I sort of posted this over in the general discussion forum on one of the “what did you get for Christmas” threads and no one reponded. I think everyone thought I was joking. For Christmas I got virtually unlimited space for a model railroad, we purchased an old school house.
The last couple weekends we have spent there cleaning it up. Last night my wife began serious planning for use of the space and I got asked the question - What part(s) of the building do you want for the pike? The original plan was to have a railroad museum with layout included. But the more I think about it I would like to get a personal pike going first, that does not necessarily have to be adjacent to or include in the musuem part…
My original plan was to use the gym, or at least 1/2 the gym. But the gym is so nice I sort of hate to convert it. I mean how many people can say they have a full size basket ball court in their house? Anyway my next plan was to use the room on the top far right (approximately 24x48). After becoming more familiar with the building I find that the center closet is much more built in than one would think. It even has its own electrical panel there - sigh. Likewise the room across the hall (lower right) is the old science room. It has some built in equipment (like a vapor hood) that I would hate to move - so it by default becomes my laboratory. The next choice seems to be the large square room right next to the gym in the center. It is about 30x30. Or should I just build another dedicated building outside? I’ve got 5 acres to play with here. The large double size room along the top is off limits as it is the library & media center it will become the primary living space. Likewise the small area right next to the center south entry with all the walls will stay that way as my office.
Dude! I’m jealous. Been dreaming of buying an old, empty Winn-Dixie store down the road for a railroad. But will probably never have the wherewithall to do so. Congratulations on the school house.
I think I would use the 30x30 room. The 24x48 room would probably work, but it might be easier planning for a square space than planning for a rectangular one. Either way, I don’t think you will need to build an additional building and either room will house more railroad than one person can keep up with…
Presuming that you don’t play basketball, than I would recommend the Gym. It’s an appropriate space for what you do do, which is model railroading. Maybe it’s the Yankee in me, but why have a huge room that won’t get used?
Assuming that you can open a door from the 30 x 30 room to the gym proper, you could have your cake (the big fixed railroad) and eat it, too - in the form of several smaller railroads on casters that can be rolled out onto the basketball court when the museum is open, or rolled to where the bleachers probably are now if you want to shoot hoops.[8D]
I remember visiting a facility in the New Hampshire tourist belt that was about the size of a school gym. There were a number of different model railroads, each about 8 x 12 or so, built in various scales and running different kinds of trains. Depositing a coin in the slot would provide about five minutes of action on each layout.[oX)]
Emotionally, I envy you your chance to build your dream in the kind of space I used to dream about. Logically, I realize that my time for getting started on that sort of thing ran out some time before the turn of the century…[sigh]
Whatever decision you make, good luck and happy building.[^]
It’s only a 17 foot wide one car but it’s 30 feet deep. (The town wouldn’t let me go wider.) I’ve never regretted it. Drove almost every nail myself. I have all the layout I can reasonably handle in a comfortable space all its own.
Now that is a good idea on several counts. If I keep the gym around for a few years and never use it, it will be fairly easy to connect the existing personal layout into the gym for the museum… Not to mention being able to have the possibility of more easily changeable exhibits for the museum.
Well there are family reunions, and church functions and other things we would let the community use it for. Another option I was thinking of was splitting it in half and leaving the stage 1/2 as a gym (short side to side basket ball court) and auditorium and taking the lower half of the other 1/2 for the layout with an observation level. Then have exhibit rooms around the observation balcony.
I’d use the gym, I’m horrible at basketball, plus not that many people can actually say they have a Gymnasium-size layout! Do any of the other rooms connect, with a movable wall or anything, like the build into most schools these days (and retrofit in old ones)? Or if the dividing walls aren;t load-bearing, would it be possible to modify the structure somewhat and make one big room out of a couple smaller ones?
