I'm also a car enthusiast, and read car magazines. They always seem to feature tests and reviews of cars that I'll probably never even see let alone drive or own. The newest Rolls Royce convertibles, the extremely high end V-12 Mercedes, the Porches, etc., ,many costing in the hundreds of thousand dollars! Nice to look at and dream, but no where approaching reality for me. Sort of what these huge layouts are, way beyond the capabilites and finances of most model railroaders.
But if all they showed were the small plain Jane cars and layouts, what could we aspire to?
My modeling is on two pairs of HO scale modules. And I'm thinking about where I could do something in On30, but don't have much room. I hardly ever see anything on modular model railroading.
I drive a Dodge Magnum SXT, with a 250hp V-6, but never see it featured in the car magzines because to them the only one of interest has a Hemi enigne with 340 or 425 hp! I'd love to have one, but the extra $10K to own one was beyond my interests and budget!
We all have to live within our means but we can dream.
Bob Boudreau
CANADA
Visit my model railroad photography website: http://sites.google.com/site/railphotog/
Dave Vollmer wrote: Has anyone else noticed that in the pages of MR, MRP, and GMR, there seem to be more and more of the insanely huge layouts that have either the 3000-square-foot custom basement or a whole structure designed just for the layout? These are the layouts that require a dozen crewmembers to run.I'm in awe, of course, but if this is where the hobby is going I fear I won't be able to keep up! I just read through MRP 2007, and while there are some decent smaller projects, I also see track plans with things like "future site for elevator" and "the workshop and crew lounge are on the ground floor of the specially-designed layout building." Jeez! Certainly on a GI's salary I don't expect that sort of financial freedom, unless the stock market booms and my investments pay out sooner. Still, even if I had that kind of cash, I have so many other leisure interests beyond trains, I just don't see myself putting that much into a layout. Imagine having something that big. Would you ever finish it? Do you need to invite three people over just to run a train?To me the ideal, being a lone-wolf like I am, would be maybe no bigger that 12x20 in N scale. That's big for N, but not overwhelming. I'm fussy about my scenery, so I'd probably scenic the thing myself, and much bigger than that would probably be too much. Even then, it'd be mostly around-the-walls so would not eat a huge amount of that space.Big layouts are great, but I'd love to see some more of the small to medium-sized layouts that are more likely to be within the money, time, and space constraints of the rest of us. One of these days when things calm down I think I'll try to submit my layout to MR or GMR.
Has anyone else noticed that in the pages of MR, MRP, and GMR, there seem to be more and more of the insanely huge layouts that have either the 3000-square-foot custom basement or a whole structure designed just for the layout? These are the layouts that require a dozen crewmembers to run.
I'm in awe, of course, but if this is where the hobby is going I fear I won't be able to keep up! I just read through MRP 2007, and while there are some decent smaller projects, I also see track plans with things like "future site for elevator" and "the workshop and crew lounge are on the ground floor of the specially-designed layout building." Jeez!
Certainly on a GI's salary I don't expect that sort of financial freedom, unless the stock market booms and my investments pay out sooner. Still, even if I had that kind of cash, I have so many other leisure interests beyond trains, I just don't see myself putting that much into a layout. Imagine having something that big. Would you ever finish it? Do you need to invite three people over just to run a train?
To me the ideal, being a lone-wolf like I am, would be maybe no bigger that 12x20 in N scale. That's big for N, but not overwhelming. I'm fussy about my scenery, so I'd probably scenic the thing myself, and much bigger than that would probably be too much. Even then, it'd be mostly around-the-walls so would not eat a huge amount of that space.
Big layouts are great, but I'd love to see some more of the small to medium-sized layouts that are more likely to be within the money, time, and space constraints of the rest of us. One of these days when things calm down I think I'll try to submit my layout to MR or GMR.
I'm with you Dave. Now I'm a semi-armchair modeler I guess. I have HO rolling stock that I run on the club layout when I can. I live in a double wide 1750 square ft mobile home in which one bedroom will be my train- hobby room since I also have an interest in R/C planes. I plan on utilising a 10x8 area of that room for an N scale layout. How ever that will be in the future as living-medical expenses have top priority here. At present I'm trying to come up with a track plan for this and have a good idea in mine as to how I want it. I would love to see layouts this approximate size just for ideas for track planning. For the time being things are on hold now as far as hobby spending goes. Wife is doing better so hope to get started in the next few years. In the mean time I just keep looking at layouts in the mags and here for ideas and options. Ken
Paul,
I did note in my original post that MRP 2007 had a few decent small projects. Actually, if I had to point to a bad case of the lack of balance, it's GMR 2007. I thumbed through it at the LHS and put it back on the rack. First time in 12 years I didn't buy it. Why? They were nearly all too huge to comprehend. That and only one was in N scale.
