The discussion on steam locos got me thinking about the massive amount of RTR out there today. Not just locomotives, but cars, in mulitple numbers, as well as structures, tress, and just about anything else. There were several reasons discussed, but I wonder if another cause is the growing trend of large operational layouts. Not to many years ago, most people didn’t have time or space for a large layout - those were for clubs. Today you see a lot of individuals building multi level layouts with 20-30 car trains pulled by multiple DCC lashups. Those layouts probably couldn’t be built in reasonable numbers if you had to kitbash/scratchbuild/whatever the 50 locomotives, 900 freight cars, 60 passenger cars, 150 turnouts, 1372 feet of mainline, yard, and sidings, as well as the many structures. Ok, yes I know there are always exceptions, but you get the idea.
The question in my mind, is the super large layout the future standard, or is it a blip in the history of model railroading. In the post McMansion era, will that kind room be less common? Will smaller homes drive more modelers back toward scratch building and kitbashing to get more play value for their dollar per square foot ratio?
Me? Well I’ve started replacing my highly molded in detail RTR flex track with handlaid track and I find the end result more realistic looking and more statisfying.
The only thing that stands in the way of having a large (I mean full basement) layout is only one thing
$ MONEY $ sorry not meaning to offend anyone but bigger is always better, unfortunately many do not have the financial wherewithal go the large layout route. Space can always be made larger for those of you who choose to stay within the confines of the basement walls I simply give you the example of Howard Zane who added on to his basement to increase the size of his layout to it’s current 2800 plus square feet not once but twice. We all know that model railroading has virtually limitless possibilities on things that can be modeled. Cities, farms, water front, industries, mountains, deserts, rivers etc.etc. One is only limited by three things, Money, Imagination, and available space. Amble amounts of the first fuel the second and cure the third. I strongly believe that the larger layouts are hear to stay and on the rise. People are enjoying the hobby more then ever and are choosing to express themselves with bigger layouts. DISCLAIMER! before anyone jumps me,this in now way is meant to detract from the "smaller sized layout owner/builder. If your limited by money and available space it doesn’t hamper your creativity and ability so many fine layout are built of a smaller size. What really intrigues me is how creative some modelers are in getting more railroad into the confines of a given space. double triple and even quadruple level layouts are not an uncommon thing these days. I applaud these guys for their inventiveness and creativity.
So I’m sticking with you can have fun with a small one but you can have even a lot more fun with a really big one
If you want to know, what model railroading will be like, when money and space is at a premium, then just take a look at good old Europe, where we are in that situation for many years already. Layouts are much, much smaller over there, curves much sharper, couplers truck-mounted, flanges deeper, but a lot more R-T-R than you´d ever see in the US!
Of course, there a lot of exemptions to the rule - like in Britain. The British “railway modellers” are the champions on building small layouts, down to the size of a box file, and enjoy the virtues of scratch- and kit building quite a lot. There are at least a zillion kitchen-counter type businesses catering for their needs, at modest prices, when viewed from Germany.
To be perfectly honest, jmbjmb, I haven’t seen anything that actually indicates, or even suggests, that RTR has resulted in larger layouts. I think that what we see in the way of larger layouts is a direct reflection of many more model railroaders banding together in small groups, often including several modeling specialists in differing areas, assisting one another to build these large layouts. Whereas the large layouts of the past were usually the work of a single individual, authors of layout articles appearing in MR these days always seem to include a list of folks who contributed in a major fashion to the layout’s construction.
I’d also point out that those large layouts that appear in MR often evidence many unique features in the way of non-commercial and kitbashed structures, hobbyist made trees and endless other items. RTR items, other than perhaps motivepower, usually aren’t all that prevalent on larger, better quality, layouts.
As to the future, with the decline of personal time, now probably near its lowest point in 30 years, along with the dramatic increase of prices in the hobby over the past decade, I definitely don’t see larger layouts as the wave of the future. I would tend to agree with Ulrich that the hobby’s future will be defined with smaller but better detailed layouts and modest around one or two walls shelf designs.
Part of the reason why I, personally, am building a moderately large layout is the availability of a double garage to do it in. Also, I have learned that I really don’t have to achieve a state of near-completion by next Friday at the latest. If the executor of my estate (my son) can recognize some of the scenery, that will mean that I lived long enough to get it built. (He visited the Upper Kiso Valley as a four year old, and again as a teenager.)