Well, I did once have a layout plan designed for a former “Big Lots” building. For a size comparison think of it like the new Super Targets or Walmart’s with the grocery stores included. I had one “hall of time” that the first town scenery was done in 1830s the next 1840’s etc until we reached the modern era. The appropriate trains traveled back and forth within towns of time periods in their own era. For example FT units would have started in the 1940’s “town” but still traveled all the way up into the 1960s towns. The next was the “hall of railroads” this is where each scene was a town done in a style typical for a specific railroad. For example there would have been a Santa Fe Kansas town with at Standard Style #2 station. Mopac town, Rock Island town, CNW town etc. In a few instances I could have used towns were multiple railroads served it. This would be much more difficult for railroads that never standardized on a station design… The third hall was the railroad hall of fame for famous railroad accomplishments, places, or landmarks such as the Rock Island first bridge over the Mississippi, the Hanging Bridge of the Royal Gorge, the Pennsy Horseshoe Curve, Georgetown Loop, Keddie Wye, Santa Fe Diablo Canyon, etc, etc. The fourth hall was to be a fantasy hall. What if trains were on mars or the moon. How about a Dungeons and Dragons or Troll & Elfin scenes. What if there would have been trains in the Bible. I’ve always wanted to make a scale Noah’s Ark under construction with the railroad bringing in the supplies and animals, etc. etc. etc.
Much more ambitious than I could have ever pulled off. Especially after witnessing the Greeley Station (Colorado) railroad construction the past few years.
No. As near as I can tell (for having only owned the building a couple weeks) all of the walls shown are brick or brick lined cinder block. I do not have an engineering report yet that tells which are load bearing. I do know that some of the ones lining the hall cannot be load bearing as there are high windows (very long ones) that let the light from the classrooms out into the hall.
So I could entertain any ideas you have along that line. Even if some of them are load bearing nothing says there could not be tunnels for the trains between a couple of the rooms.
Use the 30x30 room. You’ll want the gym for the train shows your museum is going to host! Possibility of renting it out for income too.You’ll probably find that the gym is too costly to heat and cool so it will probably get closed off most of the time. (unless your funds are truly limitless)
Do you actually have to deal with a boiler?? That could turn into a pain in the butt. Did it come with a cool kitchen?
I had a chance to buy an old church when I was married. ( a REAL church, not one of these strip center things) I wasn’t fond of having a cemetery for a back yard.
I envy you! That sounds like a fun project.
The problem with just tunnels (which indded would work and not compromise a load-bearing wall) is that operation would be a bear. You’d start your train into one of the through-wall tunnels, then have to walk out the door of the room and down the hall to the next room to go pick up your train again. Depening on the size and how much layout fits in a given room you might be able to adopt a scheme where the train would naturally be stopped at the tunnel point, say by making it a division point of some sort where there is a crew change, but I think it would get old real quick plus you’d have to work hard to not make it look like it was contrived even though it clearly would be.
You could probably also add doorways between the rooms but this would surely not be an inexpensive proposition with a load bearing wall to pierce.
ALso, you mention things about a museum - if there a
a friggen school? i’d be happy with just a dam house! but i can’t give advice, rip out the floor of the gym (i hate basketball) and turn it into a shop/garage. course then known me i’d fill it up with so many project cars i wouldn’t have room for all the tools to do a project car. buuuuuut, i’d keep the half with the stage as my layout room, built in viewing platform already built in. and if you didn’t want people to just walk down and mess around with your stuff a simple electrified 20 ft. wire fence will do the trick. [:-,] i like the idea of the musuem too though, and keeping at least part of the old gym as is so it can be used by the community. you’ll make more friends that way. and then you can accept donnations for the MRRF.
You have that 30x30 space for the trains. Make the rest of the building earn it’s keep via rentals for town meets, church functions etc.
These forums are getting WAY too slow to make any meaningful posts or edits in a timely manner.
You will have X dollars for trains, X dollars for the building Make the building earn some kind of income so to make your task easier on a money point of view.
Yes, that is a consideration. I’ve got several full length 17 car passenger trains. So that is 18+ feet just to get them all straight on a stretch of track.
