My first layout was on a 4x8' sheet of plywood HO scale. No benchwork, the plywood sheet was just on top of an old antique dining table. Built in 1981, dismantled 1988. My dad helped me build it, it was primarily an oval with an inside passing siding and a smaller oval inside that. It had a mismatch of brass and nickel silver sectional track (18" radius curves because I didn't know any better), manual and remote-controlled turnouts. My second layout (1988-2006) was a 4x12' HO pike, built on benchwork in three combined sections, with the end sections 4x4' and the middle section 2x4'. It had Atlas Code 100 track in the mainline and Atlas/Walthers Code 83 track in yard and sidings. It was a folded dogbone arrangement with a grade. It also had 18" radius minimum curves because I didn't know any better, though there were curved sections with larger curves built with flextrack. I was in my teens when I built it, all by myself, and continued into my young adult years. It was mainly abandoned in the mid-1990s due to college, jobs, and other pursuits, but the biggest thing that killed my enjoyement of the hobby was those 18" radius curves. There were some rolling stock I wanted to run that I realized couldn't run on my layout until it was all assembled. Manufacturers, at least then, never talked about minimum radius so I never thought it was an issue. Then I looked at all those pretty layouts in Model Railroader and RMC magazines and they all have a minimum radius of AT LEAST 30". FML.
I'm on my 3rd layout (2006-present), 4x8' built on benchwork, but this time in N scale. I finally decided to get rid of the 4x12 layout gathering dust, sell my HO trains and structures and reboot my hobby interest in a new scale. I do have 18" radius curves, but now they are an asset instead of a liability. I can run anything on my layout now. I'm used to N and love it, the quality is much better than it was in the '70s and '80s, it's practically just a smaller version of HO now. Glad to be in N scale, I'm used to the size now, HO feels like O scale to my eyes and hands now. I've never looked back.
riogrande5761 NWP SWP My layout will most definitely not be a throw away... even when I have a bigger layout the first will still be used as a display layout for shows and stuff... Nothing is definite except death and taxes; it is a truism you will learn in time.
NWP SWP My layout will most definitely not be a throw away... even when I have a bigger layout the first will still be used as a display layout for shows and stuff...
My layout will most definitely not be a throw away... even when I have a bigger layout the first will still be used as a display layout for shows and stuff...
Nothing is definite except death and taxes; it is a truism you will learn in time.
And people are working on eradicating death.
Paul
My Lionel layout was set up every Christmas for about fifteen years until my youngest sibling outgrew it. My HO layout, the PSSM line, for my kids was a 4 x 8 set up in the basement and remained operable for about ten years although use declined as kids got older. My first N layout, the P & M, was based on the Atlas Gulf Summit Lines and remained in operation for over 10 years until we renovated the basement so my son could live there while going to law school. I took off several years but when we moved to our new house in 2006 I started over with another 4 x 8 N layout, the East Penn, which is currently operational. Recycled almost all of the structures, locomotives, rolling stock, and electrical components from the P & M. For the past 5 years I've been working on an L shaped N layout about 15 feet on each side of the L. Hoping to get it operational by next year.
My first layout was old HO equipment from my dad on a 4'x8' in the garage. The EZ track rusted out and grimed over, so the table eventually ended as storage. The board is still somewhere and has the paintings my little brother (he was 5 at the time) put on as scenery.
The second layout was the most complete. I bought an N-Scale Prairie for a mislabeled $10 at Hobby Lobby, thanks to some clueless/apathetic employees, and built the Woodland Scenics starter kit with an oval. I eventually scrapped that table as I wanted something bigger (and the table was falling apart).
The third never got off the ground, metaphorically. Much of the mountainwork was done when I realized that I had done no planning and the layout was nonsensical and infeasible, so I tore it up and scrapped a lot of the material. My girlfriend was appalled; she saw something pretty in it, I guess.
My fourth and current layout is a modular Nn3 layout that lives in my master bedroom thanks to my awesome wife (the aforementioned girlfriend). I built the table as a Christmas display with my N-Scale Prairie (the aforementioned Prairie) and she supported the idea of turning it into a full layout.
BRAKIEKevin,I hit a hole in one with my first ISL
.
I don't doubt that a first layout can easily be a good layout, and even an enjoyable and reliable layout. My first layout was a blast that I loved for three good years.
I only observe, and the main point is, the first layout is extremely likely not to be the last layout.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Thanks for your very kind words, John, but the partial upper level doesn't have all of the trackwork finished, and not much else there has even been started.On the original part of the layout, there are several areas that haven't been touched since the original plaster landforms were done, like here, where I hope to re-create (sorta) the neighbourhood of my early childhood...
...or this area, where the only progress has been the accumulation of more junk (at least it's junk related to the layout )...
In this area, the aisle-side of the track is pretty-well done, but most of the temporary structures seen here on the other side of the tracks have been removed, so most of the town has yet to be built...
...and here, which was planned to be a lushly forested area, ideal for taking photos of trains, remains a barren wasteland...
I can "operate" the layout, but seldom have time for even that. It's said that no layout is ever finished, so my hope is that I'll get it to a point where it all at least looks presentable before it's time to tear it out.
