. It had a run through track so it could be part of a bigger layout in the future.
While working on this layout, I changed my era from 1968 to 1954.
This one was finished like a piece of furniture, and it was beautiful. Scenery was completed, and it was a lot of fun. It was moved into this house we bought in Cape Coral, and was set up in the new master bedroom. A second section was started and this was well designed and added a lot to the operation.
5: The Spare Bedroom Layout, HO scale, 44 square feet, 40 years old: The Master Bedroom layout sections could not be fit into the spare bedroom, so they were sent to the landfill. The new layout was crammed into the 11 by 12 bedroom that was vacated when my middle daughter moved out.
My track plan was terrible, I made some bad decisions on construction, and I took some shortcuts to speed up construction. Lots of mistakes, and after a couple years of work and redesigns the progress stalled badly.
It came down and was hauled to the landfill in 2016. This was a disaster of an attempt, and I learned things I am not willing to compromise on.
6: The Final Lifetime Layout, HO scale, 160 sqaure feet, Not started yet: I will hopefully start this within 12 months. It was supposed to begin on 01/JAN/2020, but my job travel made that impossible.
Well, I have had an interesting time building layouts. Some have been fun and successful, others failures. I also built 4 other layouts for clubs or other people.
If I was 80+ and did not have a layout, I would certainly build one if I could. I have almost always had a layout and life without one for more than three years has been uncomfortable.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I started my layout at 58. It's now dismantled and I am finally getting psyched up to reconfigure it and get as much up again as possible. I'm 73 now. I have heart issues and in a lot of high-risk groups for this virus.
What the heck. The virus is messing up everyone's lives, so I need to get started. At least I have something worth doing.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Bob, I am 72 and will be starting a new Industrial Switching Layout (ISL) and I suspect this one will need to last my remaining years.
The Highland Terminal is a good switching layout and one I thought about redesigning and building to my taste because there's to much track for a small switching layout.
To my mind the Tenderfoot is to hard to switch because of the crowed industries and I dislke having to move one industry car(s) in order to switch a industry on switchback. The Tenderfoot has a lot of possibilities with some minor changes.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
I say apply the KISS principle and go for it! Just focus on what you like most.
Simon
Hey, if you got the fire for it, age doesn't matter.
So maybe you'll work at a slower pace. So what?
Might not get very far? Again, so what? Life is a crap shoot. Do what you want today - tomorrow is not guaranteed.
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
I enjoy a mixture of larger plans requiring weeks to complete and discrete tasks that I can do inside of a couple of hours. Fortunately, designing and then building a train layout provides ample opportunity to do both of those things. There's always something to do. Make your job fit the day...as the late Dick Proenneke would have said if he had to stay close to his cabin due to inclement weather.
I think we all get a little joy out of something that contributes to a project. Cutting baseboards and doing the first coat of primer. Then, painting them. Then installing them. Several days later, you're on your knees applying some drywall mud to the small holes left by the brads. When that dries, you sand them gently, and prime them. Then paint them. Finally, two weeks later, yer done!
On to the next project....
I started mine, about 15 x25 feet, at age 81. I'm 84 now and it occupies a great deal of my available time. Evenings and every weekend, both Saturday and Sunday.
Why just evenings and weekends? Because I still run a company I own.
When you're in your 80's, you have no idea whether your remaining time on this earth is one more day, one more year or 15 more years. Do what brings you enjoyment with each day. Don't stop having fun with life.
Because of so much free time, I have read a lot of threads these last days on the MR site and on other forum too.
A very interesting stuff for the most.
But I have found many people are speaking about age, and this age is a way to limit future train project construction like other project.
This is just my opinion:
I'm now 60 and just next from my 61 birthday date….
Woauw guy's believe me I have projects for the next coming 200 years as a minimum !
I feel, have a project in any age is a motor to go further in a sort of never ending story somewhere, projects keep me in a vigorous way of life.
Even when I'm seak, I try to go further and not let this seak alter me.
In my case, at 60 I have taken the decision to left Europe for Canada and believe me it's not a quiet river deal in any case.
Yes this has been helped by job opportunities for me and my lovely half, but remember I was able to retire in the next 4 years in Belgium, without any trouble; now I'm sure to work again around 10 years.
But this new project has acted on me like a power booster, like many other projects I have had during my life which really was not a quiet river life for sure.
I have a lot of projects in mind, some which will need years to be completed.
Of course one of them is the extension of my layout; this is a huge project expansion for my N scale layout, in an emphasis of a 550 feet of mainline; this is for sure a 15 years minimum project.
I have also an another hobby with big projects in mind, specially doable because I'm living in Canada now.
So I have some misunderstand feelings when I see people who say, "mmmmh I'm older I will not go in a big project now because….."
I can't understand why a age must give us limit.
Mother which is now 89, just three years ago has made a big travel in 4x4 in the Sahara during 5 weeks with just a local driver and the need to camp in the desert; she had say to me, Marc I have always dream to do such travel; and I have give her all my support to do this travel; I know now this project has had a enormous power impact on her; today, she would come in Canada in next winter to see the white country under ice…..and she has some really health difficulties.
The thread question is just a reflection, is the level of age is a rule against the fact to embark in huge project ?
For me a project is essential to found energy to go further, even if I'm realist, may be some, like my 15 years layout project will never ended because of health troubles or, yes course, because I will died before the end of construction, this is possible, but this don't matter for me.
Yes no matter, it seems to me this is most important to go in my project and not to be enclosed in barrier defined by age.
