Is your layout more than 20 years old? Did you build it not knowing much about quality track work? Was it initially DC?
Many of us have layouts we build before DCC and with little or no real knowledge about laying track, switches and wiring. we kind of learned as we built. Now the layout is 20+ years old and you know so much more and just don't accept derailment, stalls or just running around a loop.
What percent of the original layout still exists?
Gary
My layout was nowhere near 20 yrs old the first time I tore a section out and redesigned it.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
About 300%. My kids always joked about how my epitaph will be "Always Thinking." Which is the source of my problem: "Oh," say I to myself, "if I had done it THIS way it would have been better, wait, where's that knife?"
My layout is 16 years old. It is nearing a completed state, by that I mean all track will soon be laid and all sections scenicked. To me that is complete as opposed to finished which most of us agree is something that is never done.
So far I have not ripped out any major sections and rebuilt them. When I complete the last section I am working on, there are a couple crossovers which need to be redone which are prone to derailments. One of them is at the entrance to my main yard.
If there is a major redo, it will be with my staging yards which are stacked loops. I didn't design enough clearance between the two which makes access to the lower loop problematic. I am considering several options from creating greater seperation to relocating one of the loops. For the latter there are several options and I'm not sure which I will use if I ever get around to it. It will be a major undertaking with lots of new trackwork.
So far I've ripped up about 15% mostly due to bad track work that caused derails or tracks too close together or too close to scenery. There are still some areas where there is a dip or hump that I would like to fix. For now, everything is running without derailing so I need to finish the DCC and turnout wiring first.
Can't believe this dip doesn't cause a derail https://imgur.com/gallery/6JvJt
100% of my original 1970s layout is gone. That layout included slot cars also. It had really steep grades that were more like a roller coaster than a railroad. It was a lot of fun to play with. Most of the equipment was of the toy variety so I never had problems with 18 inch curves or derailments. In the 1980s I built a new layout with point to point operation and hidden staging. It had issues. You either had to assemble a train in an extremely narrow aisle, which was never meant to be, or you had to back the train into it so you could drive it out later. I didn’t like point to point, so I blasted a hole through a mountain and created a loop for continuous running. In the 1990s I rebuilt the entire layout. This layout was larger and I had worked out some of the design flaws. The main fix was the old hidden staging. On the redesign I made the staging two tracks instead of one and connected it to the end of the line so it was self staging.I am currently rebuilding it all with wider radius turns. I still use DC since I have some nice walk around throttles and never have other operators so I see no reason to switch.
My last ISL lasted around five years..Its history..A new one is being built.
I know of a HO club layout that hasn't been rebuilt since it was finish sixty years ago and it still has its original brass track and Marn-O-Stat throttles..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
My problem is, Ive found out after a while I want to incorporate something new,or I get tired of the old layout, so I tear it down and start over. It does get expensive so I have to watch it but it keeps me busy & I never lose interest.
the old train man It does get expensive so I have to watch it but it keeps me busy & I never lose interest.
Call me Scrooge but,that's the reason I use a layout for years before I decide to rebuild. One N Scale layout I built lasted around 10 years and then only because I returned to HO.
Brakie I agree,when I said I rebuild, I meant every few years.
Layout was built about 4 years ago and is compleat. Added a part of a layout that was never finished to this one and changes to that were made but mainly because the entrance is now on the left instead of right side.
I started my layout ~1990. I bit off more than I could chew and made one mistake after another. There is no section of my layout that hasn't been redone at least once. Now that I am 69, I am determined to leave the track alone and get the scenery done, after I finish this last section of track laying.
I sure wish the internet was availble when I started along with great forums like this one.
SouthPenn I started my layout ~1990. I bit off more than I could chew and made one mistake after another. There is no section of my layout that hasn't been redone at least once. Now that I am 69, I am determined to leave the track alone and get the scenery done, after I finish this last section of track laying.
I started my layout in January, 2004, then kept adding to it, and didn't have the skills or experience to fix what I had already built. Like South Penn, I have redone most sections of my layout. It took me years to eliminate derailments, unintended uncouplings, humps and valleys.
The under side of my layout looks like an explosion in a spaghetti (wiring) factory. I have ballasted and re-ballasted more times than I care to count. I have kept Woodland Scenics in business with the number of plastic bottles of ground cover that I have purchased.
I, too, am determined to leave the track alone......just as soon as I complete adding a second lead track into and out of my downtown passenger station. Oh, and just as soon as I re-do my 9-track freight yard............and re-wire my control panels.
Rich
Alton Junction
Also, I have rewired the entire layout at least three times.
gdelmoro...What percent of the original layout still exists?
Pretty much all of it, although I have added to it (a planned partial second level).After reading some of the replies, I can't decide if my original work was fairly well-planned and executed or if I'm not very fussy, and couldn't be bothered to fix whatever it is that's wrong with it.I did redo a siding, though, but mainly to accommodate an additional industry...
Oh, yeah, and it was originally DC....I didn't notice anything wrong with that, either, so it's still DC.
