Rhetorical question that I'm curious about: How far along are the posters and readers of this forum on your respective layouts?
As for me, I assembled the simple benchwork (L-girder construction) on my little switching layout about three years ago, tracked and wired it about a year-and-a-half ago, then decided (before I scenicked it) that I didn't like the track plan and tore up the track here in 2009 to start over. I have just finalized my decision for a new track plan by playing with different configurations on the benchwork, rather than going the drawing route, although several layout designs from this forum as well as some in MR have inspired my thinking.
I'd be interested in hearing from you all on this.
Thanks
Hi!
I'm in the process of building a "replacement" 11x15 two level HO layout, my first with DCC. I started last January, got all the benchwork in, the lower level (staging storage) track laid and wiring completed, and the outer main on the upper level laid and wired. All I've done so far is thoroughly tested, and I've kept the forum up to date with pictures as I progressed.
I got to this point in late November, and then just stopped work on it. Between the upcoming Holidays, my Christmas time Ebay sales, and the exasperating problem I had with a new loco, work just stopped. But as the Holidays are about over, my Ebay sales are pretty much done, and the troublesome loco has been fixed, I'm ready to get back to "work".
Actually, just before I opened this posting, I was running two new P2K E7 units, testing them out. Sooo, that's a good sign, and I suspect I'll be back at it shortly.
By the way, this Forum is absolutely the greatest inspiration for layout building there is, and I truly appreciate it and all the good folks that are a part of it.
ENJOY,
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Well I have about 3 scale miles of mainline down. All turnouts off the main in place, but still no parking available for my 40 car freight or 12 car passenger train so I always have to run them at the same time. I am happy with my track plan, but I did alter it slightly just before building my spline to allow for a larger radius in a couple of curves. I had learned (just in the nick of time) that brass tends to need a larger radius so some adjustments were made. (For the day Sunset builds my Selkirk for me) Trouble is every time I go to work on the layout I end up running my trains. This means advancement has slowed somewhat.
Pink Prairie Lives On!
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Track has been laid, still trying to finish up the wiring and control panel. Then I'll eventually get to the scenary. It's a small layout, about 3'6" x 10', but I'm just taking a very slow pace with it.
All of my track and wiring are done. I've been working on the operations aspect and using that to basically run the trains and make sure everything is working smoothly before starting scenery since it's easier to move things around now before they're glued down.
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html
On the HO Winneshiek & Western: Track is installed, ballasted, wired, and fully operational. Scenery is about 30% complete. I'm currently constructing the office building for the sawmill complex which will serve to conceal a (full sized) support. Most structures are built except for the main sawmill building - the Keystone sawmill kit is in storage. Hope to put in the "hill" that will serve as the visual block between the coal mining town and the logging area next. Not real happy with one control panel, and I may resurface that (don't have to move any switches, just improve the finish).
On the F Scale (1:20.3) Seashore, Horry And Georgetown (SHAG RR) in the back yard: Track has been in place for about two years now and just receives occasional maintainence. Next planned project (likely early Spring) is construction of the Gates of Shell Mine. The battery-powered (Bachmann) locomotives should get a full grease & oil this spring as well.
Bill
Work has stopped. The layout, 14'x23', has all the bench work and two thirds of the track and wiring done. But we bought our retirement home last August and having been moving since then. I expect to salvage track and bench work this winter. With luck we'll sell out old home this spring and I can start finishing off the basement in the new one. My goal is to start the new layout in a year.
Enjoy
Paul
I have all bench work done in a 14' x 28' building. All track is laid. I have about 300 feet of main line, N scale. I have a yard that is 3 ft wide and 6 feet long for the Hump yard, and 3' x 6 ft of additional items in the yard. I have four industries almost complete. Scenery base is complete, everything is painted at least brown in color. I do have most of the back drop painted.
The trains do run on all track. It has taken about 6 years to get this far. I have some buildings completed. I still have many buildings to put together and put on the layout.
Started benchwork in July on an 8' x 10' foot duck under. Currently have 50% track and roadbed down. Plaster clothing and plastering the WS inclines/risers is slowing me down. I also have to build 4 bridges and get them aligned with the track. Then build my control panel, install 20 tortoises and wire up the DCC.
