I am wondering if there are others like my friend and I? He has 4 different layouts. I have 2. How many do you have? I really think I need to decide on a gauge to model and stick to one. But how do you choose? I love them all. I like the tradition of O gauge. I like the size of HO. And I like what you can do in small space with N. I have a 4x6 1/2 HO and a 8X12 L shaped O gauge. The price of O gauge makes that one not able to grow much, if at all. I have thought of selling the HO and going to N scale on the 4x6. And then I thought of selling the O gauge and doing HO or N on the 8x12. But I can’t decide. I got away from my origanal question here. But let me get back to it. How many layouts do you have?
I have…4. Two of them in the early benchwork stages (12’x12’ N scale, and a 20’x20’ L-shaped HO). One 4’x6’ N scale that has track layed and wired for DC but nothing else (helped a friend build it, they lost interest when they messed up the wiring, which I need to re-do) and an old old 4’x8’ HO scale that I picked up at a garage sale to use as a test track, but it’s fully sceniced, was planning on freshening it up a bit and selling it, but didn’t get a chance before the holidays.
i have a basement full of HO but i like to build in O scale too. so far my O scale has only run on a club layout but it is a long drive to get there and back. don’t let the cost of O scale fool you. consider this, an HO 40’ box car is only 6 inches long while the same model in 1/4" to the foot is 12 inches long. when you factor in the track spacing, 2 inches vs 4 inches you find that the big stuff takes up 4 times as much room as the little trains. so, given the same amount of space you can’t really spend any more money to full it with equipment.
At this precise moment in time the answer is zero and I have another priority at this time and am going to be out of the layout building arena for three; four; maybe even five years. While I try to complete my novel and get it published I am going to spend my time doing such mundane chores as superdetailing and developing–and applying, of course–a house-road color scheme for my Seaboard and Western Virginia Railway’s motive power fleet, building trees–next time I venture north to Idaho and/or Wyominjg I am going to lay in a substantial supply of sagebrush clippings, either erecting kits or scratchbuilding structures, and putting my Unimat mini-lathe to use and milling out frames for eventual installation of DCC.
Unless the grim reaper pays me a visit in the next couple of years THERE IS ONE MORE LAYOUT IN MY FUTURE!!!
I’ve only one, my Westport Terminal RR in my basement.
Years ago I’ve had some tracks in the garden, but like the prototype they are now abandoned and removed. The weeds were faster and had won. And - there’s not enough time to work and operate two layouts!
Up until six years ago I had two, one HO and one G. I sold off most of the G Scale stuff and garbaged what wasn’t sold with the exception of a 4-6-0 Baldwin (non-op) with it’s tender, one boxcar and an RPO which I have sitting on a small oval of track in the front yard. Since then I’ve put everything into the HO layout.
I have 3, a G gauge tourist line outside, an HO shelf in the downstairs garage based on the Eastern Shore RR, and a Lionell upstairs in the room over the garage.
I have no qualms about “sticking to a scale” or otherwise. I like what I have and there is enough variety of modeling choices in this short life we have to take advantage of everything. I can work on whatever moves me at the moment, outside in G on nice days or when I have the itch to play with something BIG, I have the HO when I get the uber rivet counting bug, and the Lionell when I just want to fun play and smell ozone while I brownout the power grid. I see no need to limit my hobby.
I have exactly 0.25 layouts. Right now I have an o scale layout around the tree that will be there until january, then all the people and buildings get packed away. Haven’t started an ho layout as I still have work to do on the house. Once it is done then I can start(years away from that)
One 8x15 HO. I wouldn’t mind a little 2x4 N scale in my bedroom if I could find someone selling off a bunch of N scale stuff cheap. There’s a guy in MR that advertises ready built N table layouts pretty cheap.
One permanent layout in the garage–HO. Some years ago I also had an outdoor G-gauge layout, but I dismantled it. I do have an On30 layout that I set up around the Christmas tree each year for Spooky my train-cat to bat around (I’m assuming that Remington, my new train-cat will join her, this year). But other than that, it’s strictly the garage empire.
One HO layout that im currently working on. Its 4X8 and DC. I still need to install DCC (when I get it for Christmas) structures, and scenery. Heres a link to the website : Watchinson Secondary I will start a thread where you can comment on the layout/website.
Im also thinking about possibly starting on a second HO layout.
Put me in the 1+ category. I have a 9X13 HO layout in the basement and have started the preliminary work for a G scale layout in the back ayrd. Come spring I will start moving closer to two layouts.