Wayne
I'm not sure what the lifespan of my first layout creation will be except to say the creation process itself may well outdistance my own life span! It may just be the perfectionist in my, but with every step of bench construction and with the reading of every article and forum post, I'm faced with more and more conundrums and questions. Things are going painfully slow and I'm about to ask my wife if I can lay a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood across out dining room table just so that I can lay down some track and watch a train go 'round. Anyway, it's back to the basement to do some more carpentry benchwork...the real issues lie ahead in creating the layout itself. In times like these, I almost wish I had stuck with restoring vintage tractors! Doc
doctorwayne I'm still doing work for others, but when the current stuff is wrapped up, I hope to put a major push on getting the whole layout looking at least presentable. Wayne
I'm still doing work for others, but when the current stuff is wrapped up, I hope to put a major push on getting the whole layout looking at least presentable.
Friends,
The above is the last item in Dr. Wayne's initial response here (3rd entry). I'm left scratching my head, wondering how many of us would like to ferret out his address and come up with a flimsy excuse to visit a nearby natural wonder. All the while having real designs to arrive in town, pick up a box of doughnuts, drop by his house, knock on the door, and introduce ourselves as long lost cousins. If he doesn't consider his pike "presentable", I'd be more than happy to take it off his hands. Oh, and I'd be glad to take with it anything with wheels.
Good on ya, Wayne.
John
SeeYou190There are so many skills to learn and acquire when you are starting out. It would be foolish to think anyone has much of a chance of getting the first layout "in the hole" so to speak. . -Kevin
Kevin,I hit a hole in one with my first ISL only because I had a good teacher-watching my dad lay track and I read track laying articles in MR.
Anybody can do it all it requires is some studying then doing the job right.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Well, my first layout lasted almost 4 years. It was built for me by my father when I was 10. It consisted of two 5x9 platforms in an "L" shape, two complex loops of TruScale track, elevated track, bridges, plaster mountains, passing sidings, hidden staging sidings in the rear under the mountain, Aristo trolley bus, lighted houses and more.
I built lots of additional rolling stock, converted the old rolling stock from dummy couplers to Kadee, and more.
I added some industrial spurs and more structures.
It only came down because we moved.........
I started my next layout a year and a half later after we moved back into the same house (long story) and completed an addition I designed, which expanded the basement. I now had a 25' x 25' "L" shaped space, each leg being 12' wide.
Side note, I guess this is why I'm spoiled about curve radius, at 15 years old my layout had 36" radius cuves...........
I filled that space with a layout that lasted nearly 4 years until I got married and moved out.
I have only once taken a layout down to simply change it. That would be the current change from a very permanently built multi deck layout to a single deck built in modules for a future move.
I have no desire to start over from scratch ever again.....tired of wasted effort.....
Sheldon
My very first layout was a 3x4 N scale which I later combined with another 3x4 board to create a larger layout. I kept the later one for about two years before we moved and I had to do away with it. After that I went without for about ten years until I built my current 3x6 table. The reason for its small size is due to the small space I had to build it in...
Thank you for all the shares in this thread.
It appears very few first layouts last veruy long at all. That is what I thought.
There are so many skills to learn and acquire when you are starting out. It would be foolish to think anyone has much of a chance of getting the first layout "in the hole" so to speak.
My first ISL lasted from '62 -67.. I did it right and it was fun to operate.
Before that I operated on my dad's U shape dog bone layout which had a 4 track yard and had four or maybe five industries. My Dad was never into operation..He like to kick back and watch them run while sipping coffee or a cold soda.
He was amused by my "operation" which was a diesel powered local from the yard and after switching all the industries the local returned to the yard.
I'm not sure if this thread is meant to be about first layout we built or had? I was given a Lionel 4x6 Layout for Christmas at age 4.
But as an adult I didn't build proper layout until I was about 31 or so in my garage at a house my ex owned (and I got to live in) while I was in graduate school in Indiana University in Bloomington IN. That layout was a 16x19' hollow L shaped layout built with 30 inch minimum radius curves, and had 3 track return loops at each end, single track mainline and a yard and one passing siding.
It was a pretty ambitious for a first layout and I was just starting to build sub scenery when I was finished with grad school and had to move to NY for a job. I did sell the layout because it was built in sections which could be broken down. A guy from Kokomo IN came in a U-haul truck to buy it and haul it back up north.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
My first layout was a N scale L shaped layout. I built it when I was 10 (I think) and it survived until I was 15. It did not get much use. Anyway, that benchwork was saved when I moved and I decided shortly after my 18th birthday to build a three-rail O layout that still exists, incorporating that original benchwork on one part.
My current first layout is the construction phase to be painted. It's a small 2.5 x4.5 foot, that will be decorated in desert with a bridge next to a secondary road.