Thanks to my choice of prototype, I was able to purchase a lot of things RTR forty-odd years ago for very little cash outlay. Today, if I want to add to my roster I can either scratchbuild, kitbash or take up bank robbing as a way to finance purchasing RTR at today’s prices, far less favorable exchange rate and international shipping charges. Likewise, ready-to-plop structures for the prototype look I want to achieve either don’t exist or sell at prices approaching the national debt of Sierra Leone. Fortunately, scratchbuilding doesn’t intimidate me.
My most recent rolling stock purchase was a string of RTR quad hoppers - meant from the start to be kitbash fodder…
I think we will definitely see fewer large private layouts in the years ahead. Fewer people have the disposable income to afford large layouts and the square footage they require.
However, I doubt this will lead to much change in the movement towards RTR models and layout supplies. John Armstrong summed it up nicely when he said the layout of a lifetime was becoming the layout you spent a lifetime operating instead of a lifetime building. The improvements in drivetrains along with command control, sound, etc. have made operating trains more exciting. More and more people would rather spend their time operating trains rather than building them.
I’m a full time layout builder. My clientele is wiling to pay me build, or help them build, a layout much faster than they could do themselves. Not everyone can afford that kind of service of course. But RTR accomplishes much the same objective. Even within my own business we purchase many items that are RTR. You mentioned trees. We’re able to order thousands of trees at a time that are highly customized to our needs (color, size, tree species, etc.). Without such mass produced option scenes like the one below would cost so much no one could afford them.
Large layouts require good amounts of 3 resources - space, time, and money. To some extent, more money can be used to fix limited space and time - bigger houses, RTR.
Small groups have been the traditional way to fix the time issue and provide the operators for large layouts. Every well-know operations layout from Ellison’s Delta Lines to the Victoria Northern to the G&D and so on through today, had a small group at its core that did more than just operate on the layout. Free-mo and the other operations-oriented modular systems bypass the need to find the patron with the large basement and good financing.
While the past 20 years have been the best years for the model railroading population in terms of available hobby $$ and what they could buy, time is quickly becoming the most limiting resource. To me, more than anything else, lack of spare time is the biggest hindrance in bringing new blood into the hobby. Very few of us can limit our work week to 40 hours, and still pull in the income necessary to fund the hobby and the family at a decent level. The death of the single income to provide nicely for a family with kids has put a lot more pressure on any available spare time.
I believe the time pressure, the desire of the owners of the large layouts to achieve completion for operational status sooner than was traditional, and available $$ fueled the RTR trend. The demand for kit locomotives has all but disappeared, and fewer and fewer car kits are seen on the LHS shelves. At the same time, the decent quality RTR now available has allowed beginners to get off to a quick start, rather than having to learn how many of the “basic” skills before they could even get a 4x8 operational.
From the manufacturer’s/importer’s point of view, the switch to RTR has enabled reduced engineering costs, far lower support costs, the ability to make lower risk much smaller production runs, increased sales, and increased profit margins (modelers are reluctan
Personally, I like RTR engines with DCC installed. I can fry anything quickly so wrongly wiring something or trying to follow an exploded diagram isn’t for me.
I have built some RR car modles and plastic structure kits. I enjoyed doing those.I would rather, I think, build them than to buy RTR structures.
I don’t have space for a “McLayout” as I don’t live in a “McMansion”, I live in a trailer and have no basement.We are hoping one of these years to move into a house with a good basement for MRRing. But I would probably stick to an L shaped two 4 x 8’s together with a single layer to it, or some such construction out of 2 4x8 sheets… SImply because I don’t have money to spend on a larger layout, and have no desire to build a vast empire taking up the whole basement. FOr others who do, that is fine for them.
I don’t think RTR has led to these larger layouts, as the trackwork should all be down before scenery-scratch built or RTR- is added. So the layout size is somewhat “predetermined”. Hand laying track WOULD take more time over RTR trackage. But I still don’t see that as an issue with RTR vs. Scratch.
{Disclaimer- Not to offend anyone but-} I think good old american “greed and consumerism” and the desire to “have more, bigger and better toys” is what drives the idea behind a large layout with multiple levels and a few helicies thrown in.
The same would be for those who have a half a motor home in with a half a garage in it for motorcycles and pulling a trailer with 4 wheelers and what-not on it going down the hiway to some winderness campground. $100K-$200K or more for all that bought on time payments they can barely afford, but gotta have a big motorhome and lots of toys to “entertain” them for just a whole week or two out of the year, and maybe a weekend tossed in here and there. The rest of the time they jsut sit in the
megh—I’ve done burnt out a few locomotives in my time trying to build them up but y’know what? I enjoyed the process–I can build them without burning them out now–lol!
