Recently I have considered starting over with a new layout and so I started checking into the possiblity having my layout either built,designed or some where in between by one of the studios listed in MR. Being in the construction industry for a very long time I am used to the reactions of people when we turn in prices. Part of our job is to educate them about why it is sooo expensive. But I must tell you when I started calculating the cost to have one of the studios listed in MR to build a layout I was floored by the cost. It can cost over five times what it takes to build a home from scratch. Please some one explain to me how this can be ? I can build a mansion with everthing you could ever dream of, for what these folks are qouting.I am not trying to rant here, but this is simply not computing into my brain.If some one has some knowledge in working in one of these studios I would appreciate some insight. Thanks
Bottom line: Time is money. If you want your end product bad enough, in a timely manner (i.e. quicker and better than you can do yourself), and it’s not exactly “mainsteam” technology (i.e. not many people do this particular line of work), you are pretty much at the mercy of the builder/designer.
I would imagine that jobs of this sort don’t come all that often and it generally takes a fair amount of time to construct a good layout - especiallly if it’s only one or two of you doing all the work.
Tom
Even the price of a self built Godzilla size home layout can reach $10,000 or higher and that doesn’t include the engines and cars…
My modest “dream” layout would have cost around $5,000… [:O] So,being a scrooge I decided the lessor of the evils was ISLs. [:D]
Larry,
International Sign Language?
Tom
ISL is short for Industrial Switching Layout…Its a word I picked up at a Advance Layout Design sig meeting…
Have you ever counted the hours you spend working on your layout? Just multiply it by, say $ 30 (average cost of a shop-hr.?), add the cost of material and you end up at prices your wife should never see.
Having a layout built by a professional model builder will always be a “dear” experience, but after all, these people need to make a living out of what is fun for the most of us.
Larry, I’ve been in the Layout Design SIG for 15 years (and edit their magazine) and you are about the only person in the world I know of to use that acronym.
It is a specialty, so it isn’t off the rack. Each layout requires a deliberate exploration and negotiation process, design, and then construction. If you won’t, or can’t practically, do it yourself, expect to pay a hefty hourly wage, maybe even to a crew.
Thousands of people make $1000/day. Quite a few make $1M/day. Somewhere in there is a person who wants to unwind with trains, but can’t really devote the free time that he can spare to a self-indulgence like a model railroad. He is working 12-14 hours each day, seven days most weeks, and he has a personal relationship, often called a family, which, if he wishes to maintain it, will require everything that isn’t sleep time. If he wants a railroad for the hour each week he can accord to himself, he has little practical choice but to have someone ‘take care of it for him’.
Crandell
If you are just comparing square footage to square footage, right, it costs more for a custom builder to build a layout. But that’s a misleading comparison. There are a lot more hours per square foot to build a finely-detailed layout than a house (not to mention materials, which are also more costly per square foot.)
At even a fairly modest hourly rate, it adds up fast. But lucky for you, you can build it yourself instead.
Byron
Crandell, let me see whether my math is correct:
- 14 hrs. of work
- 6 hrs. of sleep
- 1 hr. for personal hygiene
- 1 hr. for food intake/social contacts, including family
- 2 hrs. to commute
- = 24 hrs.
Why would anybody with a daily schedule like this indulge into a time consuming hobby like model railroading? Any spare hour would probably go into doctor´s visits to stay alive.
I’m not gonna argue with you, because in the end it is what it is, but I’m curious when you say that you could build a “mansion with everything you could ever dream of” for the cost of a layout. Are we talking $250-500K? 'Cause that’s what mini-mansions go for. That’s a heck of a lot for a layout, I’ll agree, and it ain’t even close to every thing I could dream of. But if you’re only talking your cost for the house (as opposed to what it would sell for), that’s apples and oranges.
That being said, think about your own business. How many times has a client been dismayed by your price or quote? Everyone thinks they can do it cheaper. Think about it for a minute. They’re (the layout company) going to use every pre-made tree, structure and so on they can get. That stuff’s all expensive, but so’s labor. They don’t want “call backs”, so they’re going to use all top of the line components, pricey wood on the fascia. They have to build all the wiring an so on “to code” or at least to a level that long term reliability is assured. Then there’s the cost of maintaining a facility large enough to build several big layouts at once, store stock, operate woodworking machinery and so on. It goes on and on, as you may well know.
One way to think of it is: How many hours would it take you to build your layout? Be honest with yourself. Multiply that number by what you have to charge to make a living. There’s your answer. Would you rather do what you do best and make good money at it, or spend that time trying to duplicate a pro’s results (in an area you don’t “do best”). Maybe the best thing is a compromise where they build the benchwork and basic scenery and track, and you finish it off.
Lou
Perhaps I should clarify?
That comes from a regional group that meets 3-4 times a year…At the last meeting there was 10 of us-down from the twenty or so that usually attended.
This is a topic that seems to turn up repeatedly here and I think that it’s because a large segment of hobbyists, particularly the more-or-less newbies, still have no concept whatever what a quality layout cost today, home-built or otherwise. Certainly, many of the home-built examples one sees in MR are in the range of $50k to 100k. Face it, even a really good 5x10 can go north of $10k without any difficulty.
Now when you start talking about hiring an established company to come in and do the job, you’re generally talking real money. I’ve posted the prices per square foot quoted by one of the bigger named companies here several times, so no one should really be surprised by such figures. The quality and technology involved in the creation of modeling elements has advance orders of magnitude over the past few deacades…and so have their prices. The fact of the matter is that there are today many layouts out there owned by wealthy individuals that are in the several hundred thousand dollar bracket. And you can also bet that the folks that have them never even so much as blinked and eye when they wrote the check. [;)]
CNJ831
I did for five years. Except I worked 40 and commuted 20 hours/week. or roughly 12 hours/day
MRR was my way to unwind. I did it during my lunch hour.
