What is the best way to proceed with a new HO layout?
I have plenty of space and have roughed in the designated area with benchwork. My plan is a bent double wishbone design. I have no specific prototype planned, but I like the B&O and L&N. I will try for a 40’s-60’s era mid-west look. I have been out of the hobby 20+ years and all my locomotives are dc, so may try sound but am avoiding dcc.
QUESTION -Once I am satisfied with basic shape and flow of the layout benchwork, are professional designers a viable solution? What is a typical charge or fee structure? [ A friend loaned me a cad rail program, but I don’t have the patience to read 300 pages of instructions-so returned it. ]
Try some of the simplier programs out there such as Xtrkcad or Atlas’s MR program RTS. These are pretty simple to learn, offer some pretty descent features and the best part, they are free. I’ve been in/out of the hobby for the past 20 years and recently got back into it full-time the past year and a lot has changed. I use a few graphic programs to sketch in structures and scenery and I still do a lot of it with pencil and paper. Don’t avoid DCC, from what I’ve seen and the ease of learning some of the simplier systems out there, it sold me! What got me sour on mring years ago was running everything with blocks, with DCC you open your railroad to many new and innovative ways of doing things as well as running one or many trains at once without fliping those block switches. It allows you to concentrate on your trains instead of your control board. Good Luck!!! [:D]
Know what you want the layout to do. I, too, gave up on computer designers, and drew mine on paper and then laid it out full size on the floor with masking tape. That solved a lot of problems. This forum does a good job looking at plans and finding trouble spots. I have seen some guys sumit a dozen versions of a plan. I assume they finally decide on one and start building.
My advice is to to build in such a way as to make changes possible.
I also spent many days reading old magizines and collecting pictures.
Hal, Hazmat is right when he encourages you to reconsider your decision to avoid DCC. It really is revolutionary, and adds tremendously to the enjoyment of running trains. It’s also very simple… don’t let all the deep discussions scare you off… that stuff is all for later. You do have the one drawback for considering DCC… lots of old locos without decoders. But don’t dismiss the idea of DCC. It would be nice if you could find a local DCC layout and give it a try. You’ll be hooked.
Hal, don’t under estimate the pointers above. While you’ve done this before 20+ years ago, lot’s has changed. There are many, many, many stories from all of us (me inlcuded) that started the build phase a little too early. MR has coined all of this as Dream, Plan, Build. Don’t worry about spending a few months (if you haven’t already) on the D and P parts. This will pay dividends later that you will not regret.
Go to a train show if possible. This will get the D part going. Every time I go to one of these, new ideas/dreams crop up.
You never said, what size are you planning; that empire everone dreams of or a smaller one to experiment with ?
By professional designers are you talking about the people who advertise layout design and appear to do it for a living? If so, I would say it would depend totally on the company but immediately state a well known example. When Gary Coleman lived here in Denver he hired a “professional” company. They spent like 6 months on the thing charged something like $15K (a lot of mony back in 1989), and it looked like a toy train set with “bread loaf” tunnels.
I would think it would be more fun to work through it here with these folks. Just check out some of the layouts we have designed by “committee”.
The one big layout I did, “professionally”, I charged the architect about $1000 bucks to create the plan and estimate. Tthis included travel expenses for a trip to Trinidad CO to scope out the territory that was being requested (a really cool place to model if one likes AT&SF, CB&Q, and coal trains). The estimate ended up being $34,000.
What TZ says above about professional designers is 100% true, some are great, truly incredible designers others are, let us say not so skilled, it is really a situation of caveat emptor and if you do go this route you will want to have a very close relationship with the designer one that covers ever possible aspect of your wants and needs. I myself tried to go this route but found it to be cost prohibitive, however the designer I was dealing with is a very good one and if you’d like his name and web site just let me know and I will pass it along to you in email.
For myself I found that once I hade the shape and size of my bench work defined and the ideas of what I wanted on the layout laid out the rest came with some ease and with the help of the gang here I have made great progress. Although it can take some time I strongly recommend you give it a try.
TZ has a point. Many layouts have been designed here by committee. It’s kind of fun, and it really does open you up to ideas that you might never have thought of. I’ve been in on a couple of those sessions as well as being the one who “set the wheels in motion” so to speak. I was going to build a section of a layout that would later be incorporated into a larger layout when our house is done being built. I didn’t build it (the layout) because I figured I had enough on my plate right now, but it was fun.
Here are a couple of examples of layouts (or sections of larger layouts) that have been done by committee. The first is the one I was going to build.
The second is a country interchange between two different RR’s.
Hal, Welcome to the forum and back to the hobby!
If you are interested in getting up and running, you might want to consider building a small module. If you build in small sections, you can change their arrangement, if you change your mind. If you have to nuke one of them you still have the basic frame and haven’t lost much. Check with your LHS to see if there is a club near you. Sometimes seeing what others have done can guide you in that directions or away from it. Posting your location on this forum may help make contact with others who will be glad to show you what they are doing. Seeing it live still works better then pictures. But I’m thankful for the pictures.
