Wonder if all you good guys can help me out here.I enjoy reading CTT. I am however, overwelmed at times by the massive layouts displayed in the articles.You know what I mean. Those 500x600 foot jobs with miles of track & trains lining the walls. Would it be too much for me to ask,how many of you out there run their trains on a 4x8 or 9x5 plywood??? That’s where I’m at: I’m 9x5 just trying to earn a living. Thank You all. Hopper
Hopper,
The big flashy layouts are what sells magazines, but truth be told, the vast mojority of us are just like you. We have small or medium sized layouts. I have a small L-shaped layout made from two 4x8 sheets of plywood with 2 simple ovals of FasTrack. I’m not wealthy or anywhere close, but we have fun with our layout. I am not a person who gets off on real railroad types of operation, like switching. I just like watching the trains run through our just finished scenery. Everyone enjoys the hobby in their own way. As long as your having fun, don’t worry about size. At least, that’s what my wife tells me. If you can’t build a long layout, try building one with multiple levels.
Jim
Jim got that right…
Kodiak Junction 12x8…
Note the furnace to the right and washer to the left. Doesn’t leave much room. The important thing is have fun and make the most or the least you are happy with.
Welcome to the club!
Hopper, you havent’t been reading here much I take it? From my conversations with various people directly involved in the manufacturing of these trains, they too know the vast majority of folks participating are: tubular track operators with table top layouts, do not use digital control and buy traditionally sized trains. Even Lionel has said they are very disappointed with the low numbers of users who have switched to command control. So this is the silent majority of the hobby.
Lionel has consisitantly stated over the past few years that the clear majority of their sales are on starter sets, track and starter related cars and items, and not the more expensive scale items that seem to get so much undue attention.
That said, I have always been on of the operators you described, with a small layout. My current layout is made on styrofoam insulation board, designed to be easily moved if need be. I run lesser expensive items, junk and beaters which I lovingly restore, or I should say completely redo into my favorite fallen flags or into relatively operating lines like Conrail, NS, CSX and BNSF.
Most folks in the hobby are just ordinary guys with smaller layouts. As was discussed in a recent thread, I don’t think the train companies would want to lose the sales from all these ordinary operators with smaller layouts… it would put many of the train companies right out of business.
Yep, you look at the magazines and the train catalogs and get the impression it is all very big with large layouts, very scale and very expensive. But sometimes things are opposite of what they appear to be. This hobby is one of those things at least on this topic.
While I enjoy seeing a huge layout with all the trimmings I prefer the smaller layouts. They are much easier (and therefor more fun) to complete. Maintenance is also much easier. There is an intamacy with being so close to the trains.
My suggestion is to start small and enjoy it. If you make your layout modular (with easy connections to the next layout on one or both ends) you can build multiple small layouts over time and then combine them for one large layout. Building “slow” helps to ease the financial situation and is much more fun. Many of us decide to stick with the smaller layout permanently.
Jim H
One of the best things about small layouts are how fast they get to a point of completion or near-completion. Large layouts that are finished are great to look at, but take years to accomplish. Many people lose interest in making it all work and look right over that length of time. A small layout goes together much quicker. I started ours just over a year ago, and it’s all done. I only worked on it one or two nights a week. Sometimes, week after week went by with nothing getting done on it. I didn’t get discouraged, because every time I did something, I could see marked progress. Ya follow*?
Jim
*Lonnigan’s catch prase in the movie “The Sting”.
Hi! This “older” guy’s current O-27 layout is a 6’ x 6’ square. (Really wish that I could go to 8’ but then I could not get into the room.) Someday, maybe I’ll be able to have a layout space like “Reggie-Thatboy 37” but in the meantime, I just enjoy what I have. All the best!
Hopper,
Most of us don’t have the large layouts that you see in CTT magazine. My current layout is 8ft by 11ft, with a second level, the layout before that was 8ft 4in by 14ft with an elevated passenger train on 027 track.
If space is of any concern to you I would recommend using tubalar track like 031 or 027 as the curves are smaller than Lionel Fastrac system. Only one or two problems using 027 and that is with the switches and the train cars hitting the switch housing with longer cars.
Lee F.
Hey guys,I wasn’t complaining. If I was the only guy on the planet with a 9x5,I would still keep doing, what i’m doing.I just wanted to know how many others out their I could relate too. Thank you all! Hopper.
Orginal layout 4x 16. Four switches. Started in 1999. 70 feet of track. Essentially complete except for some changes that I want to make in the future.
New addition 3x16 and 4x6 Four switches. Started 2006. I can run trains. When the addition is completed the total layout should have about 180 - 200 feet of track.
At the rate I am going, my layout should be essential complete in 2020. (Note: CTT, I would like to be in the November 2020 issue of CTT Magazine.) [:D]
Hopper-- I would have to believe that the vast majority of operators started small, found out that they enjoyed it and then possibly took it to the next level. Most folks are limited by funds, space and time, I’ve experienced all of that triology. My first effort was 8 x 12 and I was happy. Kids left, I retired and now it’s evolved into another room and expanded. My wife is the scenery queen, what a good time this has been. Advice: go slow. See if you like it, buy a few more pieces and gradually build up your empire. Oh baby, just wait until that retirement day… good times await you 
Jon
There are two distinct camps in this hobby, as well as all sorts of sub species of either! There’s the toy train guys who, however much they may add scenery or accessories or even command control, basically run trains as toys to enjoy for that more than anything else. I’m in this camp.
