Note - This is not about me or anyone I know. Just food for thought …
We all have a finite amount of time on this planet, but … what if one day, your ticket gets punched and you now know when your ride will be over ?
Aside from all the other responsibilities in your life, do you still carry on building that basement empire ? Or … do you call it quits on the layout and get it torn down and sold off so the people you leave behind don’t have to deal with it ? Again, this is assuming you have been given a “window” of time that you may have left here.
Kind of a morbid topic, I know. I guess the older we get, these things tend to cross our mind from time to time.
Living in South Florida for 40 years I have seen this happen many times. They don’t call this area “God’s Waiting Room” for nothing.
Generally, when someone receives terminal news, the layout remains as a great escape. The last thing you need is another chore, like layout removal, when you need to see your loved ones and make big decisions.
I have been involved in the removal of several layouts following the builder’s exit from this world. It is easy to let people know your layout needs to be scrapped after you pass, and that is easy to get done.
The tragedies are people that lie to their families about what the trains are worth, then when they pass, the widow thinks everyone is trying to rip her off when the best offer she can get is “I’ll remove the layout if I can keep all the trains.” I had to deal with a distraught widow a year ago that thought her husband built a work of art that she actually had to pay to get out of the house.
I’m 83 and I could start pushing up grass tomorrow. About 5 years ago I started making eBay listings on my computer so that it would be easy to sell my locomotives (70 or so). I took and included several pictures of each for each locomotive with detailed info including wiring diagrams and a feasible starting price.
I’m now working on my rolling stock, pictures and wiring diagrams for specialty passenger cars, cabooses and camera cars.
I copy all of the files to a Thumb Drive labeled Trains for eBay.
My layout is on casters and could be rolled out of the garage on to a flat bed trailer (10’ wide by 14’ long but movable).
Playing devil’s advocate, why not enjoy life and not worry about leaving it? Trains provide enjoyment (or should). I focus on the fun aspect and not the money, time, etc. spent. Studies show that looking at things more positively is healthy.
I am going to throw this out there. I hope I am not violating a forum rule.
There is a good collection of items I salvaged from friend’s layouts after they passed to be included on the final STRATTON AND GILLETTE. Many of these were featured in Model Railroader and Great Model Railroads.
If anyone wants something from their layout to join this collection after they pass, please feel free to make arrangements to send it South. The town of Port Annabell is going to be a real “Who’s That” of the history of model railroading.
If I know someone who might want some of what I have, it would be a good idea to make arrangements now. We could maybe make written instructions and an address of where certain cars could go. Mel’s idea is also worthwhile for something that may have value.
It would be nice that my children or wife would not have to try to figure out what is what, and that something that is important to me won’t end up at the curb and landfill.
My wife and I went through a period of 18 months where all four of our parents died. We were so sick of looking through things, and settling things, and getting rid of things, that I vowed I would not do that to my daughters.
I will enjoy my stuff more knowing I’m not saddling my wife or kids with headaches.
You know what they say about the best time to start generating a resume or a will: right before you need one. The same logic applies to just about every other undertaking in life.
I don’t have a circle of buddies with whom I meet and who are fellow modelers. In fact, my closest friend is 60 miles away, and we seldom see each other, especially this year. I wouldn’t dream of asking him to help out my wife if I kick the bucket and she’s stuck selling and moving into an apartment or a condo…or into the home of one of our kids. My instructions would be to get a husky in, show him a couple of stout hammers and wrecker bars, and offer him $50 for the 30 minutes it would take to bust it up and haul it into a bin. It’s mine or its scrap. Pronounce that any way you wish.
Being a club member, and our club has a sale table at our annual show. I have instructed my son to contact the club to remove everything he will not use, and have them sell it or use it on the club layout.
The club charges a commison for sales from the table, but it will be a win for all.
I’m 73, and until 2 years ago I was quite healthy, but not so anymore.
I would invite other train people in to take what they want. I would scrap the layout itself unless someone wants it, but I would give the remaining rolling stock, engines and structures to a local club if they’d take them.
I kinda agree with selector. Demolishing the layout room is not a big deal. Let the real estate agents come in and remove all the benchwork in an hour or so, toss the scraps into a dumpster, and put in a few plants and some wicker furniture and a colorful throw rug here and there or something.
I also like Kevin’s idea. I just don’t want to get run over by a truck in the meanwhile just so somebody can get a hold of one of my bridges. But I do like the idea of stuff going to a good home where knowledgeable modelers can decide what is to be done.
My family kinda knows what I’m up to, and I’ve told them that all the engines and rolling stock are safely packed away in boxes and bins and should be no problem to dispose of. The electronics can easily be removed. And if they get ten cents on the dollar, so be it. At the moment all this stuff is of value to me, and in the future . . . sorry, but not a big issue.
In the meanwhile, there is still a few hundred feet of track that needs to be ballasted, and that hotel ain’t gonna paint itself.
I don’t plan on putting my family through the process of having to sell everything. I’m going to donate it all to my old club for them to do with what they please. At their show last February they made about $2000 selling donated items so I’m sure they wouldn’t be stuck with much leftover.
My layout is also on casters (5’4" x 12’) so it could be removed from the garage intact quite easily. It will go to the club too. If they don’t want to bother handling it then they can borrow my sawzall.
I hope I’m talking 20 or 25 years down the road, by the way. There may not even be a club by then.
I think about this every time it pops on the forum.
Since I’m still young I thought of two ways.
1.) Sell it myself, because we all know that the family doesn’t know how much money it cost.
I also thought of train shows and eBay for business.
2.) Give it to other people that they advertise in MR magazines. Since they made a job out of it selling things online.
If I do create the Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio Railway than the layout, rolling stock, locomotives and the history. Can be a family layout after I go, donate at a museum (if they want it.) I doubt selling it isn’t going to work because who wants somebody’s fictional railroad complete with rolling equipment and history book of the line.
