I was kinda shocked when I took the poll on Digitrax’s home page about layout completion today. I pasted the results (it did not give actual vote numbers) …
It’s Done! (1.75%)
75%-99% (7.89%)
50%-74% (15.25%)
25%-50% (17.91%)
1%-25% (27.24%)
On paper only (12.9%)
Still dreaming… (17.07%)
I guess I’m one of the few here with a small, switching, shelf layout … 2’ X 13’. I have no mountians, deserts, and such … just industrial buildings and details, with quite a few (quite a few for me, anyway) remotely operated switches. But, in my mind, I really needed to get it “complete.” I know its simple compaired to what you guys do, but I consider it complete, from end to end, and we operate on it.
Now, that doesn’t mean it isn’t changing. I’ve been saving up my “train budget,” and come the first of the month, I will have all the Tortoise switch machines and NCE decoders to run them, and I will begin removing the Atlas on-table switch machines.
After that, I hope to claim another wall in our home office, to extend the layout along it. Later, another wall so I can have some continous running (a dogbone?).
And we do add some more detail from time to time, but isn’t that just a little improving?
Anyway, hats off to you guys who take on such massive projects. Helix, multiple level, etc etc etc. Wow!
I fall into a couple categoreis. I’m working on a 4.5 x 8 layout for experience until my wife decides it time ot start remodeling the basement. It was her idea–she needs the room to store her art between shows. I just lucked into a bunch of layout space. But until some meony comes in, she won’t tell me what she wants in terms of storage.
This si a good thing really, because I am learning more about myself as a modeler. Mostly that I want so sub-divide myself to work on several projects while a little part of me still goes to work.
Honestly, the figures are just what I would expect from personal observation. In fact, I doubt the majority of layouts (other than the very small or shelf-type) ever get to the 50% mark before the builder either looses interest or starts afresh.
In the regional layout tours conducted as a part of various NMRA conventions I’ve attended, fewer and fewer completed layouts are surfacing. Quite a number I’ve visited were still in the benchwork or perhaps roughed-in scenery stage. If the Digitrax poll had a listing for only 90%-100% complete, I’d bet you wouldn’t even get a 5% figure. Ever wonder why the magazines so often revisit layouts that have already appeared in their pages? It’s because there are really so very few layouts that reach a completed or semi-completed level worth displaying.
I have 2 layouts one is CP rail & BC Rail the 2nd is CN only,both are not huge,the CP/BC Rail (SI&C RR CP division)has 2 sepearte continious runs and was about 95% complete,but I will be adding a much longer run to both lines in the next week or 2,after that it will be 100% done as I have used up all the space in my small train room,but I have a nice big yard as well as a 6 bay Engine house,the upgrade will allow me to put in a 2nd yard for the Interior track as well as a modern day Diesel Engine Facility.
The CN Division of the SI&C RR is a traveling layout that goes to shows and is 98% complete,just have to ballast the track and do my road crossovers,it is a loop with a nice tunnel and lake and bridge etc.It has a nice yard and engine house as well as a spur into the Fuel Refinery,it is blocked so I can have 5 engines on the layout at anytime and power them as needed,this is more of a switching layout in the interior of the layout as the outside is for mainline running,the kids at the shows Big and small like to see the switchers make up a train and then push it out into the spur for the bigger GP 9M’s to hook up and run it around. I must admit I enjoy watching them get all excited and point to the next car to be hooked into the train it’s a blast.
On the agenda before August will be a smaller traveling N scale layout to go with the traveling HO,so far this one’s just on paper with some Engines and rolling stock waiting in the wings so I’m 100% not started on this one.
Thats about it,but have my eye on our back yard reno can see a nice “G” scale in there somewhere… Hmmmm
I’m guessing mine is about 60% complete,However, last week i got permission from the “war department” (wife) to extend it another 5 feet, so now i’m back to 30% complete.
Mine is perpetually <10% finished. I have a pretty well assembled fleet (both motive power and rolling stock) but the space for the layout is always a point of contention. Right now, it looks like this:
The track is 30ish year old Tru-Track my dad got when he lived in LA, and the yard was a holiday project over the winter. You can’t do much construction in a rental.
The Benchwork/Trackage/Electrical has been done since 1992. I was slowly working on scenery, and then got to thinking about changing scales/new house/adding DCC. I really did nothing other than clean the track and run trains until 2003. Last year I started a ‘rebuild’ of the layout(which trashed a lot of scenery) and a complete ‘re-wire’ for DCC and signaling. That project was to be complete by the end of 2005, but as usual I am running behind. I do plan to be working on scenery again by this fall, and have enough materials to at least get a ‘hardshell’ on the entire layout by the end of 2006. My son moved back home, and has been a great help(he got interested again as soon as he moved back home) He will be 22 in June, and is working at Mayo Clinic/going to school. He has enough energy to tackle all of the projects I throw at him!.
