At about 3/4 of the NMRA-sponsored train shows I attend, if more than 5 to 7 people are in the train room, it tends to get very crowded and the owner resorts to cycling visitors in by group; with the others lounging outside the train room.
Do you invite groups of people to watch your trains and if so, is there plenty of space. The average American has grown somewhat over the last few years, as well.
Dave Vergun
3 or 4 comfortably in my room.
My room can fit 8 or so plus a couple more in the workshop area. As noted, we’ve all grown larger over the years!
Steve Barkley
It depends on when everyone last bathed. [xx(][:P]
My layout room can hold as many as I can squeeze into it! For public viewing and open houses, I think I’ll be able to get 10 people in the room at once, without things breaking. Operating sessions will have 4-6 max.
For operating possibly 3.
Unfortunately, my layout has a crawl under due to ceiling height issues so I can fit 2 in the main control area with a third cab outside the layout.
For viewing, probably 5-6 comfortably.
Gordon
Bruce,
Odiferous model railroaders? 
A couple of interesting tidbits:
–In the 1950s, it was a popular spectator sport to see how many people can fit inside a telephone booth or VW Beetle.
–In MR’s Trackplanning 2004, an article on trackplanning discusses putting the model train dispatcher inside the low-clearance helix. I think I’d go nuts in there with trains buzzing around my head.
dav
My garage gets so cluttered sometimes I can’t even fit into my train room!
Me, plus one other person. Its pretty tight in there.
3 or 4 operators, depending on how the layout is operated. If viewing was for a show, I’d have two operators, and maybe 4 more viewing. My layout is in a study (small bedroom).
I could fit 6 or 8 probably, but I’ve never had that many people see it at once.[:(]
Noah
I’d begin to feel a sense of claustrophobia if more than 2 people were in my designated train room simultaneously…and good hygiene is an absolute must! [(-D]
Depends on how bad my flatulence is.Four at the max. Joe G.
Three very close friends. [:)]
Two peaple for yard and main and one for the branch.
Then the we have to plan meets, Not the trains the peaple.
I’d say 18 to 25 viewers, comfortably, in the layout room, with 6 to 10 in the crew lounge.
Our usual operating complement is between 8 and 14, and we have plenty of elbow room during sessions.
I can fit about 30 viewers, but limit it to 20 or less (need at least 15) for operations.
6 to 8 people for me but its kinda tight.
I’d say I can get 40 in. I have a large room. probably 10 could actually view comfortably.
RMax
I could probably cram about 40-50 in. I’m basing this on the fact that my train room (which doubles as a guest room) is about twice the size of the hall of residence rooms at the university I go to, and we managed to get 25 into one of those…Hey, we were bored![:D]
I can get about 10 people in my room put the isles are narrow (more room for trains) so i give everyone a warning before they go in: DO NOT BUMP THE BENCHWORK