Dead Heads

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

When you built your layout, did you build it with future expansion in mind; or, is it a dead-end layout?

Dead end layouts are cul-de-sacs because they have nowhere’s to go. If you live in a 35 ft trailer, there may simply not be enough room. Some folks live in big houses, but are blocked by radical special interest groups, who may want room for their doll or China collection.

Some have avoided dead-end layouts by running additional shelving for either more layout space or as staging yardage.

But the vast majority of dead-enders, or, as I call them, dead heads, are completely content with their space allocation, because they can perch atop a stool and watch the trains without them disappearing down a long corridor and having to run and catch up to them.

Your typical dead head rues those days he has to clean the track or get the dust off the trees and styrene structures. An expandable layout would needlessly add even more work to dedust or to debug a wiring problem caused by a voltage drop from being too far from its power brick.

Dead heads often run their trains on a table, or “island” in train jargon, which denotes isolation and seclusion. Being a castaway is not such a bad thing. You can concentrate on improving the island like the castaways did on Gilligans Island.

Dead heads often have good horse sense. Their dead end layouts are in proper balance and perspective with the surroundings. They have plenty of room to walk around their dead-end layouts and they balance trains with a pool table, wet bar, hot tub, dart throwing area and beer fridge. Their layouts don’t grow like kudzu, expanding into claustrophobic peninsulas, duckunders and John Armstrong variety mushrooms.

Maybe being a dead head ain’t so bad after all?

Dave Vergun

2

My layout was designed to completely fill my available space. For a 12x25 room, having a three level layout with well in excess of 225’ of mainline is doing pretty good!

So technically, I’m a deadhead. But I don’t consider myself one, since the layout will more than perform everything I want it to. Of course, if I end up with a much bigger basement some day, I’ll probably expand my layout ideals!

3

I designed my layout to be a dead end at one end, but not the other. I intend to extend it by another 4ft or so in the not-too-distant future, and I can also use the boards I now have as part of a larger layout in the future. It would be very simple to extend from the other end as well, as there is a track headed behind the backscene (to serve as a staging track for exhibition running) that could easily be extended to join to another board. Unfortunately, I lack the space at the moment to do this - I would want 30in curves as a minimum and these will not fit, so it has to remain an an end-to-end setup at the moment.

4

Wow 225’ in 12x25 we salute you [bow] …

… although my layout space is limited 10x14 in a garden shed I keep toying with trying to fit more in, maybe a second level? So deadhead I guess I’m not [^]

5

I guess I’m a dead head. I have a 9x2 shelf with a 3x1 “L” on one end. There’s a 1950’s era industrial switching layout (HO) being built on it, and there is no plan or room to expand it. However, even incomplete, it’s provided many satisfying hours of switching fun, especially since I retired the steam engines (which simply beat me to death trying to get them to run well) and went to 1st generation diesel power. While there are limitations to switching routes, like no monster engines or through trains, I find I’m much more involved in the action. A switching trick takes a little over an hour and is great fun.

smyers

6

Gee Whizzes!! I am a dead head…[:0] My industrial switching layout can not be extended due to space limitations so I used my space wisely…I prefer to switch cars then watch trains run endless loops.[;)][:p] .But to each his/her own in what space they have and the way they use it…[:D]