My 5x12 foot table layout in HO is basically complete. Part of the layout has a subway system running beneath the surface tracks. All the scenery is done. Including the planning stage, I'm 5 years into construction. Of course, there are still a few things to add, but those will be on the back burner for a while.
I've started Phase II of the layout, a 19 foot by 2 1/2 foot extension, with a balloon at one end to loop the trains around. I just got the benchwork done a few days ago, and today I got the DCC control bus wired and the jacks installed for the throttles.
Just a bit of the old layout can be seen here, along with most of the new section.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Started a 10' x 14' layout last January. Executive decisions by the wife resulted in the annexation of real estate for use by our son as a playroom, relegating me to another room in the basement. Everything has been ripped out so I'm starting anew in a 12'/9' x 14' oddly-shaped room.
I managed to salvage two 4 ft sections of the layout I made to be portable but now I've got to go back to the drawing board for a track plan. On the plus side, my son now has room for his Thomas the Train table that is right next door to my playroom. This time, everything is going to be semi-portable.
Two words...starting over. I had been working on an expanded HCD layout that would have sat on our dining room table. A bit over a year ago, we decided that we were going to move. Not knowing how much if any space I'd have in the new digs, I disassembled what I had done, and packaged everything for moving. Welllllll, the whole moving thing fell through, and instead the plan shifted to adding a room here....and reworking the weather sieve we jokingly referred to as a garage into a weather tight building to be used for storage...and workshop & train space for me. The work is wrapping up on the space, and I've been working on a plan. Hopefully soon benchwork will begin.
Meanwhile, I've latched on to enough scraps from the construction to build a light weight portable 3x5 test layout. That should begin any day.
Reality...an interesting concept with no successful applications, that should always be accompanied by a "Do not try this at home" warning.
Hundreds of years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove...But the world may be different because I did something so bafflingly crazy that my ruins become a tourist attraction.
"Oooh...ahhhh...that's how this all starts...but then there's running...and screaming..."
Track done except for the main yard (which will come last). Scenery about 50% complete. 16 x 30 room 350 feet +- of HO.
Creating the "world" is half the fun of course.
The mind is like a parachute. It works better when it's open. www.stremy.net
Bench work is done.
Just an around the wall n scale thingy.
I hope to have the track down before fishing season but then again,im still in hunting season.
Good to be back after a 7 year hiatus.
Been working on it just shy of two years and the bench work is complete for the most part in this room and all of the subroadbed and track work on the branch line is done, working on the double track main elevated section, but do the words one step forward and five steps backwards mean anything. Every time I venture into a new part of the layout, like installing bridges over one valley of the main line it leads to redoing the entire scene just to get everything just right. Maybe there is something to be said for following a track plan that someone else did?
Between living on a severance package prior to filing for retirement and SS, I have been in the conceptual and planning for what would be about my 8th, and possibly final HO layout in a something like 8'X13' space, expecting to fill it with a doughnut, but now the boss has this wild hair about moving to SC to be closer to our son and his family. From what I've been able to see, basements are almost unheard of in the area, and from anticipating the size of house we might be able to afford, the layout might change to a coffee table or fold-up bookcase type N layout. Or maybe the new house, if I loose the discussion, would have a 2 car garage that I can claim some ROW.
I actually did start collecting some N rolling stock for a small transition era pike, but my experience converting rolling stock from Rapido to Kadee couplers kind of soured me on the idea. My 66 year old fingers aren't as nimble as they used to be.
I See that I'm not alone in my venture in that life seems to get in the way of the progress in creating a railroad.I must say that I have one major fault - - not being able to get off of a project I'm having trouble with and doing something else (like working on detailing locomotives and rolling stock or building structures), to give the "problem" project a rest for awhile. Although I have completed some structure scratchbuilding and kitbashing, I can't seem to get off the track plan thing that I've had such a hard time trying to figure out. I only built the structures because they are two of the major industries that are served by rail in this industrial corridor and I had to know how the track would go into and around them.
I do however, feel a bit relieved now that I have some concept of a track plan that is doable. Building a switching puzzle can boggle my mind. I'm wondering: Anybody else out there had that problem of trying to figure out the "maze" of a switching layout?
