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Costs of HO layouts
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Well, I'm at an interesting point to comment... <br /> <br />I've recently moved and building entirely new layout. Not reusing much other than locos and rolling stock. Taking advantage of a clean slate to switch to code-83 and code-70 track, etc. <br /> <br />And, for some reason, I thought I'd like to track costs on it. So what I've done is buy every single thing for this layout on a credit card I don't otherwise use (it was and will shortly again just be an "emergency spare"), which I then pay off each month from my 'train fund' money... Figured since a lot of it would get bought over the 'net anyhow, most would flow through plastic regardless, so let's do it all that way. <br /> <br />So for a roughly 20x30 layout, I'm into precisely $2,468 as of today. That covers all the lumber I need, foam, all track, all turnouts, roadbed, wire, toggles, connectors, LEDs, etc. it also includes about half the tortoise machines I'm going to have to buy. (bought 45, need another 49) It includes NO scenery and NO rolling stock or motive power. <br /> <br />I've planned on the initial cost runnig $5,000 to get to a fully-operational-but-unscenicked state, and I'm probably on track for that, or maybe a little less. I probably have 90% of my materials (by quantity), purchased already, but the few remaining things are mostly "big" ones. i still have to decide what I'm doing with my DCC setup (discussed elsewhere), which will be $3-500, and I'm still looking at needing those tortoises (roughly $600 more just there). <br /> <br />As noted above, there's no "labor" cost in any of this... Though I probably should admit that the "beer" budget is likely about $40 by now and likely to double before the end of intiial construction. <br /> <br />My roster probably represents another $3-5,000 spent over time, plus things I've inherited from friends, been given as gifts, etc. (probably half the roster wasn't "paid for" by me one way or the other). I will be wanting more rolling stock to support the new, much larger layout effectively. Probably near-done on motive power, since I have a fetish for locos anyway, so already had more than I could ever reasonably run on the old setup. <br /> <br />Then there's scenery, buildings, etc. I have some structures I can repurpose, and so forth... That will certainly be a "spread over time" cost, and I have no idea what it will run... But wouldn't be at all surprised if that's another $3-5,000 over the course of a couple years. <br /> <br />If I decide to go heavily into automated signaling, other stationary decoder-driven things, etc. that could add another major cost component. That's currently on my "yeah, one day" list and well in the future. <br /> <br />FWIW of course... <br /> <br />
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