I guess I agree with John and Ulrich about this. In my case I’m involved with a few others in a basement layout that is building up from a single layer layout that is covering a basement 58’X35’–The originating source of this was a disabled child who wanted a large layout something along the scale that is/was depicted a lot in MR mags. A lot of the buildings being put together are from scratch as well as the odd kit that finds itself being bashed together with other kits. Scenery as well. It is very easy in this case to get right into it-----
Having said this I think that the idea of a small layout works rather well in my own case–In our basement I have to share space with the furnace, water heater, tool storage and workshop as well as the rec room. My solution was a 11’X2’ shelf style----point to point—in N scale----
Time really is as much of a limit as space for me. It took me about 5 years to “finish” my 5x12 foot HO layout. I’m adding a second section now, and after 6 months I’m still sitting with unballasted track on pink foam, with the wires from the remote turnouts hanging forelornly under the table, unconnected. Even those who live forever with the Plywood Prarie know how long it takes to go from an empty room to a layout you’d actually invite people over to see or run. How many large layouts have been abandoned as their owners got discouraged by the large task they took on?
I don’t mind RTR engines at all. I want my engines to work, and the RTR does that for me. I also like sound and DCC, and it’s actually cheaper to buy a locomotive “loaded” than it is to buy a DC engine and add the sound myself. Sounds better, too, in most cases.
I enjoy assembling kits, and I’d like to see more rolling stock come that way. The Proto kits (type 21 tankers, Mather box cars) seem to have been discontinued, which is a shame, because they were very nice models. (The tankers have been re-introduced as RTR only.) While I mourn the loss of the Athearn BB kits, at the same time I realize that I’ve mostly moved beyond them, and now seek out better models for my layout.
Structures are where I draw the line. I really like to paint and weather my buildings, and I customize every one heavily. I don’t want something with the window glass already in, and the walls solidly glued together. How can I weather this? How do I add an interior, or lighting? Yes, it can be done, but it’s going to take a lot more work, and it will still look mostly like everyone else’s carbon copy of the same model.
My guess is, it really comes down to profit margin for the manufacturer. With labor so cheap overseas, it costs them very little to produce RTR vs. kits,
This topic sooner or later becomes a debate of just why we built/build kits. Necessity used to be the answer. Higher quality/prototype accuracy/choice then became the answer. Pride of craftsmanship. Expense. They all enter in, or enterred in. Speaking personally I like building kits but if the RTR equivalent looks better than what I can do, and is affordable, and if there are few kits for my era and prototype, there is no shortage of other projects and items to fill the “I built that” desire that I suspect all of us have. I do happen to think that a lot of the hobby time previously spent building car or loco or structure kits (or scratchbuilding or “kit mingling”) is being spent on nice scenery. Of course, now we are seeing more and more really fine “RTR” trees, so maybe there goes that theory …
A large layout does surely need space but not necessarily all that much more money and maybe not all that much more time. Sure, if the larger layout is going to be crammed with tracks and turnouts and and like, as if all of it was a 4x8, then yes. But not if the larger layout is spacing out the towns more – so that there are long expanses simply of track runnning in the typical railroad ROW of weeds and brush between towns. Pure scenery, but simple scenery, and probably the cheapest cost per foot of the whole layout.
In other words, an 80 linear foot layout having the same number of turnouts and towns as a 20 linear foot layout. If there is an additional expense worth worrying about, it is that now that you can run longer trains (or full length rather than shorty passenger cars), since the front end of the train is no longer in town A while the caboose or FRED or observation ca
My layout is 33ft by 29 ft, is three decks connected with helix and long hidden grade and it is in a “finished state”, by that I mean there is no bare plywood showing, the scenery is built, The layout was started in 1984. Virtually all buildings have been constructed by scratch or by kit. My layout served as a basis to my earning the various catagories in the NMRA and finally receiving my MMR several years ago. Today I enjoy my “finished railroad” by operating it with friends, but, I still have wild urges to redo sections as time permits. I am currently redoing the grain handling facilities in one of my small rural Oklahoma towns, and just finished doing the same with another town. Scenery was removed, new structures built, and now the restoration phase in in full swing.
However, the layout is always in a state of “operation capability”, and it is nice and a relief to be able to put down the scenery tools and “run some trains.”
I have also learned over the years that I can also redo certain areas using new technologies and methods for all phases including control system (DCC), scenery building, track work. So yes, I do have quite a bit of RTR on the railroad now, mine is a grain hauling part of the Santa Fe, and so the offerings from Tangent, ExactRail, IM and others means a lot more RTR and I am not ashamed or hesitant to say so. Bottom line, even with all the “experts” on the forums who tell you their way is the best, I still enjoy the hobby my way and those who don’t like my way don’t have to come over and “play with me.”