Lou, Good because an argument or a rant is not what I am after here. I am simply trying to understand the math of a $400 to $500 doolers a sqaure foot for a layout. I dont have an issue with some one making a decent liv
If you want to compare layout price to house price, you should be comparing it to a house:
- Designed by a world-recognized master architect.
- Built of exotic materials by master craftspersons.
- Detailed with Italian marble sculpture.
- Equipped with gold plumbing fixtures.
OTOH:
My total expenditures over 60+ years of model railroading, converted to today’s prices, would easily pay today’s price for my rather modest abode - and I always took the cheapest least expensive route to reach my goal.
If I tried to reproduce my present rolling stock collection at today’s prices I would easily spend as much as the price of a mansion meeting the above specifications - and that does NOT include the price of the double garage filling layout I’m building.
Model railroading is as expensive as you allow it to be, but it is never inexpensive. Neither is any other serious hobby.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
$500 / sq ft?
That’s roughly 8 hours of laber @$50/hr + $100 in material / sq ft.
For a contract job, from a master craftsman, that’s not that bad. Eight hours is not unreasonable. I put in over 40 hours on a Hullet that barely takes up 2 sq feet.
Even though I put working lights on it and highly detailed it, filled joints with putty, and air brushed, I doubt I would get over $60 over the cost of materials if I sold it on eBay. ($~210)
So if you want to do this for a living, you HAVE to charge an arm and a leg due to the amount of work involved.
It’s not easy for custom structures either. I started to make my own Richmond Station for the C&O Piedmont, but it’s way beyond my skills ever after 6.5+ years in the hobby. I really need a laser scriber where I can draft cad the parts then cut them out. And all those special tools take $$$$. I’m sure a place like CMR wtih the tools would love to do that for me. But I can’t afford the likely 5 digit price tag.
If you spent 8 hours on any square foot of a house, you would likely fire your contractors.
So, let’s do the math…
Given the cost I have heard for a professional service it can range between $450 and $500 per square foot. I am assuming that means bench work, laid track, scenics, structures, everything less locos & rolling stock.
Being conservative, let’s use $500/sq ft
How big of a layout do you want?
Some various room sizes and the resultant cost of having a pro do it:
10x10=100 sq ft = $50,000
11x12=132 sq ft = $66,000
12 x 12=144 sq ft = $72,000
12x14=168 sq ft =$84000
14x20=280 sq ft = $140,000
a typical ‘full basement’;
45x30=1350 = $675,000
For a layout that would fit in your average sized spare bedroom you’re probably looking to spend about the same amount as you would for a moderate sports car. So, instead of buying that Corvette you get a modest railroad empire…
However, the cost of even a full basement empire is still somewhat less than a ‘mansion’. it still is expensive, however.
Now say you do it yourself…and use the moderately sized bedroom (10x12)
And assume it takes you 10 years
there are only 8760 hrs/year…
of which you work 2000 (assuming a full time job)
and you sleep 2920 hrs/year 9assuming 8 hrs each night)
Figure an average of 9 hrs/day for being with the family, other obligations, household chores, etc. works out to about 3285 hrs/yr
leaving you with 555 hrs/year to work on the layout (or 1.5 hrs/day)
If you pay yourself $40/hr at 555 hrs/yr x 10 years = $222,000 labor cost
And conservatively adding in $5000 for materials (lumber, plaster, structures, track, wiring, ground foam, paint, etc.) you’re now up to $227,000 for that spare room railroad empire.
Granted the cost for labor hours is subjective but I think you can see my point. Plus how many of us can devote 1.5hs per day to our hobby? (retirees not included)
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It can cost over five times what it takes to build a home from scratch. Please some one explain to me how this can be ?
You’re doing an apples to oranges comparison. A better comparison might be comparing the cost of a motor home to the cost of a custom built layout.
We have a small Gulfstream motor home that we bought used. From what I can determine, the new price was right around $65,000. The unit is nominally 24 ft long, but there’s an engine compartment and driver/passenger area that cuts the useable living area down to 17x8 (136 sq ft.). At a new price of $65,000, the useable living area comes in at around $478/sq ft. Some friends of ours bought one of those Greyhound bus sized motor homes which is essentially 40x8. They paid around $250,000 and they bought it used. Their cost comes in at around $781/sq. foot. Even though motor homes are built in factories using commercially available factory built chassis, there’s a lot of fiddly and expensive manual labor that goes into building one of those things. One can buy a new car for under $20,000, but these are bulit on an assembly line in quantities of thousands. A handbuilt Rolls Royce will set you back upwards of $250,000 and even a Rolls Royce is not a true custom build in the manner of an house designed by an architect that’s unique. Try having someone design and build you a car that has all the attributes of a custom designed and built house. That would make a Rolls a screaming bargain in comparison.
There is a much higher demand for both houses and motor homes. If millions of people wanted model railroads, you can rest assured that some enterprising individual would come up with a way to build them in quantity for something less than the costs to which you’re objecting. However, these would be different flavors of a few standard designs rather than something that’s completely custom built to fit your space exactly and to fulfill your wishes as to what you want your
Phase 1 of my layout is pretty much complete. It’s 5x12 feet, or 60 square feet. It took 5 years, or 60 months. So, over a long-term average, that’s about a month to build a square foot of layout. Now, I’ve got a job, a family, a hockey team and a skiing habit besides, but there are still a lot of hours invested in every square foot of my layout.
If I could afford to have someone else build a layout for me, I wouldn’t do it. I enjoy building more than any other aspect of the hobby. I don’t have all the time I need, but I do have the patience to understand that it won’t be done overnight.