I am what you would call a newb when it comes to railroading. I am very interested in the hobby and have been doing my research. I am looking at how to start.
I have a room about 20 x 12 in the basement I would like to use for a train room. Since i have nothing yet but ideas, would it be best to start out small or plan the whole room. I would love an around the room layout and would take the time to set it up right.
Or do i start with a simple 4 x 8 layout? I am kind of leaning toward the latter since i am so new.
My next question is, how easy is it to add to a pre-exisitng layout on a 4 x 8 sheet?
Welcome to the wonderful world of model railroading !!!
Seeing as how you have the room, I wouldn’t start with a 4X8. When I lived in an apartment, I built a 4X8 with the intentions of expanding it when the time came I had more room. When the time DID come and I had a 13X24 foot room to use, there was no way it was usable unless it sat in the middle of the room … 4 feet against the wall would NOT work !
I would suggest starting with a shelf layout along one wall. This will give you the initial experience of building benchwork, laying track, etc. That shelf can easily grow along the wall, around the corner and down another wall, then even out onto a penninsula in the middle of the room.
It helps to plan ahead, but planning too far ahead will just overload you. Plan the dream, but just work in small sections. I’ve seen too many “empires” go awry from too much too fast.
I agree. It would be best to have a grand plan at the outset, something fairly concrete and rather good and interesting/complex. Then, start with any 8’ long section, maybe the staging, the get your trackwork skills honed. Later, or maybe for a break now and then while you are building the staging, you might try to scenic a small diorama to see how the various methods turn out for you. Once the staging is done, or mostly, you can try some track laying out on the main if you have another bench ready to go. Wire it, add scenery or some structures, and then play with that module.
If you intend to build some styrene kits, say buildings, a bridge, you can always take breaks from the trackwork to build part of a kit for relief.
You will want to build a layout that is either fanciful, freelanced, or prototypically close in terms of modelling. No matter what approach you take, even if an eclectic blend, it would be a good idea to have your rolling stock and engine preferences ironed out in a bounded way so that you aren’t buying stuff willy-nilly and finding that you only like half of it after a while because you have settled on one or two railroads. This hobby can eat dollars like your teenaged nephew who comes to stay for the summer eats your groceries; big chunks at a time. [:O]
This is an excellent idea and given my druthers it is the way I would start over again. For some ideas on modules, check out the Freemo sites and either use adapt the idea for yourself OR create a standard just for yourself if you are going to keep within your basement! Keep what you are doing relatively simple and enjoy it… it is a great hobby, even if I am still on a 4 x 8 myself www.xdford.digitalzones.com FYI
The layout here is a shelf layout 16 inches deep around all four walls of the room. Wedudler’s idea is good too. Building the layout as modules it is possible to move it without destroying it.
The Longview Kelso & Rainier Ry. is a portable layout that is made up of ten sections 2 X 8 feet. The sections go together only one way and all must be used. You could build the layout in sections that go just with your layout plan. This provides flexibility in track routes versus modules that require track in certain places.
For a first layout, a 4x8 is a good way to start. This allows you to get something running early and is not so overwhelming. Plus as your learning you can correct mistakes more easily with a smaller layout. Second it lets you find out what you really like to do, run trains, switch, build structures, etc - you might even find you picked the wrong scale. By keeping your investment small, you’re not locked into something that doesn’t meet your goals.
Personally, I changed scales twice (HO to O to S) and have built several layouts. I’m building a new one that I think will meet my goals, but it’s very different from what I thought I wanted when I first started in the hobby.
As for reuse, John Allen reused his original layout which was about 3 1/2 by 7 in both his subsequent layouts. But I wouldn’t make this a goal. If you don’t glue/solder things together you can reuse the benchwork wood, track, etc. on the next layout.
I have fond memories of my first layout which was a 4x8 following a John Armstrong plan. I used all the things everyone looks down on now - Tyco trains, Atlas Snap Track, etc. But it all worked and I had a ball with it.
Get a 4 x 8 sheet of better grade of plywood (5/8" is best) and have it cut into two 2 x 8 pieces. Put that up on wall brackets and work from there. That will give you the most flexibility since it is much easier to add to this than to 4 x 8.
Ty, you first need an active account with a webhost that will store images as a proxy server for the server running this forum. I use both photobucket and railimages. The accounts are free, and you should be up and running on them within an hour or so of first registering. Upload images, although they should be smaller in density…most will only store image files suitable for loading up on a computer screen, not for large prints. If you upload the full files, it takes longer for their server to “treat” them. I reduce mine to about 100K first and they load up like poo through a goose.
Once you have your images safely stored, select the full size image, right click and take the URL, although on photobucket there is an “img” link ghosted function below each image that you click on to speed it up. Come back here and past the image URL. Just make sure it has the square brackets at each end, plus the forward slash before the img in the last pair of brackets…the server will know where to find the image and you merely hit post and it should show up.
I have an L-shaped 16x10 layout that runs along two walls in my basement. It’s basically a 2-foot wide shelf on stilts, but with a 4x4-foot corner section. Everything comes apart if necessary.
I would try something other than a 4X8. My son and I were building a 4X8 but have changed our plans part way through to go around the walls. It just works better in regards to space for scenery and keeping grades reasonable. Now we are taking apart and we haven’t even finished building. [:I]
Check out the banner in my signature for links to some good model railroad resources.