The other side will have a industry building, some trees, and a parking garage.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
Wow the master bedroom !!! My wife is great but i think that would get the " are you kidding me" reply
I got an American Flyer around 8-9,couldn't play it,my Mother was afraid I would get electrocuted, never did find out what became of it
. In my late 20s I wanted to have a layout, no money, bought some used stuff,turned out to be junk, gave up on it. Did that twice. Late 30s tryed again, got it running,kind of.A change of jobs shut that one down. Gave it to my nephew,who now owns a MR manufactureing co
. Late 50s was going to start again, this time doing it right.Got a good engine,peco turnouts ect. Built a timesaver on a 2X8 table in spare bedroom. Then added another 2X8 for an L. Kid came back home lost the bedroom. Moved to basement,old farm house, spent six mts.cleaning out cobwebs and dead mince,painted walls,started again. Kept addiing tables, ended up with a 14X16 folded dogbone
.About a year ago found myself up against all walls no where to go any more. Lost interest, and the whole thing sat idle till this last Dec. Found out we will need to replace the furnance,so the whole ting came down.Furance went in 2nd week of Jan,I've been rebuilding sence.
IRONROOSTERmy wife let me build my second layout in the master bedroom.
Isn't that great? When I switched to HO right after our second daughter was born, my wife let me build a 2 by 6 switching layout in the master bedroom.
The layout was pretty high to clear the top of the dresser.
My first layout was 4x8. I used a plan in the back of John Armstrong's book Track Planning for Realistic Operation 1st ed. (not in the the 3rd ed.). It was a twice around with 2 passing sidings, 3 track yard and turntable - but I never did the turntable. I built it with Atlas brass track and wired it using Atlas components. I built it in the spare bedroom of our 2 bedroom apartment. It lasted 5 months until the birth of my first son, my wife then said he got the bedroom.
But my wife let me build my second layout in the master bedroom. It was 6x6 1/2 and was my own design - double track oval with a town based on the timesaver, a branch line led out of town up a hill to a small town. Most of the track and some scenery was in when I tore it down after 2 years -we were moving.
I think those first 2 layout were the ones I had the most fun with. The hobby was new and exciting. I was learning and trying out lots of new stuff. I build better layouts now ( I think the one I'm about to start is number 12) and they're stiff fun, but the first 2 were special.
My first layout (not including childhood) was 15'x30' finished to the point of just needing weathering and more detail parts.
My first layout (if you can call the floor a layout) was a Tyco GP-38 set painted in "Bi-Centennial color's . It was a 5 foot oval. It was picked up and put away every few day's ( basicly whenever Mom told me to clean my room. )
My first "real" layout was a 4X8 piece of plywood in a storage shed behind our house. Double track oval with a figure 8 bridge in the center. Ran that layout for about 4 year's. 1977 to 1981.
After that, well ..... thing's got a little out of hand.
Rust...... It's a good thing !
My first layout when I was a kid was slot cars and trains on a 4x8 sheet of plywood. It only lasted a couple of years. When I got bored of the slot cars I took it all apart and then used the plywood as the start of my first serious model railroad layout. This layout used the plywood as the center section with a mountain in the middle. Behind the mountain there were staging tracks. On one end of the 4x8 was a 4x4 section of open grid bench work that was covered with grass paper. Then there was a scrap of 4x8 plywood coming off of the side. On the other side of the original 4x8 was another section of open grid which was about 4x12. All of this made a C shape. This layout lasted from junior high school through part of college. It had 18 inch curves. I had Atlas and Tyco locomotives and mostly Tyco cars.
My first layout, I was like six or so. My grandfather took a sheet of plywood (4x4, I think), covered it with that old grass mat stuff that was sawdust on paper, and tacked a circle of HO track around it, with another circle of N in the center. Town in the middle, styrofoam mountain, a few trees... ran my old Tyco Chattanooga set on it with the 0-8-0 1263 locomotive. (Still have the loco and a few cars... loco's dead as Hoffa though).
That ended up stacked against the basement wall until my parents threw it out. I also had a 4x8 N-scale from my father that was never run. That ended up rotting in the tool shed out back. Bad juju there.
Then I got one from a great uncle who passed. HO with brass track, some switches and sidings. Royal bear to clean, but in hindsight, it was really nice. But I was young and stupid and really only wanted to watch trains go around. Never really got the point of all those spurs, so I ended up ripping out the track and buildings (still got most of them, and I'll use them on my new layout) and starting fresh. Well, with college, several moves, jobs, getting married, money crunches.... it never went too far.
So now I'm in my new place, with room for a layout that can give me the best of both worlds, solid plans on paper, and a good amount of saved and scrounged items to start with. Money's still crunched, but I can work around that, albeit slowly. But this one's going to be designed to break down and move with me if and when the time comes. Kinda tired of reinventing wheels.
- Adam
When all else fails, wing it!
My early layouts - Lionel & HO - lasted about 3 years until we moved. But my last layout (HO 11x15 two level) was built in 94 and lasted almost 14 years. It was demolished because it was overly wired DC, too much dark rockwork, and space squandering reverse loops. A new layout (similar in size/type) was built in 2008 and remains in play.
While the first one had solid benchwork, trackage and wiring, the new one is much improved and "as good as I can make it".
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
My last layout began in 1983 as a 4x7. It then began to expand unti it has reached the level it is today.
PS It's still alive and operating.
Roger Hensley= ECI Railroad - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/eci/eci_new.html == Railroads of Madison County - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/ =