Not to dump my financial woes off on you guys, but the truth is that I’ve been self employed for about three years now, and have had my house up for sale for about six months. My payments are $850.00 a month, which has caused me to really have to hustle and curb my spending to make ends meet… I got word today from the firm that’s trying to sale it for me that a serious buyer is interested. At present, my layout is out in the guest house, and will have to be moved about a mile away to my mom’s where I’ll be living until further notice. She has a 12 X 20 out building in her back yard that she’s agreed to let me set my train stuff up in, so all is not lost. The saddest part about the whole thing is that I built a 12 X 12 X 7 bomb shelter in my back yard complete with all the basic creature comforts that cost me over $40,000.00 to build over the course of several years, and of course it will be going with the house… Oh well. I accept starting over again as a middle age challenge.
Right now, my biggest concern is getting my layout from point A to Point B with the least amount of damage as possible. Any suggestions ?.
Mark;
It depends on how you buil;t it. We moved to our present house in 93 my RR had to be completely demolished because I made no provision for moving it. This RR I built in sections so all I have to do is saw through scenery & cut track. I can unscrew each section from the wall & away we go. Perhaps you can use this as a chance to design a new RR without the things you wish you had done differently. Sounds like that is a pretty nice space for a layout. Hope eveything works out for you.
Tom
Geeze, I thought those went out with the 60’s!!! [;)][:D][:0]
Seriously, I hope the move goes well for ya! My layout out moved 800 miles way back in the 70’s, then again a couple miles in the early 90s when The Kid decided he liked trains. After the first move, it never got set back up, and it aquired a good bit of damage over the years until The Kid and I rebuilt it in the early 90’s. Hopefully your move will be easy, as long as the layout can be disassembled into readily moveable pieces.
Good luck to ya Track! Hope you are back up and running soon!
Thanks Tom. I fully believe everything will eventually be okay. To tell the whole story. Up until three years ago, I was employed with one of the largest security companies in the US, and made “very good” money in the position I was in. To make a long story short, the company sold out to someone else, and I didn’t care for their way of doing things so I resigned. At the time, I was well set thanks to the nest egg I’d put back for my retirement, which is in part what I’ve been living off of since then along with what I make with my own little home repair business. Along the way, I made some totally stupid investments and lost my rear… The first thing to go was my new truck, which a friend of mine took the payments over for me, then I sold off most of my furniture. Now I’m down to the house - all for the sake of saving my credit. To sum it up, I bit off more than I could chew… But five years ago, no one on earth could have made me believe anything like that could possibly happen. What can I say. Live and learn.
As for the layout. It’s 6 1/2 X 3 1/2 in N scale, and has a plaster of paris mountain on one end. I think I can remove everything loose off the surface and put it in shoe boxes, remove the table legs which are bolted on, tilt it side ways to get it out the door, put it in the bed of a truck, carefully drive over to it’s new home then do everything in reverse to set it back up. it’ll be housed in an office l
Yes Mr. Rotorranch, a Bomb Shelter ([:D])… Okay, so I’m paranoid. I’ve been into survivalism since I was a kid, and growing up in the city during the cold war didn’t help with the ever looming fear that we might get hit by nuclear weapons one day out of the clear blue. So, as soon as I bought my place out here, I got to work building the shelter.
It’s 12 X 12 X 7, has an air filter system, a generator with a 1,000 gallon fuel tank, a parascope for viewing the surface, a radiation meter to measure outside radiation levels and can accomidate two people for a little over three months. I’ve been keeping it restocked with fresh food, water and weapons since I built it. If you’re curious about the way it’s set up. You crawl through the hatch which is air tight when sealed and to your left are two bunks with under storage and privacy curtains, at the foot of the bunks are two lockers for clothes and weapons storage, to the right is a small closet with a toilet that has its own septic system, next to it is a large storage cabinet that contains food, water, firstaid supplies, a small color TV and DVD player, about 50 DVDs, a radio, trash bags, etc.
I really hate leaving it behind, but it’s no
Cool, Track! Sounds like you were well prepared, except you forgot to include your trains! [;)]
There was a family in my neighborhood who had a bomb shelter when I was a kid, although not anywhere near as elaborate as yours! We used to play in it as kids. I always wondered what would happen if it came to be needed. I could just see all the neighbors trying to cram in there! [:0]
Made me think of the movie I saw where the kid grew up under the city in the bomb shelter, then came above ground. And there hadn’t been “The Big One”! I can’t remember the name of the movie, but I laughed my butt of as he learned all about the life that he never knew!
Hope everything works out for ya in your move, Track! Good luck!