In my case, the preference towards RTR is that my hands aren’t as steady, and my eyesight isn’t quite what is was. This weekend, I spent most of it working on an Athearn blue box locomotive. I had forgotten what a pain assembling those handrails was. Oh, and for those who still remember the blue box locomotives — that headlight!! I replaced that with a directional continuous lighting kit from Miniatronics. I just ordered a couple of them, and I highly recommend them. When it comes to installing grabirons and such on rolling stock… well, I imagine I’ll get around to installing them on a set of passenger cars someday.
That sounds like the kind of project I’m curently engaged in–rebuilding a grainmill which was modelled after one not too far from here—we went by the mill yesterday and discovered that someone bought the plant and are currently reworking it as well----
I agree with the previous poster. The prevalence of RTR is a function of cheap labor. If the labor wasn’t so cheap, we’d still be building the kits. And if the profit margin wasn’t so good, we’d still be building the kits. It’s all a function of profit margin.
This is a good thing. If it weren’t for profit, we’d all be scratch building everything.
without making a judgement call i think we all tend to do what we can given the space, time, and money available. some of us are happy with a smaller layout and build most of what we want from kits or from scratch while some of us go for a larger layout filled with ready to run equipment.
a lot depends on whether you are involved in model railroading or commited to model railroading. it’s kind of like ham and eggs. the chicken was involved. the pig was commited.
Since I am having to kitbuild 50% of my loco fleet, I am going to say, “thank you” to the RTR loco’s I have. I could buy all RTR but brass is prohibitive.
As for the track, buildings, etc. and some some RTR. Two buildings to be exact, both crossing guard shacks. Building structures is half the fun of building a layout, the RTR buildings are the buildings I don’t want to bother with, because while they are needed for the layout, they do not add anything to the modeling skills already aquired. Yes that arguement could be maded to the “easier” kits all the way up to scratch building, I choose not to.
Rolling stock. Please just give me the kit. I have some RTR. Billboard and some Kadee’s. But honestly the current crop of billboards is better than anything I could build/detail, as decals and I are mortal enemies.
As for layout size, 16’x8 in a U with a 6’ panhandle for a yard/workbench. It’s a foot to 2ft wide, depending on where the towns are, and at this size I still have the option of turning it into a W or a S depending on what the commander in chief says.
Other posters are right when they say it comes to money, time and space. I have a completely clear basement and a monthly budget for the layout and being retired I have the time - I just don’t want to be married to the layout. Even though I try to do a little work on it I don’t spend endless hours in the basement
Personally I am very grateful for the expansion of RTR when it comes to rolling stack and locos. For the most part they are affordable and, depending on the manufacturer, are good quality and acceptable detail. I haven’t yet broke down to buy a ‘pre-fab’ structure because, for me, they just look too perfect - and besides I like building structures. The amount of RTR wasn’t a deciding factor in my layout expansion but I think I am at a point where it’s enough for me right now and if it gets any bigger I am going to bring in other people.
I learned a good lesson Saturday during our antique farm equipment show open house…I ran CH&V 500(GP50),HLCX 3857(GP40-2) & C&HV 405(GP40-2)Friday and all went well for the first 2 hours and then 405 quit running-the motor seized.Ok no problem 500 and the 3857 should get the job done and they did…Come Saturday I decided to run these 2 units for the first 2 hours simply because I liked the GP50/GP40-2 consist…Bad decision!
The 3857 was broken in and no longer played well with the 500…The 500 was faster then the 3857 and the 500 was trying to drag the 3857…So,back to the drawing board and I used C&HV 381(GP38-2),GATX 2620(GP38-2) and C&HV 283(GP38-2) since this unit consist was used several times but,whoa up! the 2620 was slower then both C&HV units so I tried the 2620 with the 3857 and both ran beautifully together as did my CR SD38 with 2620 and 3857.So,what to do? I could replace all the old BB drives with the newer and smoother drives or run BB with BB and RTR with RTR since the Bucyrus club doesn’t use DCC…Time will surely tell as I figure this mess out…
I now perfer the RTR drives over the older BB drives any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
I also notice my old BB cars just didn’t look as good as my RTR Athearn cars and I decided not to run my newer RTR cars with my older BB cars in the same train consist…
Mind you there’s nothing wrong with my older BB cars other then they just don’t look as sharp as my newer cars.