I remember a while back there was an article in MR as to what makes a layout "Great." It was a Tony Koester article. Among those things Tony requires for a layout to be "Great" are wireless DCC, sound, staging, etc. I disagree, but I'm not a recognized model railroading expert with a long list of books and publications to my name. But he didn't mention size.
Now, MR is doing a good thing by having the small layout contest. I also think that keeping their project layouts small is a good thing (although who's going to shell out $750 just for the track for an HO 4x8 courtesy of Kato?). My main beef is that it's very hard for me to imagine having a private railroad that rivals a club layout for size and scope even if I could afford it and had the room. I'm more inspired by the guy who built his layout in the spare bedroom or things like Doug Nelson's N scale Pennsy in a closet.
In short, the enormous layouts are neat to read about, but let's not lose sight of the more common small and medium layouts. I'd love to see more MR articles on HO 4x8s or N scale layouts on doors; not MR project railroads, but ones that other people have finished.
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
Dave, I can vouch that your plea has been expressed repeatedly for at least the past twenty years by a chorus of writers in the Letters to the Editor page of MR. While there have been occasional periods when the magazine briefly relented and smaller layouts did appear in greater numbers for a very short time, for the most part the pikes illustrated in MR have continued to grow ever larger and more unobtainable. Rather like yourself, I feel most are now so far beyond what is realistically possible, given the time and funds available to 98% of hobbyists, as to be largely irrelevant except as eye candy. However, these sorts of layouts do pander to the legion of armchair folks now in the hobby and to those who never get much beyond endlessly designing and re-designing their "ultimate layouts", which are likely never to be built.
There are those who claim that mega layouts serve as a great source of ideas. But in reality, this is largely untrue when one considers that single scenes within the mega pikes often approach the size of a typical hobbyist's entire layout. In such situations, there is no way they are convincingly adaptable. Regardless of what level of selective compression one might apply, you simply can't put an entire steel mill or a representation of a downtown, high-rise, urban area in a few square feet of space and make it believable to the viewer (at least not in HO!).
Once upon a time, MR was considered The magazine for the advanced model railroader. However, a number of years ago MR seems to have revised its objectives and chosen as its target audience mainly the armchair and novice hobbyists, to which articles addressing impossible-to-attain, mega layouts, appeal most. I'm sure that it was simply a business decision and perhaps the most profitable avenue to follow in an era when declining skills and diminishing free time are prevalent. The number of intermediate and advanced modeling projects in the pages of MR have decidedly dwindled in recent years, largely, I'm afraid, at the cost of increasingly loosing them the more skilled and advanced hobbyists as regular readers.
CNJ831
Sorry to disagree but in MRP 2007 we have:
1. 5x7 = 35 sq ft
2. 19'8" x 23'6" = 465 sq ft
3. 53'x63' = but irregular - main section 32x50 = 1600
bump 6x14 = 78
bump 3x21 = 63
staging area 26x24 = 624
total = 2365 sq ft, also it's only virtual.
4. 30'x48' = 1440 sq ft
5. 4' x 8' = 32 sq ft
6. 1' x 16' = 16 sq ft (not including aisle)
7. 14'6" x 18' 6" = 268 sq ft (double deck equivalent 536 sq ft)
8. 38'x45' irregular main 28' x 42' = 1176
alcove 10'x12' = 120
bump approx 15
total = 1311 sq ft.
9. 14' x 25' = 350 sq ft.
10. 28'6" x 53' irregular main 25' x 53' = 1325
bump 3'6" x 10 = 35
bump 3' 6" x 14 = 49
total = 1409 sq ft (only 32 sq ft built, plan is not detailed)
In summary
3 layouts are under 100 sq ft.
3 are 100 to 500 sq ft
3 are 1000 to 1500 sq ft
1 is 2365 sq ft and it is not built, just a plan.
I think that MR's percentage of large layouts covered is higher than the percentage of existing large layouts. But I think they provide plenty of coverage for the smaller layouts. And let's face it, while the 4x8 is great starter layout not that many really different plans are available fot it. In fact, the one in MRP 2007 is the first really new one I've seen in years.
Enjoy
Paul
Dave,
I hear you loud and clear! I love them, too. I was in awe of the various coal railroads in the recent MR Greatest Layouts edition. Really cool to read about, but I don't know if I could dedicate so much of my money and time to such a project. I think they are better left to clubs and people who have the funds. I recently visited an O scale layout here in Michigan called Chi-town Union Station. All brass, DCC,etc... (Based in Chicago) It is in an old grocery store that one man bought to set all this up. Later that day my dad asked the local HS guy how much he thought was invested in the trains...the guy replied to my dad, "Could you afford to buy a Grocery Store?" ummm, no. We all got a chuckle out of it! ----Rob