I was curios if anyone else face this. I got back mrr a couple of months ago, but have not had a chance to start building the layout. I am getting some supplies so i can start building a deck, along with some of the other supplies needed to get track laid down on it. But I have a quandry and was curious if any of you experienced it.
I knew the basic layout i wanted to do. I had it in my head. But now as I am getting the material together, the basic layout is changing from what i was thinking of. How many of you out there, once you were ready to start your build changed what you wanted to do from when you starting thinking of your design. Hope it makes since what i am asking.
I know it happend with me. For me the layout on paper may look good but when I start laying the track it is either, things are to close together and did not look right or I found I could add a siding or spur where I did not have none. I think it is the nature of the beast
It happens to me all the time. That’s why I like to define the benchwork first, then rough in a mainline track plan. No track plan that you draw can/will be used as is 100% of the time. Once you start laying track, things change as you get new ideas.
It happened to me. I’m just starting construction, but I started thinking about what I wanted on my layout about a year ago. Since then, I’ve drawn at least 30 track plans, changed the theme twice, and even switched prototypes. I think it’s very common for a model railroader’s ideas to evolve as construction begins.
Origianlly i was thinking of doing a walton mountain themed layout. Now i am thinking of doing a seaside/cliff themed layout with cliffs, lighthouses, beach fronts, etc.
Funny, I had not realized that the indecisiveness was so common. I can only speak for myself, but once I developed a list of givens and druthers, and not being driven to model strictly as many are compelled to do…meaning I freelance…once I have a diagramme, that is it. I may spend a bit of time fine tuning the diagramme, but once I have that eureka, the rest is all sawdust, nails, goop, and solder.
And you may change your mind again before you actually build. THen when you build if you find out your layout doesn’t work out and you may tear up and start again.
I did that twice with a 4% grade that looked good on paper but didn’t work so well when built, and again with a compensating 3% grade that failed the “real world test” also. I tore up both and gave up and now only have 1-2% grades is all on my small layout.
I also added width and length to my layout by adding a section to each to get what I finally wound up with now. {3.5 feet x 5.1 feet HO}
Now I want to add to it again and build it bigger by a half foot on width and length if I can to get rid of a 15R curve oval and in favor of 2 18r ovals. I want to make it 4 feet x 5.5 feet if It works out I can. I will lay it out on a cardboard pattern board first to see if it will work. May totally scratch the benchwork though as I will need a new base to start from, i think.
Welcome to the club of indecision. I think we all suffer from this because when we start the dreaming process, we want it all on the layout. Slowly we accept reality and start to drop things from the plan and thus the trackplan changes. Good luck you’ll get there. We all do.
Well I’m at the point of having my mainline and half my yards up and running. My layout fills a 15’ x 24’ room. I wanted a long through the Rockies type run that is more lakes, rivers, forest and bridges. I have plenty of room for buildings and industry, but to me, less is more. I will have a small prairie town at one end with a small prairie grain elevator and a co-op. It will be surrounded by cattle in the fields. An engine and railroad specific yard and town at the other. Much like a town you might see in the Canadian Rockies where all those helpers are looked after. It was to be a West coast terminus, but there just wasn’t the room to do it justice. Canada is a country of vast open space and that was the first thing I wanted to capture.
“If” I ever run out of things to do and want to expand, I have another 15’ x 24’ space I can expand into. There I will build a more busy, more crowded harbour type area with grain and other loading facilities. These are the things that got dropped from the current layout as I realized that you can’t have it all. [:)]
Well I’m at the point of having my mainline and half my yards up and running. My layout fills a 15’ x 24’ room. I wanted a long through the Rockies type run that is more lakes, rivers, forest and bridges. I have plenty of room for buildings and industry, but to me, less is more. I will have a small prairie town at one end with a small prairie grain elevator and a co-op. It will be surrounded by cattle in the fields. An engine and railroad specific yard and town at the other. Much like a town you might see in the Canadian Rockies where all those helpers are looked after. It was to be a West coast terminus, but there just wasn’t the room to do it justice. Canada is a country of vast open space and that was the first thing I wanted to capture.