Wayne
gdelmoroMany of us have layouts we build before DCC
.
I have never had a DCC layout, and my next (and last) layout will be DC.
DC is perfect for me, and less stuff to go wrong, troubleshoot, and replace.
BTW... I have ripped out 100% of layouts multiple times, and currently have no layout.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
A few years ago I decided to replace a Korber 5 stall roundhouse with a Heljan 7 stall. I had to rip out all the stall tracks and replace them. I'm still not completely satisfied with it. I believe that temperture fluctuations (my 8' x 16' layout is in the 3rd bay of a three-car garage) has a way of tweaking the stall tracks. I built the turntable (15 years ago) from a CMR kit. Not totally satisfied with it either. I work full time 5 days a week. I'm thinking when I finally retire, I may rip the turntable out and go with another brand.
Going back to the first layout I started in my present space almost 14 years ago, 100% of that layout from the joists up. About 70% of that layout's basic benchwork survived. The reason, my wife ceded me the other stall of our 2-car garage, prompting a major redesign.
That one section of benchwork was turned end-for-end, and now accounts for about 20% of the total buildable area. What's on it now bears absolutely no resemblance to what was planned for the original layout.
As for the present layout, now approaching its twelfth birthday, I had to lift and re-lay about three lengths of Atlas code 100 flex track to correct for inadequate expansion gaps. Thee were also a couple of places where I had to install screws and washers to tame some wandering rail ends. Really, just correction of minor teething problems, hardly major rebuilds.
As for the electricals, I installed them once, to plan. They're working fine. Analog DC, MZL system. DCC??? Don't need it, don't want it, can't use it in my business.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with 1960s technology)
For thos of you who don't have/want DCC that's your choice and who to say which is correct? I certinally have had more problems with DCC than I ever had with DC. Mostly with decoders. I had a DC layout for more than 25 years, then I kept reading about this DCC thing and whistles, horns, loco sounds that come from the loco proto lighting, bells, really smothe running at very slow speeed, etc. I couldn't resist!
In 1983 I built a 4 x 7. Shortly afterward I decided it needed a snall yard off to the side, and then a lage yard and then...
About this time I ripped out the track that was buckling, repaced the wood, moved the farm and...
My layout has changed many time over the years, including a city and upper yard and and and...
But its still the same railroad. :-)
Roger Hensley= ECI Railroad - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/eci/eci_new.html == Railroads of Madison County - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/ =
gdelmoro For thos of you who don't have/want DCC that's your choice and who to say which is correct? I certinally have had more problems with DCC than I ever had with DC. Mostly with decoders. I had a DC layout for more than 25 years, then I kept reading about this DCC thing and whistles, horns, loco sounds that come from the loco proto lighting, bells, really smothe running at very slow speeed, etc. I couldn't resist!
richhotrain gdelmoro For thos of you who don't have/want DCC that's your choice and who to say which is correct? I certinally have had more problems with DCC than I ever had with DC. Mostly with decoders. I had a DC layout for more than 25 years, then I kept reading about this DCC thing and whistles, horns, loco sounds that come from the loco proto lighting, bells, really smothe running at very slow speeed, etc. I couldn't resist! It's not so much the sounds of bells and whistles that makes DCC appealing to those of us who use it. It is the ability to run multiple trains without the need for blocks and block wiring. That is really where DCC has the advantage over DC..............IMHO. Rich
It's not so much the sounds of bells and whistles that makes DCC appealing to those of us who use it. It is the ability to run multiple trains without the need for blocks and block wiring. That is really where DCC has the advantage over DC..............IMHO.
And in some cases that is reason enough for DCC, it was after all the original reason DCC and its predecessors were developed.
But if you subscribe to the "one train, one operator" theory, or if you want CTC, or if you like display running and plan display loops into the track plan, than the advantages, features and benefits of DCC are quickly reduced to its other features.
So if you don't want sound, a well planned DC system can function pretty much like DCC, depending on your specific goals. But I will admit, good DC systems require planning..........
As to the OP's question, I have always made minor changes to layouts, never major ones - but then again I am a "planner"........so I'm generally happy with what I build.
Sheldon
Well, I have never had a layout last 20 years. Some don't even last a year. I'm moving in a couple of months and will start another layout. I've lost count of the number of layouts, but it's more than 15. The new one will be the last. But then I have already said that more than once. Doesn't matter, I enjoy the process of building benchwork, laying track, and wiring it. I don't usually get to scenery.
Paul
100% of it. I have had this basic layout/benchwork 11+ years and have changed it at least three times, including the layout rebuild after moving last fall. I reconfigured some of the track after the move as well.
I am thinking of ripping about a third of my layout out eventually because the tracks are too close together.
Joe Staten Island West
I built a layout a little over 4.5 years ago. I started on a door and glued some cork sheets onto it. Unfortunately it never left that planning stage.
Lately a few months ago I started ripping the cork off and nails out. It's a slow process but the cork is not salvageable.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.