I’m finally back online after a 3 week hiatus…The owner of the property sent a letter to me in mid-May announcing that they were breaking the lease with me in order to sell the property before she takes too big a beating on the market. So the girls and I had 30 days to find another place…[]
What’s worse, the only thing I could find that would work doesn’t have a garage…so the layout had to go to storage for the next 12 months [banghead]…I’m going through layout withdrawals already. Sure, I have enough to do between work and unpacking the house again, but I’m itching to run trains and can’t.
Sounds like it’s time to kitbash, detail and scratch build for a while. Don’t they have to give you 90 days notice if YOU haven’t done anything wrong?? 30 days isn’t a whole lot of time to find a new place and moved.
Sorry to hear of your circumstances. Is there perhaps a club in your area with a layout that you can join so you have access to a layout in the meantime?
30 days notice was in the lease for the owner…I could have fought it, but I was so angry over the whole thing that all I wanted was to get us out and into another place. I think she was speculating in the market and lost her A*@ from talking to the property management and the real estate agent handling the sale. We just got caught up in her mess.
I was thinking about working on some scratchbuilding projects and possibly starting a small layout to put out on the balcony of our 2nd story apartment.
I wish there was a club around here right now Randall…one of the LHS’s tried to get a modular club together without much success.
Sorry to read about your situation.[sigh] If you need additional time to find a place with a garage or more space, consider fighting the 30 day notice. [#dots] It’s not right that you have to pay the price because of her poor planning. I was a landlord before and could never imagine blind-siding someone like this.
If you’ve decided to stick with your current plan, is there a spare bedroom or enclosed patio in which you can build a shelf type layout 12" to 20" wide along the wall? I’m in the process of doing that now. As CMarchand recently pointed out to me, you’ll have opportunities to perform switching operations. [8D] Your locomotives wouldn’t have to sit idle for a year.[;)]
That’s terrible to hear, I can understand having limited time to find a place though as I have been through it twice. Hopefully it works out for you. In the meantime just build something smaller so you can run a few trains if you have the room, or a switching layout as suggested. Lack of room is something a lot of us deal with, then again when you are a model railroader there is never actually enough available room.
I can understand what you’re going thru. I haven’t had a layout since 1987 and I still don’t and wont until I do some more work in cleaning up the basement and getting rid of a lot of crap that accumulated in my train room. Hopefull by the end of the summer, I’ll at least be able to run soemthing even if it’s only back and forth or on a circle of track.
I decided to join and N-Trak group in May and I’ve been running trains at the club ever since. I go there twice a week and it happens that I learned alot and it’s also provided an inspiration for getting my train room cleared.
I found them by checking the World’s Greatest Hobby Web Site for train clubs in my area. You can do that here too. It may be worth a try.
There’s no club’s in my area…I have to go 160 miles to Las Vegas. I’m pretty sore over the whole situiation, but it’s not the end of the world…it only hurts when I close the storage room door on the layout [banghead]
I do have a balcony that could have a small layout in it’s future…
Do you use XTrakCad? As long as you’ve got some time, you might as well download it and spend some time learning to use it. Design a small switching layout, and create a dream-sized empire. Come up with a plan for a room-sized layout, too. The experience will give you some ideas that you can use later on, and it doesn’t cost a thing.
sorry to hear that man. But look at this as a golden opportunity: you’ve got a whole YEAR to perfect some of the lesser-appreciated skills, imo. The main being engine/rolling stock weathering and detailing. Hell, I HAVE a layout going, and I keept finding myself, time and time again, stuck in my bedroom at my desk with my collection of paint bottles, bags of weathering powders, and thing of artists rust/brown/orange pastels. The final results are all sitting on a few pieces of EZtrack sitting on top of my TV.
take this time to buy some detail stuff, and go Cr@Z3333!!!
what are you modeling? I would go over to www.detailswest.com and check out their display pages of the different things you can add. They even have whole detail kits for certain engines, and they specialize in Southern Pacific diesel detailing. You can do some crazeeee stuff with their details, man.
or, you could take just like, a little 2x4 foot piece of wood and build a diorama. Practice your scenery skills, and use it as time to get good at handlaying your track. Detail the CRAP out of that thing! Thats what I’m doing right now to get good at stuff before going over to the real layout. Details West also has a whole line of trackside details, like relay boxes, flange lubricators, and all sorts of crazy things you would put near turnouts.
Wow!! I’m sorry to hear about yourplace, that was poor planning your landlord part. As suggested before try to find a MRXR club to join, hon uo on your kitbash skills, read modelrailroder mags to develop ideas, keep your mind fresh, you will be find, Again sorry about your problem.
I’m always amazed when people sell when the market(whichever market)is at a low point. If you want to sell, sell. Just don’t go saying that you’re selling because the market is down…that makes you sound dumb. It’s a buyers market out there. You should look into buying the house yourself. You’ll save all the moving expenses and won’t have to have KP change your subscription address.
I feel your pain. My wife kicked me out in 2000 and I’ve been in apartments since then. I’m finally divorced and can start thinking about a house, but I don’t want to stay in central NY so I have to wait longer still until I get settled in a different (warmer) location.
I’m going to start working on a small layout that I can set upright against the balcony when not in use. I did have a peek at carendt.com and saw a couple of layouts that looked interesting, but I haven’t settled on anything just yet. There’s also the N tutorial layout from Yahoo groups that I’m kicking around…slimmed down, of course.
Now that the last of the small boxes are packed away with the N-O&SW in storage, I said my farewell’s until next year when we move into a place with a garage.
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