My ex-girlfriend and I spent a week in it a couple of years ago to see how it would be if we ever actually had to stay in it (now you know why she’s my ex-girlfriend [:p]). Anyway. After the first two days, we both got stir crazy. We watched movies, listened to the radio, read, slept (that too…), played board games, talked about what would be going on up on the surface if it were a real situation, etc. Of course she was turned off by having to take sponge baths instead of being able to soak in a tub for an hour, and missed having contact with the outside world, but she got through it okay otherwise. And yes, the thing I missed the most was being able to run my trains during that time!.. I’ll be sure and include a small layout if ever I build another one.
You needed a His and Hers set of shelters. When she whines and says she wants to go with you when the balloon goes up, you sternly point to her shelter and chide her for breaking the agreement that she gets the dolls and the trains go with you to your bunker. [(-D]
I take it that you will attempt to salvage the mountain? You could use a reciprocating saw around its base, and then lay it back in place with patches when the time comes.
You could try a return to nature. Move to the uninhabited north woods, build a home out of locally scavenged materials, subscribe to Mother Earth News, live off of gardening,hunting and road kill (yuck!).
The trains will be difficult, though. You can take them along, but it’s hard to operate them when you are hand cranking a little 12 volt generator for power!
As for your imminent move, it sounds like you have things figured out. The benefits of a small layout!! You mom is really nice to help you out.
Good thing your ex-girlfriend is your EX-girlfriend. If she didn’t like spending 2 days alone with you, how would she have liked 40 years or so? You’re better off now!
Yea, mom’s a great lady. She didn’t blink an eye when I asked her if I could move in with her for a while. She’s a widow (dad will have been gone 35 years tomorrow 10/6/05), and really doesn’t like living alone.
As for the ex-girlfriend. It was a week we stayed in the shelter, not two days. And the reason we broke up was because she accused me of seeing another girl behind her back, but I wasn’t. Oh well. There’s people in prison that are totally innocent too…
The thing that matters the most is - I’ve still got my trains [:p].
To be honest, bomb shelters really don’t work. Odds are you wouldn’t be home to use it if and when the big one hit. Much better to live far away from any primary strike targets.
(like in the middle of Amish country[:D])
Sorry to hear about your situation though. That really sucks.
I had a great Mom, too. She passed away last year. Dad’s been gone since 1978. Mom never re-married and I wasn’t the best son until I met my girlfriend. She and Mom were bingo buddies and Mom was trying to introduce her to my older brother. After my girlfirend and I got together, she taught me to be a better son and that Mom was always going to be my mother. The three of us had a lot of good times together, especially t
Thank you loathar. I’m just going to do what I have to do and roll with the punches… I’ve been checking into a couple of job leads that are similar to what I was doing, so I think it’ll all eventually get back to normal. I bet I’ll be a lot wiser with my money next time!.
As for the shelter. Yea, it would help to be close to it if something were to ever actually go down, and I did take that into consideration before I built it.
The worst thing about even the biggest bomb shelter is isolation… Not many people can stand to be boxed up in a small place even if they have everything they could possibly want or need, but if I knew it meant life or death, I could probably make myself stay put as long as I had to - at least until the groceries or fuel for the generator ran out.
Mark,
Wish you the best in your transition. And, I hope you can keep in touch through the forums.
Just remember, trains will keep you sain!!! Although I’m still looking for that 12 step program!!
Thanks Billba, and you know I’m going to continue to be a member of the forum as long as Bergie and the rest of you guys are willing to put up with me…
Yeah, Loathar, as we all learned not very long ago, pre-emptive strikes, or terrorist ones, are effective because they happen with the element of surprise. Greatest effect when you catch 'em with their pants down.
Ha, ha On30Shay. Very funny… Everybody knows no one sales a one mile long extension cord. You have to plug 53 one hundred foot cords together to reach that far like I’m going to do!. ([:p]) Of course we’re joking here guys.
I actually burned an electric weed eater up one time using two one hundred foot cords because of the resistance - or so I was told. Oh well. It just prompted me to go out and buy a gas powered one.
Tracklayer,
Do you remember the Twilight Zone episode where the man built
a bomb shelter for his family. Everyone called him “paraniod” and
had a good laugh. And then one day the missles started flying and
everyone of his “friends” wanted in the shelter… the one’s who had
thought he was paranoid!
As for the layout, I built mine so that it could be moved with as little
desruction as possible. It is around the walls of an extra bed room
and I built it in four “moveable” sections. I’ll have to cut some scenery
and track, but it should survive. Maybe you can find away to break yours
down enough to get it to your Moms. Good luck, Dave