About a year ago circumstances changed for me, and I found it necessary to relocate my household some 5,143 scale miles to the south. I know that many (most?) modelers take a move as an opportunity to dismantle and start over, but I’ve been pretty happy with my layout and some of it would have been heartbreaking to destroy (e.g, the concentric timber trestles). So, I decided to undertake moving the layout along with the rest of my stuff.
Granted, my layout isn’t huge, but it is bulky, delicate, and awkward. Here’s a “before” picture:
And here are a couple of shots after the move:
It’s a little worse for wear, but this time there’s no furnace in the middle of it, and the trestle and all of the structures made the trip intact.
As soon as I get the rest of my stuff unpacked, I’ll be bringing the old girl back to life, and building the L shaped addition for which my new digs offer space.
5143 scale miles makes it about 60 1:1 miles. You must have done an excellent packing job to get that trestle through in one piece; congrats on a sucessful move!! When I saw the title of this post, I thought you might be getting a jump on April Fools - like the MR item a couple of years ago where someone was going to model the entire BN system
Thanks for the comments/complements. Sorry it has taken so long to reply to your questions, but here goes:
A long time ago I read that making a layout in segments, starting with the benchwork was a good idea - just in case it had to be relocated. On a previous layout I built it this way, in an L configuration; later I rearranged the layout into a long straight line. After that, it has been my practice to build the benchwork in descrete chunks that can be disassembled and reassembled.
I actually had no intention of moving the layout as I was building it, but the segmented benchwork made it fairly easy. The biggest piece is 8 feet by 45".
The move was from Mendon, Utah to a storage unit in Ogden, then to my new house in Layton, Utah a few months later. I took the legs off and the movers took it from there. Once they saw it, they were extra careful.
I did saw off the top half of a mountain; I’ll rebuild it later. But that was the only modification that I made. Of course I packed all of the people, vehicles, and other “loose” stuff separately, but it made the trip pretty much as you see it.
My current task is patching the gap where the furnace once separated the two pieces. I’m also setting up my work-space so I can get back to building on the layout (this is taking a lot of time).
Great job Phil! One thing you have the opportunity to do now, if you have the space and the desire, would be to locate one half on around the room, or even on the other side of the room, and the build up the middle to meet. You could use this as a great opportunity to include a nice yard or some additional switching areas to the layout. Definitely keep us posted as to your progress!
That’s why I would design a modular or domino layout along the lines of what Dave Barrow and the Cat Mountain & Santa Fe. Even if you have scenery along the module joints, you can always touch them up.
I considered doing something in the middle, but decided to add on to the left end. There is about 2 feet between the end of the layout and the wall, so the main line has room to curve into an addition with a reversing loop, making the layout a loop to loop in an L shape. The new section will include the town of Ashland, Oregon (where I grew up).
