I had been planning to do another contest as a response both to posts and PM’s.
The two most requested were 1) an N scale layout and
However, also noted was the last contest took up a lot of valuable forum space and bored some people to tears.
I’d like to see a bedroom sized pike layout contest. Both HO & N 12X10 around the wall.
Something for those who want to move beyond the ole 4X8 but don’t want to spend the time/money for some basement monstrosity.
Just my[2c]
Maybe you should post it in the “Layouts and Layout Building” Forum? Seems to be a subject more fitting for that category.
If someone is against contests, a sure way to end them would be to title a new contest "who spent the most money" and see the results.
SM:
If webspace was so valuable, then they’d tear down Myspace and build a Walmart. On with the contest, I say.
[#ditto] But why 12x10? Why not something a bit smaller, say 7x10? I just made the final decision to switch from Märklin to 2-rail last weekend, spent $400 on Peco turnouts and flextrack, and am starting all over again from scratch.
My own layout plan is almost finished, an ISL along one wall, which later can be expanded around the room. However, it would be nice to see other people’s ideas of what can be done in such a small space.
Svein
If you do start another contest, the Old Dog would suggest you do on the layout planning forum since layout design is the topic of that forum.
The Old Dog would also suggest that you include some info on the needs and desires of the operator of the contest pike. So people enjoy just watching the trains run. For some, the layout is an excuse to build rolling stock or structures. Others enjoy certain types of scenery like the tall pines of the Old West. Other people are into operations or switching. Some people are into dispatching.
The Old Dog has often thought that a layout featuring a large mechanical interlocking plant might be interesting.
One may or may not want to also specify a scale and theme such as common carrier, logging, old time, traction, and so on.
The Dog would suggest that a layout must be judged in terms of meeting the requirements of it’s owner, not in a vacuum.
Have fun
Go for it. We’ll all comment on your parameters and the resulting designs, but so what - that’s part of what the forum is about. And we must like it since we keep hanging out here.
Enjoy
Paul
Dog,
You have some valid points. Designing a layout for someone without knowing what they want is worse than a person choosing a layout out of 101 Track Plans. But since there is no perspective end user, we have a problem. Sure it would be fun for one or two of us to design a logging layout in Northern Wisconsin in January 1910 incorporating geared tractors, but many people wouldn’t be willing to wager the time it took to plan something they had no interest in.
By defining a space only, we give people a lot of latitude. They can say it was designed for rail-fan
What, another 4x8? yawn…
How about a Microlayout?
It can be any scale, any theme, the only caviet is not to exceed 4 square feet, which is the generally accepted designation of “Microlayout”, smaller the better of course, extra points if you actually build it…
So here is my current thinking. I was going to do a contest for a 30" door in N-scale, but we just did a table layout.
So what I was thinking is using the suggestion above and working with a 10x12 room. We will assume no closets or windows but a 30" door 6" from the shorter wall as such:
You can use either N scale or HO scale or O scale, but each scale will be judges separately. Narrow gauge will still go by scale.
The contest will be held in the Layout Forum, but the voting will be in the General Forum.
This time instead of posting your entry with your account, email me the layout Pic and I’ll post it. I would like to avoid any “popularity” contest and bruised egos.
Stein: I know rooms are smaller in your part of the world, but I chose this size because it is the minimum foot print of a 4 x8, and it is a room, and it can be either N or HO, so I hit most of the bases suggested by people.
Comments? Suggestions?
[:O] No Closets ??? No Windows ??? Really ???
When MR was running their contest i wrote to them saying how totally unrealistic
that was. They wrote back in aggreement but said that even the door was giving
people hissy fits
Most bedrooms have atleast one closet and most have a window or two
But it’s your contest soooooooooooooooo
It’s just that in my house i don’t have a room like that
As modelers we face many such design obstacles but usually find a way to
hide the ugly post in the middle of our space etc etc
I’m open to a window and closet.
What do the rest of you think?
I’d add the closet, but the question is: Can we use the closet? or just have to maintain access to it?
If you’re using the room for a layout I don’t really see a need for window access, put one in but make access optional.
Also, can we specify rehanging the door to swing outward?
Another also, if you’re allowing 3 scales why not all of them?
Enjoy
Paul
Why only N, HO or O?
Why not Z, S or G as well?
We can get well into the weeds, but what would local fire regs, or one’s insurance policy, dictate about access through a window, no matter where it is in the building exterior?
How big a window? Would the closet be on the wall opposite the door or one of the adjacent ones? Walk in or smaller? Ceiling height? Is the room a dedicated area for the layout, or must there be storage/sharing of the space? Single level layout, or multiple?
It gets hard to set parameters on something like this because if they are not realistic or meaningful for enough prospective participants,…it will be relatively quiet in that thread, too.
Just musing. Don’t really know what to suggest, except stipulate some quick and easy parameters and let it ride. People bite or no.
How about NO.
Stick with HO & N. That hits about 85% of us anyway.
Folks:
I like this. 12 x 10 is good. No closet, I think. A lot of houses have at least one room without. Now, speaking hypothetically, if you had two bedrooms with a closet, and one without, which one would the Authorities be most likely to release as a layout room?
(This has nothing to do with the fact that my own house just happens to have one closetless bedroom, roughly 12 x 10, with the door in one corner, opening inward…SMRS has quite the spy program…)
I say let Spacemouse go for the 10X12 room, with or without a closet SINCE ITS HIS CONTEST, and let the rest of the model railroader whiners & bellyachers chime in afterwards to do all their poo pooing.
Uh,…bite me. [(-D]