I’m at a point where I am about to close my loop and run trains atop the bare benchwork. I have a couple of sidings and a spur for staging. This spur is eventually supposed to be the yard, but a new baby is nearly here and cash for my railroad is getting tight.
Should I finish my loop and run trains and then later rip out track to add more turnouts and track or should I just keep rail unlaid so I can complete the layout as planned?
Thanks.
Kimble,
Can you just “temporarily” connect the loop together and enjoy running trains until funds loosen up again? I’ve been enjoying my “temporary” connection for almost 3 full years now…
Tom
Oh yea, I can do that. To me, at least, I see no problem with cutting out a section of track and later installing a turnout. The prototypes do just as much, don’t they?
I built my layout on 2-inch pink foam. One seldom-mentioned advantage of this stuff is that it’s really easy to pin down temporary track. I take paper clips and straighten them out into a long U-shaped “bobby pin” and then push that down over a tie and into the foam. I’ve got some track that’s been down over a year like that.
As I move along in construction of my monsterlayout, I frequently install a short length of flex at a spot which could be labeled, “Build turnout here.” Just make sure you can push the joiners at one end back far enough to allow easy removal “when.”
I build my turnouts from raw rail, and am not patient enough to build each one as I come to it - especially when one is holding up construction on a six yard stretch of single track. (My prototype used concrete ties, so single track is flex.)
I’ve also been known to temporarily make electrical connections with double-clip test leads!
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
If the cash is tight before the baby, it won’t get better anytime soon. Babies are wonderful, but they are expensive, not just in cash but also time. Close the loop and run trains whenever you can. By the time you’re back to it with money and time, you’ll probably have some different ideas anyway. - I was even in a different scale by the time I had money and time again.
Enjoy
Paul
That’s why I mentioned it. I have 1-1/2" foam and use rail spikes to tack my track down. As previously mentioned, I’ve had it “temporarily” down for almost 3 years now…and it still holds just fine.
Tom
Generally, I agree with this comment. Still, in this hobby, what is of such overarching urgency that any of us needs to make decisions quickly, even to act quickly? Probably nothing, at least that I can think of.
If I were faced with a “crunch” or crisis, I would simply hold up. If it would be very simple and effective to add a short span of track yielding 30’ of useful loop with sidings to enjoy 30 minutes of running trains most nights after baby is fast asleep (yeah, that’ll happen!), then it can be done any time.
Personally, I like to keep moving ahead, unless something so compelling takes place, or is imminent, that I would be foolish to proceed. It is important to many personalities to have continuity to the greatest extent possible. A baby’s arrival is change enough without other falsely apparently necessary adjustments in routine, focus, purpose, and intent. I have counseled people to try to keep a balance between the necessary impositions and adjustments that life imposes and things that you feel define you across time and circumstances. For me, a model railroad plan is one of those things that should only be waylaid when there is an unmistakable and absolute requirement. It might be a tad early to be assigning that impetus to the baby is my caution.
That said, if money is already tight, then think about a solution and make provisions for it. If its need doesn’t materialize, it was at worse a useful learning experience in con
The baby is one of the most important, life-changing events you will experience.
That said, the baby will only influence your enjoyment of the hobby to the extent you let it. If money is tight, there are ways at every phase of the hobby to save money–they just take more time. And time is never the issue. You just use the time you have–an hour here, or hour there–the baby sleeps, right?
You could hand-lay turnouts. (only as hard as you imagine it is.)
You could make structures out of cardboard from cereal boxes. It will take time (and paint) to make them look good, but if you used ingenuity, few would scoff at them.
And you can make scenery. On my layout, I got scrap foam for the mountains from construction sites. I picked the trees. And I made all the terrain with $5 worth of drywall mud.
You can do it on a shoestring…it just takes more time.
And this hobby is all about the process.
Why couldnt you put the one turnout in that will close the loop and keep a way to get to the staging spur in future expansion?
its just one turnout, that wont break the bank
Kevin
yes yes yes! go ahead and finish the loop and run whatever you have and enjoy it.very simple at a later date to add to the railroad.i know first hand about being short on money and im sure others have been short on money also.better times will come eventually.have fun! terry…
That’s a great idea, I think I’ll use the same method to temporarily hold down the track in my service area!
I think as a general rule of thumb, you should always test run your equipment as you complete each stage such as after installing the risers and after putting on the plaster clothes etc. So there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to connect everything first and then just enjoying running the train and test the reliability and/or compatibility of all your equipment for now.
I personally would prevent ripping things out after it’s installed that’s why I am doing my second layout very carefully trying to follow all the proper steps because my first one was sort of ‘slapped’ together as I go and as you can imagine, it’s a bit sloppy! 
I’d go with the temporary connection with the hopes to expand when the time comes.
Yep, my entire RR is temporary - going on 2 years. Nscale 20’ X 3’ loop-to-loop, yards spurs, industrial switching with runaround tracks, interchange, 1 track mainline though… Going to add a 4’ x 2+’ module that should be resusable. Other than the module… the whole RR goes away when I get ready to build the “Big One” - LOL!
The point is… you don’t need to have a perfect RR to start having fun… and if you wait, you might end up waiting forever.
Hope this helps, --Ed
Kimble,you don’t have to put off working on your layout because of financing,just time.I have a son who is 11 and we’ve been collecting Earned Income Credit,which finances our hobby.We’re in the process of cleaning the basement to start on a new layout.Plus son #2 will be here in May.
Read about EIC here. http://www.irs.gov/publications/p596/index.html
You can collect it at the end of the year or get advance EIC payment through your employer as I do and still get a good refund at the end of the year.Let the government finance your hobby.[:D]
Have a good one.
Bill B