Bored out of my mind...

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

Without a layout anymore, I have been working on a couple restoration projects, and have found a few postwar “must-haves” that I have been looking for ( 6020W for my 2020, 3474 Western Pacific boxcar, and a 2454 Baby Ruth boxcar.). The restoration project is on a prewar 224e and tender that was pretty beat up, and really should have been parted out, but with more time than brains at the moment…

My current lack of a layout is starting to take it’s toll. The future seems dim as well, not knowing where or how I will construct the next one. It will probably be smaller, and I may have to start thinning out my “collection”. It’s been 10 years since I didn’t have a layout, and yesterday, took my old one to the dump. Nothing but trees track, trains, and stuctures was salvagable, along with a few boards. Should have built modular, a blunder that will not be repeated in the future! Live and learn, I guess.

In the meantime, I’m a little bored. Waiting for the house to sell, waiting to find a new house, and not a whole to do in the meantime. Restoration projects are fine, but without a loop of track to test them on, not very exciting.

Just venting a little, I guess.

2

If you are going to go with modular anyway, why not build 4 sections of 4x4 modular sections. You could do like the modular clubs do and have certain restrictions that you stick to (like having the rails 4" from the front edge at the joining sections, or having two loops 10" apart) so that you can change modules for differing layout configurations. This would allow you to still use them when you get to your new place.

Dennis

3

I felt your pain. Don’t despair though. When I was living in a small place - I built a little layout on a 3 ft by 5 ft table that I could fold up and slide behind the couch when not in use - covered with a throw. I got to where I could be pretty creative in setting it up - complete with trees, accessories, tunnel, etc.

4

Mom sold her house in 1990 and I’ve lived in so many apartments that I would have to stop and take off my shoes to count them all. I almost had a cheap little mobile home paid off but ended up selling it because my neighbor was “Koo-Koo for coa-coa puffs”. I’ve thought of switching to N or z scale. But one sneeze and there goes a new GP9 falling off the table down 3000 scale feet to its utter death. Can they really pump your dogs stomach if he swallowed a GP9? I did once setup a short switching layout on top of a long dresser. It had several switches and I found it enjoyable. You could even setup something on card tables just to have some way to run trains.

5

Boyd,

I would never say that someone has “more time than brains” when it comes to restoring older trains. I have spent a long time working on my Lionel 221. (It was involved in flooding in a basement, and was nearly forgotten about, but it was traded with a lot of other cars to a friend of mine who runs a hobby store, I bought it and a bunch of other restoration candidates for a song.)

I spent a long time getting rid of the rust. It took me months to get the wheels turning again and to replace the wiring. I even took the shell with me underway with my ship, the USS Annapolis (SSN-760) on a few trips. When I was off watch, I would be in the torpedo room, scraping away rust with a dental pick and a wire brush.

If you are really attached to a loco, restoration should not be about how much it costs to fix, but how good it will feel to see it running again.

I also agree with the others about perhaps doing a modular layout. Perhaps you could get a small shed and build a good sized layout in that.

Or have a lot of track that you could run around the house on the floor. While we were making our first O scale train table, we had tracks running all OVER the house. The only rooms that the tracks did not go to was the bathroom and back porch.

Before I was married and moved into base housing, and was living in the barracks, I had not enough room to setup a permanent layout, so I had a lot of roadbed HO scale track, and I would spend an entire weekend in my barracks room, running my trains. I even had some track on my desk and entertainment center that I would display my favourite trains on.

Trust me, I was made fun of for that by a lot of other sailors, but it goes to show how important trains are to me. When we went to Brest, France back on our last deployment. I found the nearest hobby shop and bought a complete French HO scale train set. The gauge is the same, and the power requirements of the loco are the same, just the transformer takes

6

MPZ,

You had a layout and will have another…time to plan, clean (have you got putrid track? Be honest), lube, organize (got an inventory of your stuff?), and restore.

OK…I waited 30 seconds. What kind of layout did you decide on? [:D] Let me know, I may copy it.

Jack

7

Here is a link to a site called “Mike’s Small Layout Schematics” ( I think ). I hope it works;

http://carendt.us/scrapbook/page52/index.html

He has plans for really small, but interesting layouts. You might also goggle “micro layouts”. These are switching layouts mainly built in europe that rely on visual tricks to make the layout look and act larger than it is.

George

8

RockIsland52,

Good advice, and thanks to all who have replied.

The new layout will be determined by the new house. If we decide on a smaller house, I will probably go with a postwar style layout. If a bigger house, probably a more scale like layout. Either way, will probably be going with a different track type than I was using previously. I’m also considering thinning down the collection, depending on which type of layout I decide to go with.

Restoration project is coming along well. I’ve stripped, filled, primed and painted the 224’s tender, and re-installed the handrails and coal load. Looks pretty good. A couple of rivets were affected by corrosion, but otherwise a fine looking piece. Cleaned and rewired the whistle mechanism, and am currently stripping the frame and trucks. The 224 has been stripped, filled, and primed. Needs sanded and painted. Can’t find the motor at the moment, so I’m about done with this one, until I go through some boxes.

9

MPZ…I can’t believe your wife doesn’t have you painting, cleaning, decluttering, and landscaping like a banshee. I suppose a yard sale might be an unwise move. But heavy internet research on the next digs could fill up days. In six months wifey will be happy and secure. Some of the guy’s plan a layout dimension and spend 90 % of the househunting drill looking at garages, basements, and attics for their next layout, not the main dwelling! [(-D]

Jack

10

Rock,

All the “fun stuff” you mentioned in your post were done a couple weeks ago. Pretty much just maintaining now. For the time it takes to have a yard sale, and what I would make off it money wise, I am just throwing or giving stuff away. We’ve looked at about all the houses in our price range for the moment, also. We’ve narrowed it down to two, but still need to sell the one we’re in, which will probably just be a matter of time. When we look at houses, the wife looks, I search for train space. Both houses have about 5ft. by 15ft. for a layout, and I have big plans for how I want to build the platform/structure for it. Not sure what I want to put on it yet.