Then there’s the ‘realism’ oriented fellows who tend to run large layouts, do their best to make it all look as much like the real thing as any 3 rail system can and are probably those most responsible for all the high end stuff being made and the resulting rivalry between manufacturers or their fans ( a bit of both I suspect).
On one of the forums, not this one, there are the occasional sniffy remarks made about ‘craftsmanship’ or the lack thereof, much bewailing about those of us with low standards and other such pond scum whose ignorance is entirely responsible for the downfall of the hobby!
Rubbish. The ones who are keeping it going are the ones who plug along running trains on 8 x 4’s or the floor or making their own ingenious adaptations like David Verguns RC system. Who’s passing on the torch? The “please dont touch the scale models” or the “lets see how many cupcakes we can balance on the pullman coaches and run them from the kitchen to the living room without any falling off? If they DO fall off, you have to eat them!”
Hopper,
Here is how I see our fellow hobbiests, this is pure speculation:
-75% or more of the folks on these forums, and in the hobby, do not have a layout. If they do have a layout its a carpet central, or just tons of track on bare plywood.
-20% are probably like us: a small to medium sized finished layout. Mine is 8x16.
-5% or less have the monster layouts.
Someday I might expand my layout to be in the 5% group, but I am very happy with where I am now.
You are SO RIGHT thor with your last couple paragraphs. Adults today look at youth and consider them spoiled in this “me, me, me” generation, like the Burger King logo “Have It Your Way.” Yet so many of the adults in this hobby are actually more spoiled and actually worse than children. I can understand kids selfishness… they’re just kids and need to be taught.
I’d also suggest it’s time for Neil Young to bow out of his involvement with Lionel. While the high end technology has it’s merits, it has done absolutely nothing to make this more of a “family hobby” that he somehow thinks it is. Nor has the high end technology made the hobby more affordable. Matter of fact, with all the lawsuits involving high-end trains and technology, the high tech stuff has actually made the whole hobby more expensive, even though production costs are at their lowest level in decades. Overall command control has not even made big inroads with the adult operators, nevermind the kids, who don’t even know what Lionel trains are. I suspect though Lionel needs Neil’s financial involvement right now.
I get a kick out that last one too thor. You’ll be at a train show, see a layout with the latest trains and the newest technology with signs saying “do not touch.” I recall one kid asking if he could run the trains, and was told the technology was too complicated for a kid. Man, what an endorsement for the hobby. Bet that kid never asks for a train set. On the other hand, no kid ever left my display without the chance to run my primitive trains off my old fashioned 1033. And I know for a fact I helped sell train sets and there are kids in this hobby because of my efforts even minus the wonderful technology that supposedly makes this hobby “better.”
Very good points, Thor. I would like to suggest that if you desire realism, buy an actual railroad. Your problems will change from “How do I make that rock outcropping look realistic?”, to “How do I keep those rocks from falling on the track, derailing the train and destroying millions of dollars of new automobiles?”
Brainel, I think you’re way off base with many of your statements. I think that TMCC has made strong inroads into the 3-rail market. I think that kids enjoy running trains with a CAB-1 remote as much, if not more, than a traditional transformer. Using a CAB-1 is easy and it’s rugged. Kids are unlikely to break it. Using TMCC, you can limit the top speed of any loco so kids can’t run them off the track. I’ve seen many a Show layout where operators hand out extra CAB-1’s to the kids to get them involved in running the trains. Yes, trains are expensive and yes, there are train folks that don’t want you to touch stuff and may not be “kid minded”. However, neither of these facts are really a result of Command control being in the hobby. In regard to the original topic: I have a smaller layout and don’t really have any desire to upsize. I enjoy the challenge of creating convincing scenes within a smaller space. http://home.comcast.net/~graz6/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html Mike
one of the neatest layotus around in my opinion, regardless of size. Clearly the most finely detailed small space layout. Outstanding work.
Jim (jaabat), your post of 10/12/06 at 9:21 is subtle but amusing. (In case you think nobody actually reads these things…) [:)]
Hi There! We’re a little tight for space here ourselves…a family of five squeezed into a two bedroom condo… And yet…I’ve built an empire on a 5’X7’ and 5’X12’ table stuck together into an “L” shape that’s roughly 12’X12’. I was granted trackage rights over the family storage area, which I placed into large plastic bins that I cabn easily slide in and out for under-table wiring operations. This gives me not only a great layout space, but also hides boxes of Christmas decorations, holloween stuff, and my wife’s sewing machine!
Jon FREAKIN’ Shutterfly doesn’t work anymore!
Jon,
I think you are using the wrong prefixes. Try [?img]then the address from shutterfly, and end with [/img?]
Without the question marks