ollevon Hi Rich, I haven't chimed in, in quit a while, but first off how are you? I had the same problem. So I thought this was a good time to reply Dont send the wife on vacation, go with her. Now that golf season is winding down do what I did and go to Florida for a month or two, play more golf, and while your at it you might get more ideas on your dream layout you always talked about. Just saying. Sam
Hi Rich,
I haven't chimed in, in quit a while, but first off how are you? I had the same problem. So I thought this was a good time to reply
Dont send the wife on vacation, go with her. Now that golf season is winding down do what I did and go to Florida for a month or two, play more golf, and while your at it you might get more ideas on your dream layout you always talked about. Just saying.
Sam
Rich
Alton Junction
How long did it take to complete your layout?
No layout is ever complete but mine is at the stage where the mainline is fully scenicked and operational. I still plan a branch line addition which I expect will occupy most of the cold weather months.
Model railroading is a cold weather hobby for me and I am just getting back into it. I had my first operating sessions last spring before and really enjoyed it. I settled on the tried and true car card/waybill system after looking at several computer generated switch lists options. It is not as cumbersome as I feared. Still a few bugs to work out, but I think this is the system for me.
I enjoy operations but being a lone wolf, a timetable/fast clock system is not for me. Too many things that should be going on simultaneously can't be done that way. Instead, I work off a script where train movements and switching operations are done in a sequence without concern about what time it is. I had to worry about deadlines before I retired. Who wants to do that with their hobby?
If operation is not your thing, just run the trains. I don't know how big a layout you have or how many trains you operate, but between my operating sessions, sometimes I enjoy just running the trains through the scenery. Even if you don't have formal operating sessions, you can take a free lanced approach and switch cars at spurs and in the yards as you see fit. You might find you like operations and eventually start formal operations.
trwroute I am also a lone wolf even though I live in the D/FW area where there are lots of modelers. When I have a layout that nears its completion, I like to start over. Most of the time in a new scale / gauge. It keeps things fresh for me. I also tend to model on the cheap side. I like to use old MDC cars and older locomotives that I can repower and work them up to my standards. To me, that is as much fun, or maybe more, as building a layout.
I am also a lone wolf even though I live in the D/FW area where there are lots of modelers. When I have a layout that nears its completion, I like to start over. Most of the time in a new scale / gauge. It keeps things fresh for me.
I also tend to model on the cheap side. I like to use old MDC cars and older locomotives that I can repower and work them up to my standards. To me, that is as much fun, or maybe more, as building a layout.
Allow me to be the contrarian. For the most part, I don't enjoy the layout building process and up until now, it has consumed far too much of my modeling time. If I could have afforded it, I would have paid somebody to build it for me. I'd rather run trains, either in formal operating sessions or just idiot running. I like seeing trains run through completed scenery.
Last spring I finally got my mainline fully scenicked and operational and had a few stabs at operating sessions. Still some bugs to be worked out but I really enjoyed it. I still plan to add a branch line on a peninsula so my layout building is not finished. I began the layout about a dozen years ago and never dreamed it would take me this long to get to the stage I am at. Building vs. operating time has been about 90-10 up until now. I'm hoping that during the branchline construction, it will be closer to 50-50 and eventually 10-90 where the only construction will be enhancing what I have. That's the dream.
woodman How long did it take to complete your layout?
I had the initial bench work and track work completed by mid-2007. Then, I landscaped and ballasted the entire layout over the course of the next year and a half before expanding the layout in 2008, 2011, 2012, and 2013.
The winter of 2013-14 was used to upgrade the electronics and divide the layout into separate power districts.
Operations can be as involved or as easy as you make it. For local freights, you could have 1, 2, or 4 position waybills with car cards, or you could have a computerized switchlist.
For passenger operations, it could be just a roundy-round, or running specific consists in a certain order that picks up and drops whole sections or just mail & express cars off along the way.
A lone wolf passenger operation, for example, can be quite variable and interesting by using prototype passenger train consist lists. Why? Because the real thing varied by the season and by the day of the week. On the New Haven, which had a lot of passenger trains, the Friday version of the "Merchants Limited" was different from the Monday version. So when you operate your layout, and it's really a Wednesday in the Summer, use the Wednesday consist from the Summer book.
I get a lot more enjoyment out of operations if I can figure out why the real railroads did what they did and I'm able to replicate it on the layout. It gets boring pretty quick to just run trains in circles...sort of like playing Monopoly without using the dice (just moving your piece to wherever you want). Operations is sort of like playing a board game but the rules are reality. If you don't follow the "rules", then what's the point?
Paul A. Cutler III
cmrproductsThen Operations got in the way and I spend more time RUNNIG the layout than WORKING on it.
Ain't nothing wrong with that, it's why many/most build a layout anway, to run those trains they bought!
Unlike the rest of the Hobby guys - that get bored so quick doing a simple 4 x 8 only because they can see the end of their project in coming in a few days and don't realize the reason one purchases ELECTRIC TRAINS is to play with them - NOT Build Layouts over and over! Appeariently the Model Press has once again failed us and told us that Roundy Round IS THE ONLY WAY! :-) ;-)
Appeariently the Model Press has once again failed us and told us that Roundy Round IS THE ONLY WAY! :-) ;-)
Well, most of us as kids built a loop of track so we should all know how quickly you get bored with watching a train go around in a circle - a matter of minutes really. So everyone should know if they build a circle on a 4x8 it's going to be that way.
Of course the reason the magazines recommend the 4x8 is more for getting practice with skills, like laying track, ballasting, wiring, scenery, buildings and all that. Once it's built, we run trains around it and in an hour or two the fun is over, as my wife likes to say. So you have to look at a 4x8 as a means to an end, a project to learn skills and then "funs over".
IMO, I'd rather bypass that whole exercise and build something bigger with the potential for some real fun and running. Thats exactly what I did - my first real layout was built in my garage in graduate school - it was a 16x19 foot hollow L shaped layout that went twice around, loop to loop with a yard, a passing siding and staging in the loops at each end for two trains. I got all the bendwork up and running fine and started the scenery before I had to move, so I sold it for about $450 to someone who wanted a layout already started. It was sectional in design.
So IMO, thats the better way to go.
Cheers, Jim
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
richhotrainSo, what is a lone wolf supposed to do?
Post a track plan and some photos. Then the forum can explain to you why you're not as finished as you think you are.
I have the right to remain silent. By posting here I have given up that right and accept that anything I say can and will be used as evidence to critique me.
carl425 richhotrain So, what is a lone wolf supposed to do? Post a track plan and some photos. Then the forum can explain to you why you're not as finished as you think you are.
richhotrain So, what is a lone wolf supposed to do?
I think that I am better off not knowing what I don't know.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
richhotrain carl425 richhotrain So, what is a lone wolf supposed to do? Post a track plan and some photos. Then the forum can explain to you why you're not as finished as you think you are. LOL I think that I am better off not knowing what I don't know. Rich
LOL
LOL, Are You afraid to find out....that You're not done yet?
Take Care!
Frank
Dream layout...goes on hold again.
How about doing what Eric Brooman does with his Utah Belt? Keep eveything up to the present time on your layout.
Dean
30 years 1:1 Canadian Pacific.....now switching in HO
"How about doing what Eric Brooman does with his Utah Belt? Keep eveything up to the present time on your layout."
Does that include moving the trash heaps and sleeping homeless people around the layout based on what you see on your drive home? Yeah that certainly would keep things lively LOL
Have fun with your trains