Actually I wish I knew [:o)] I keep looking for things to improve on. , shift a track here, move a building there. So 100% minus improvements. What ever that comes to.
I don’t recall ever going to a club or private layout and being told it was 100% finished. Even the original club I belonged to which had been in place for over 30 years was still in the process of change and/or expansion. Sort of like the cities we live in. They are dynamic and ever changing and every model railroad layout I have visited was undergoing the same process
I’m building my layout in stages so I couldn’t put a percentage to my completion level. I can run trains and have started doing scenery. I need more industries and alot more rolling stock.
I only have one question about that 1.75% who answered, “It’s done.”
Was that the modeler, or the modeler’s estate?
Thanks to changing interests, the availability of new products and methods, peer pressure etc. the only “done” model railroads I’ve ever encountered belonged to modelers who were either deceased, inactive, or no longer physically and mentally capable of doing more. If the modeler is alive and actively pursuing the hobby, there will always be something to change, rebuild or extend.
My own layout is in the process of expanding - from 12 square feet (one module, one level) to well over 240 square feet (flattened 6, peninsula plus 2 walls, on three or more levels.) There is a looooong way to go!
I think that part of the low figure for “done” is that few modelers actually consider their layouts done. There is always something to add, something to change. That said, just as many have previously said, most layouts are nowhere near even 50 or 75 percent. I’ve been working on my layout for 5 years and I can’t say that i’m 25% done. This is partially because of lack of time, my constant rebuilding (I tore out 80% of my layout at the end of December 2005 and rebuilt it. Now, i’ve decided to expand my layout to five times its current size. That means that I am probably somewhere i the range of 10% done.
(edit) Current layout is at most 50% done.
error error, I didn’t get to vote, but mine is still changing, upgradding and expanding. I’m probably 50% complete.
dpaton, Try modules! I didn’t have much space and joined a local club (about 15 years ago). When I retired, I took my 5 modules with me. I’ve added another straight and 4 curves and I have an 18 x 8 that is all in 2’ x 4’ sections. I don’t plan to move (I’m 70). Well I may be forced into a home at 95 but by then my grandkids will take over. Well I might move up (heaven) before then, but I won’t really care about the rr then!
You can move a module with you, almost anywhere.
I think that the basic conflict with the words “finished” or “done” may be skewing the results. To many, either word means “complete, work has stopped”. Where’s the fun in that?
I like more descriptive terms. “Benchwork done, trackwork done, electrical done, foam rough-in done, foam finish carved, terrain rough-in done, terrain finish sculpted, terrain base painted, terrain detail painted, foliage done, ballast done, structures done, superdetailing started”, in that order, with “done” meaning “passably realistic for now”.
Under that system, benchwork, trackwork, electrical, and foam rough-in is done here, foam finish carved at 66%, and foliage done at 33%. If the weather holds, the foam will be finish carved at 100% by the end of this week, and terrain work (spackling and carving) painting, and foliage will probably take another month.
Then ballast and in my opinion, the layout and raw terrain are done, with structures and superdetailing yet to go. With any luck, I can stretch that part of the work out for another decade before I have no choice but to stop modeling or begin a second module.
the Yuba River Sub is still changing, expanding and upgrading–none of which was able to be accomplished this very wild, wet winter out here in Sunny CA, since I have the typical ‘California Basement’ layout (garage). Summer is when I can work on it.
Track: Need to re-do some curve joints (mainly due to a new, beautiful and expensive steam locomotive I’ve wanted for years)
Wiring: Need to put in some additional feeders (only 3/4 of the garage is insulated)
Scenery: Lots of work to do, lots already accomplished, lots of detail to add to the already accomplished–should take me forever, hopefully)
Details: I’ll be working on these from my coffin, LOL!)
Additional trackage (need to put in a staging yard and some additional spur trackage if I can ever find the space)
Towns: Have to find space for one or two more towns. (So far I’ve only got one, the others are ‘off-layout’ and that’s a bummer)
Finished? Nah!
Having fun? You BETCHA!
Tom [:D]
I don’t think most people ever finish a layout. The closest I have ever come was my first 4 x8 when I was young.
On my current layout which I have been working on for about 4 years (with several rebuilds and relaying of most of the track) I have some places about 60% done and others not even started. All the benchwork is done for the first level and about 1/2 for the second.
Estimated time frame: First level: complete benchwork, track, wiring and rough scenery (foam, roads…) by July 2006. Second level. Complete benchwork, wiring, and track by Dec 2006. Scenery on the upper level will take about a year. Helix by mid 2007.
Completion date: Never (Most likely sometime in 2008 or 2009 depending on money and time)
Josh - Modeling the Maine Central Mountian Division cir 1976