One version or another of this has been heavily discussed on here many times before. You just added the new twist of the “terminal illness news”. Since doctors are not always right, my standard reply still stands:
Personally, at 63, I’m about to start a 1500 sq ft layout. I’m in good health, not yet retired, but self employed and able to start slowing down my work pace.
Tear down the layout and sell the trains? Are you nuts, how about I just drive the car into a bridge abutment right after I sell the last box car and just get it over with?
You are welcome to give up on life, even if you are ill, worring about things you can’t control after you are gone, I’m going to keep living thank you.
Our kids will need the model trains to sell off, because the will is going to read “Being of sound mind and body we spent it all”.
Heck, why wait to be old? You could get hit by a bus tomorrow or get bad news from a doctor no matter what age you are?
I wrote a big reply that gotten eaten in the Internet. I will summarize
It’s a big pain for your heirs, the house, the junk, the deferred maintenance, the photos, the stuff important to you, but to no one else.
However I suspect few of us will be handed a timeline when we are feeling well. Maybe it’s unsuccessful surgery, or chemotherapy or radiation, sold to you on the basis that it might buy time. You are unlikely to feel like you do now.
Aside from physical effects, there are the emotional effects of knowing you are going to the Pearly Gates or elsewhere, that you will never see your daughter down the aisle or that your grandchildren will really know you.
I had a near miss in 2015 and I was in no shape to dispose of anything.
An oncologist once told me something I will never forget. “Oncologists dream of sudden death”
Everyday we wake up it’s a blessing. I just wish it wasn’t at 3 am for a plumbing issue[:D]
I had a friend, a really nice guy lol (former Santa Fe Modeler Don Nyce) who got the bad news that his cancer had spread to his bones and that he had somewhere between 3 and maybe as much as 15 years to live. It ended up being closer to 5.
What did he do? He started building his dream layout with his son in the top floor of a pole barn. They got a lot of trackwork down and functioning, and very little scenery. I said it was a bit much to attempt at the time, but they did it anyway, lol. He got closer to his son those last couple years, and they had fun with the trains as long as they could.
Don Nyce was a great guy and very well known to the Santa Fe Modelers in general.
I have aging inlaws (my Dad is gone recently and my mom is in a for now Covid free nursing home in another state near my sister). I want a ranch house with an inlaw suite, and maybe a pool, and a long basement run where I might do a true point to point along one wall.
Or else my next layout will be a 5’ x 9’.
Dad, an excellent carpenter, built my current benchwork to bolt together and be removable and reusable. I could easily reuse some of it for the shelf layout at the next house. Dad always thought ahead, and did so much to bless my family…
In my case, I’m minimalist. I don’t need 1000 freight cars or dozens of engines. I enjoy playing with a relative few, less than 100 freight cars, as that’s all I really need. The brass models are gone to help pay for son’s college already, and also because I found some BLI steamers I can actually consider “good enough” for my purposes (and much cheaper), and I’m getting at least one MTH DM&IR yellowstone, because always wanted one (it is due literally any day now).
My final version layout will be designed to be easily removed when that time comes, and as long as I’m able to run some trains I’ll be happy. I don’t
At 72 I’m still building ISLs that can be toted out to the trash… I have a train show dealer that will buy my models.
If you hadn’t notice I went missing for 6 days thanks to yet another CHF and a flair up of COPD backed by a infection that sided tracked me at CP Hospital.
Work will commence on a Santa Fe end of branch line at Alexander La. This is a protolance brach between Oakdale and Alexander Louisiana since Santa Fe did go to Oakdale.AAlexanderleAlexander Louisianaxander Louisiana
I agree. I’ll run trains as long as I can hold a controller. If all the track isn’t already in place, I’ll lay enough to run trains.
My middle son is heavily into 3 rail O gauge. So he gets all my 3 rail trains and all my O scale buildings. After that he, my other sons, and my grandson can divide up the rest keeping what they want and selling the rest on eBay (or other ways) - again something my middle son can take the lead on. The layout can be dumped or parts of it salvaged - benchwork is all screwed together for easy reuse of the lumber if desired.
While I paid more, I would guess it all would sell for $5,000 to $10,000 depending on how much effort they want to put into selling it. I do plan to leave some estimates of value to help them get started, but nobody’s retiring on it.
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
― Mark Twain
If I am dead, I will not care what happens to my trains. It is likely that both my kids will be earning significant incomes to the point where them using their valuable time to dispose of my toy trains would be a waste of that time.
I told the kids to call a couple of local clubs to come get it all and keep what they want, sell what they don’t at a train show.
I am reminded of my Aunt who spent a lifetime amassing a large art collection. She went into a care home where she had lots of wall space to hang many of her favourites and rotated them out with some she kept in the closet. Not wanting to burden her daughter with the disposal of her belongings she gave it all to a gallery one day to sell and got taken advantage of getting pennies on the dollars of what she should have. After she sold the art she sat and looked at blank walls for three ye
My mother, bless her soul, had everything accounted for and all titles, deeds and financial assets were either TOD or a designated beneficiary was listed.
Presently, my wife and I are having all our deeds and assets converted to avoid probate. Fortunately, our county has benefits for seniors which includes legal assistance at $25. per visit. We had new wills, directives and power of attorney papers drawn up practically for free!
As far as all my “train” related assets I have a codicil attached to my will which specifies in which order family and friends can avail themselves to help themselves to anything desired, then my wife has a few contacts listed to liquidate what’s left. After that, it’s a sawzall and dumpster.
I suggest to anyone who doesn’t already have their end-of-life arrangements made to see if their local seniors benefits agency has low-cost help available. Often it is out there but you have to make the first step.
