Laying ONE track

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Questions to make you think:

IF YOU…
Took all the track that you have on YOUR layout, and laid it
in a STRAIGHT line, how far will it go ?

IF YOU…
Think about all the track work you have done in your lifetime,
how many times have you hit your fingers ?

IF YOU…
Were a miniature person living on your layout, would you want
to be a track layer or M O W for your railline?

Think about it !

2

  1. Probably close to 1,000 scale miles.

  2. Hit fingers with what? I don’t use a hammer to lay track.

  3. With black widow spiders, lizards, packrats, and snakes able to get into the clubhouse, I wouldn’t live long if I was small enough to live on the layout.

3

  1. I have enough to be a small metro.

  2. As one who needed to use a few spikes, I guess a few.

  3. Live on my own layout ??? That’s some really large dust I’m breathing.
    I could not live long on my layout, I’d have to move before I die of Lung Diseases.
    Or I would have to buy a really good respirator or mask. I could live in my closet,
    the subway scene. That is the only decent place to be right now, it’s finished.

4

lets see…i’ve layed fourteen boxes of flex track in my life…so that’s 3 ft. x 100 pieces = 300 ft of track x 14 =4200 real ft. of track (not counting the length of the hundreds of turnouts…) so 4200 x 87 real ft : ho ft = 365400 / 3480 ft in a mile …that’s 105 miles of track in HO scale miles…swing that hammer John Henry!!!

I do use a hammer to spike the rails but i use a punch…can’t hit my thumb using a punch.

And i think i 'd like to be the CEO of the railroad layout…that would be one really nice paycheck even if it is HO scale!

5
  1. Around forty feet.
  2. A couple of times.
  3. I live about four blocks off the eastern edge of my layout, in the real world. If I end up having the space I may make a model of my house. It’d be an easy scratchbuild, just a one-bedroom bungalow with stucco walls…hm.
6

  1. Planning for a Timesaver 6’ long roughly equals three parallel tracks. Throw in some spurs of undetermined length. Maybe 24 feet.

  2. Never. I haven’t got that far yet.

  3. Personally, I am the owner and majority-stockowner of my railroad. I have the business car to prove it. But being on the MOW crew would be a good seasonal job for somebody to take. The track I intend to model runs about 10 miles IRL, and the transcontinental railroad crews sometimes went that far in a day. I’m not in that big a hurry, since I intend to not have to re-lay everything again within a year. This will be a long-term (all construction season) temp job.