Well, my current layout was started in 1984 and for all practical purposes is done. It is a three deck, 29ft by 33ft layout. Scenery is done, track is done, structures are done, it is an operating layout now.
Bob
I began this one (HO) in 2003 in a previous and smaller house, so it was only 4x7. I finished the inner loop and reversing loop, and then we moved to a bigger house in 2005. I cut the layout in half and rebuilt it to 7x12. I left the old 18-inch curves as "abandoned track," and my larger radius curves and reversing loop work much better now. I have some hope of expanding the layout off the table to the walls to simulate the Gilluly Loops near Helper, UT, which is a really good place for railfanning, BTW.
I still have only the inner loop of the double-track main line done, and I have cut and painted the wood and masonite parts for the control panel. Slow progress, but the nineteen-car train looks and sounds just great running with temporary wiring.
My layout keeps getting as far as a semi-workable plan before I scrap it. I'm torn between building a small or partial layout in the very small space I have now, or waiting until I inevitably move in 2 or 3 years.
I'm starting my first layout.
Here's some links:
http://i940.photobucket.com/albums/ad249/misterconsister/P5035534.jpg
http://i940.photobucket.com/albums/ad249/misterconsister/P5035535.jpg
http://i940.photobucket.com/albums/ad249/misterconsister/P5035539.jpg
http://i940.photobucket.com/albums/ad249/misterconsister/Layout.jpg
Will be securing center section fairly soon then will construct the loops
Eric
I'm kinda likin this stuff
Nice start to a good looking layout, Eric! That's a great looking control panel too.
Wikious,
My advice: From my personal expereince of starting over fairly late in life and now living in an apartment (with quite limited space as you might imagine), I have to be reminded by others to be good to myself during this transition time. That being said, I do have a small switching layout that is basically designed to fit into a larger "dream" layout someday.
What I'm saying is go ahead and build whatever fits your space, budget, lifestyle, etc. at the time. You can do nothing but improve your modeling skills in the meantime. just throwing in my two cents worth, for what it's worth.
I've got some ideas, and the start to an overall plan..... That's about it.
E-L man tomHow far along are the posters and readers of this forum on your respective layouts?
Trackwork is all done, structures (with one exception) are built and temporarily in their final positions. Layout is operational.
Scenery is about 10% done.
I'm currently in the process of scenicing the river bed, alternating that with ballasting track (which I hate) and detailing some of my bridges. I also spend some time tuning my rolling stock (mostly replacing couplers).
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
E-L man tomHow far along
Not very far and not as far as I would like, but I've still got time to make this a New Years's Resolution. For some reason I don't think that will make any difference.
The Starting Point
UGH
Looking Better
Getting There
Don't Ever Give Up
well Im up and running or should I say testing ,here Im trying to post a pict" mce_src="">
hey every one I did it ,oops but there is two picts I only wanted one,oh well .been playing @ this for a little over a year got a bit of a plan but coulndt visuallize ,so I built bench work ,then I built a room around the bench work ,then I tacked track down with thumb tacks,then I built a couple of structures and I call it testing .... but now Im getting an idea of what I can do ...any way room is 14x16 and the benchs are somewhat modular, frame,thin ply,then foam (when I have a real plan)..left side is 12" bench (just track thru the mountains) middle is a blob 54" (may be a helex to lower stage),right side is 24" to 42" angled for yard/ industry type thing .... having fun and learning alot7.photobucket.com/albums/af92/JNWELTER/IMG_2027.jpg[/IMG]" mce_src="7.photobucket.com/albums/af92/JNWELTER/IMG_2027.jpg[/IMG]">
I started the BELLECHASE & BLUE MTN. CENTRAL one year ago. To date I've finished the bench work, 80% of the track work, 30% of the scenery, then took a break for several months. Will start upagain next week working on phase one, the small town of "JUDY GAP". I"m 60% done but not happy with backdrop portion so will revamp it and then work on the small details. Iplanned on taking pictures and posting them when finnished. So keep an eye out over the comming months. My railroad is a long term project 4 - 5 years most likely unless of course I hit the lottery sometime soon. By the way it's a 15' by 12' layout.