Why to limit my project because I'm sixty one.
Why so much will stop to do project because of age, it's like closing the way of life somewhere; really I can't understand this, and again this is just my personal feeling; I would in any case hit anybody because they don't understand this need.
On an other aspect, I'm sure the fact to have ongoing project, no matter is the age, even with some health issue, is the best ever medication we can found.
Just my opinion.
Sorry I let you now, because I have a short time to finish my huge layout project....
You just never know. I have had a few close calls in my life and I have never been one to go for broke. I am 67 now and can still run full out and walk 20 miles if needed (5 plus is a normal jaunt for me). Had a few setbacks with injeries but nothing that lasted that long. I could still do an 8hr day of construction (did a few projects in the last 2 years or so but I don't push it. My mom will be 99 this year and drove until she was like 93 but has since let herself go, good warning for me, never let yourself go, keep pushing it. So go for it, why worry about time, just make the asles a bit wider in case you have issues in the future.
rrebelljust make the asles a bit wider in case you have issues in the future.
I always suggest to people to make the aisles a little wider and the layout a little lower just in case you have mobility issues in the future.
Good advice.
While younger than many here, there's never a "wrong" or "right" age to start a layout.
Someone told me that the only two rules for a layout:
1. It's may layout
2. Have fun
kasskabooseSomeone told me that the only two rules for a layout: 1. It's my layout 2. Have fun
True. You should always build what you want, and what makes you happy, and you should always have fun along the journey.
Too bad we can't eliminate the occassional frustration.
I have a friend who is 80. He never had a layout and has an emprty basement. Doesn't own trains, yet is inspired to have one. He's done scenery and ballast work on a couple layouts including mine.
As the saying goes 'Pay it forward', I've designed his layout space and we've figured out the cost. As soon as we get past this current situation, my friend and I will build the benchwork for a free standing 20' x 20' layout since he can't (and wife won't let him) attach it to the basement walls. He will have plenty of aisle space and he can't believe the the help that's being offered. Another friend is bringing over his compound mitre saw, I have a portable table saw and power drills will abound.
Like the ads always say.... 'JUST DO IT!'
SeeYou190 kasskaboose Someone told me that the only two rules for a layout: 1. It's my layout 2. Have fun True. You should always build what you want, and what makes you happy, and you should always have fun along the journey.
kasskaboose Someone told me that the only two rules for a layout: 1. It's my layout 2. Have fun
subman First off next month I will be 81 and am in fair health and still fully mobile and just recently tore down my 15x17 garage layout due to my deciding to move into a villa after 55 years of home ownership (I wanted to give the children their inheritance while I am still alive and was fed up with home maintenance problems). I am now a renter and limited to what I can do and not do to the garage for a new layout. All this leads to the question would you start a new layout at my age. I was thinking of just making a few modules one being of the Highland Terminal and the other the Tenderfood layout. Both of these are switching shelf layouts and that is what I prefer rather than continuous running. The other layouts I operate on are all continuous running and very heavy on switching so I still have access to larger layouts. So in a nutshell have any of you started a new layout at 80 and what size did you build if you did or at 80 would you start a new one? Bob D
I'm 65 and about to start a new layout. If I spend ten years on it I'll be 75.
how old will I be in ten years if I don't build a layout?
Disclaimer: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.
Michael Mornard
Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!
Neal Oh what I wouldn`t give for a Northern basement right now without having to live up there.I lived in Randolph N.J. for 15 years, Southern (Florida) basements are for the birds. Garages. That in some cases you have to share with the wifes`car. Put a basement in and you may as well build it on a barge with the watertable down here. You would have a real waterfront scene.
All thanks for the advice. I appreciate it.
subman Southern (Florida) basements are for the birds. Garages. That in some cases you have to share with the wifes`car.
That is why I am remodeling my house from a 4 BR 2 BA to a 2 BR 1 1/2 BA since all the girls have moved away.
My wife gets her massive master bedroom/bathroom, and I get a train room. That is all we need now, plus a SMALL/UNCOMFORTABLE guest bedroom.
I'm 62 and we just downsized from a 3,800 sq ft house, to a 2,300 sq ft house.
But the train room went from 1,000 sq ft (above a 6 car detached garage), to a 1500 sq ft wide open basement.
I win.......
The 1901 house had an unfinished 1350 sq ft basement, but it was not suitable for a layout, headroom being a major issue, not to mention two oil tanks, boiler, A/C unit, well pump and tank, water treatment system, extra washer and dryer, chimney and lots of posts.
The new basement only has a small modern boiler, water heater, small well tank, and a newer much smaller water treatment system, all located in the same corner.
I would never let age dictate a choice like this as long as I could still "do the work".
With any luck, I live long enough to build and enjoy this next layout, and maybe one day they just find me down there with the trains.........
Sheldon
I am building a pyramid in my backyard so that they can bury my layout with me.
I'm 80. I started my home layout in 1983 and kept expanding until it has filled the available space. Recently had an accident there and had to repaint some of he scenery. It's a bear but I'm doing it.
That was at home. At the History Center, Myself and another gentleman cleaned and painted and then converted 2 large rooms and 1 smaller one in the basement into 7 layouts and storage. Then last year I put a train around the ceiling of the small room.
Bottom line, as long as you can do it, then have at it.
Roger Hensley= ECI Railroad - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/eci/eci_new.html == Railroads of Madison County - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/ =
richhotrain I am building a pyramid in my backyard so that they can bury my layout with me. Rich