“If” I ever run out of things to do and want to expand, I have another 15’ x 24’ space I can expand into. There I will build a more busy, more crowded harbour type area with grain and other loading facilities. These are the things that got dropped from the current layout as I realized that you can’t have it all. [:)]
My master plan has been set in solid granite for forty-plus years now - but in the form of a general track schematic, not a track plan per se. As opportunity (and layout space) allowed, I’ve built different parts of the whole, but have never had space for all of it. My guides have always been prototype geography and operating schedule.
When I acquired my present garage, with attached house, it was just a matter of determining how big a bowl I had, and how much spaghetti could be bent, doubled and folded into it. When I was given title to my wife’s half of the garage, I found it possible to add a few strands of spaghetti and rearrange the rest - still keeping to the concept and spirit of the original whole.
My layout ‘plan’ is more in the line of a sketch - laid out in Armstrong squares. While I have some idea of how the trackwork at certain places will be arranged, the drawing just has rectangles and place names. Final ‘planning’ is done on-site, full size, with track templates and temporarily-laid flex. Nothing is specifically designed until the tracklaying crew is on-scene and ready to place ties.
To all those who try to plan right down to the placement of each track nail, a thought:
No track plan has ever survived the first contact between the ties and the roadbed.
My method works for me. It might not work for others.
Building a layout even from some kind of plans is always subject to revision. I had a basic design with the layout that I am currently working on, but have changed a few things as construction progressed. Some individuals go as far as make a full size paper track plan that they lay on the floor. I think that this would really help show the strong and weak points of the plan. Personally, I am too lazy to go for the full sized plan. But, planning ahead may keep you from building something that you end up not liking. The good news is that you can start all over again. The bad news is that you may have to start all over again.
Changing the track plan is a good thing in my opinion.
It’s normal to change things, it always happens in the real construction world with the best plans possible.
It’s one of the reason our club layout stayed without scenery for 3 years. We wanted to operate it and found out what could be improved.
I’ve been thinking about building a small rail-marine interface terminal for few months. I’ve already built a mock up, made some benchwork and now thinking how to improve it again though design process. Not very efficient, but I learn a lot.
But at some point, I think one have to narrow his choice. Iteration may be a good thing if not always keeping you from going forward little by little. I remember a French modeller who said is mrr took off when he stopped to act like a hamster (buying everything, wanting everything, changing everything). Focussing into a specific theme helped him to concentrate his efforts on something coherent. I’m still a far from this though!
wow - glad to see I’m not the only one this is happening too! Funny, I am fast finding that the reason I keep changing my mind is because of the Scenery. I am not that talented that I can ‘vision’ what things are going to look like - but I know what I want. So, I have been buying a whole lot of buildings that I really like and then placing them around the board in spots where I want them - and then building the track around it. It is kinda working out pretty well actually. Just a thought !
It happened to me after I had the benchwork built and all the track laid and wired.
I had a mini-operating session (me and one other guy) to find and fix any problems with the track, wiring, etc. before I started making it “permanent” by adding scenery.
The layout ran great, which was a pleasant surprise. But it just didn’t feel “right”.
I thought the problem was that it was too low. There was a reason for it’s low height, but it turned out to be a bigger impediment than I expected. So the first part of my “fix” was to jack up the entire layout and put new, longer legs under it.
But it still wasn’t “right”, and after running it for a while, I could start to identify specific things I didn’t like about it. Nothing major, mostly just stuff that didn’t work out the way I expected when it came to actually operating the layout.
When no new deficiencies occurred to me for a while, I figured I had identified them all and started working on a redesigned plan to fix all those problems. As it turned out, some major changes were needed.
So after tearing about 85% of the original layout down and starting over, I’m making steady progress on the new, redesigned, and expanded layout.