I am curious, what are some of the common mistakes you or someone you know faced while building a model raillroad?
Welcome to the forum. Your question is a bit broad. There are dozens of different parts of this hobby and I have made a mistake or six in everyone. The one mistake I have not made is to let a mistake get me down.
I were to wax philosophical, I’d say most layouts (especially my own) are a series of corrected mistakes.
[;)]
And if you are like me, you have some of them still…or repeated. [:(]
Haste is #1.
Ignorance places a close second at #2. Ignorance about the hobby, about materials, about options, about capabilities, about limitations (yours and what you can make or supply in the way of needed items)… Ignorance about which layout and track style will suit you over the long term. For example, what curves will your favourite, and recently purchased, first locomotive handle? Were you even aware that the two have a bottom line? Were you aware that it could be had almost as cheaply with DCC and sound? Did you know that you would have preferred that purchase? You can only read so much, and then you must actually experience.
Those two cover the works as far as I am concerned. Experience will eventually make most of us fairly happy, although other considerations pertain…finances, space, relationships…etc.
-Crandell
Research, research and more research first. A computer layout planning program is a must. And then take it slow. Being in too big of a rush will be a sure fire way to result in something that you are not happy with. Aim for really good operation: smooth track work, the broadest curves possible, small grades, no electrical problems. Don’t pack too much into a space. And when all else fails, rebuild before it is too late. A little done well is better than a lot done poorly. Living with a layout you are not happy with, will drive you insane. This might take you several years to do, but half the fun is getting there.
The major mistake i have made, is being stuck in planning. i tore my old layout down 11 months ago, my walls are still bare and i have 3 notebooks full of track plans!!! I have learned, and I am now building the bench work for a small ho scale switching layout.
Mistakes? - Make them all the time. The ‘trick’ is to cover them up before someone else finds them!
Most of my ‘mistakes’ are from not researching before I start. Most of us will buy the track/cork/track nails and start in. When the LHS shows us those soft cover ‘how to’ publications, we get real tight with our funds. After all of my mistakes through the years, I bet have have just about every one of those Kalmbach publications!
I took a ‘forced’ vacation from modeling/layouts after I got married. A move, new position & kids took up about 3 years. Amazing what has to be done when one builds a new house. Anyway, I did use that time to ‘re-read’ a lot of those books, and I took notes about what I really wanted to do. And I do not know how many note pads/back of envelopes/napkins that I doodled track plans on!
3 Years Later - I started my ‘dream layout’. Very little in the design has changed( 2200 ft of cab control wiring & panels were removed a few years ago - DCC). This happened because I spent time ‘planning’.
Jim Bernier
“There are eight and forty ways, of creating tribal lays - and every single one of them is RIGHT.”[^]
But, what Rudyard Kipling didn’t mention is that there are at least 48,000 ways to do it wrong…[#oops]
The biggest blunder is the desire to cram the entire Union Pacific onto a 4x8 table in HO.[:O]
Next comes the idea that you can get it all done in an hour - with time for the closing commercials.[(-D]
Third is failure to allow for the old truism - No small-scale layout plan ever expands to full size without modification. This is sometimes phrased, No layout plan ever survives the first contact between flex track and roadbed. [B)]
Flanking the last are Trying to microplan EVERYTHING, and its ugly little sister Paralysis by Analysis. [|(]
OTOH, there are some mistake philosophies that belong in every planner’s mental toolbox:
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If nobody ever made a mistake, there would be no erasers on pencils.
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Nothing in this hobby is set in stone. Mistakes can be corrected.
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Nobody has ever gotten it all right the first time.
And one very strong suggestion - get wheels rolling just as soon as there’s a place to lay track. That, more than anything else, will keep the layout building juice flowing.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with all due deliberation)
Hi!
I’m very curious as to why the O.P.'s first posting to the Forum is “what mistakes we made”.
But, I won’t let that stop me from answering…
I too have made most all mistakes possible over the years, and a few more than once.
But the one that really cuts the deepest is to accept something less than what I am capable of doing. In other words, the phrase “ok” or “good enough” has a few times allowed me to go on with sub-standard (in my opinion) work or design or whatever, which I guarandarntee you, has come back and haunt me every time.
My existing layout - now being demo’d for a new one - has three or four “errors” in it that I just knew (but ignored my own warnings) would cause regret, but I went ahead with them anyway. Finally, after 13 years, I am fixin to rectify that.
Hey, ENJOY,
Mobilman44
In my opinion, the most common mistake is allowing the phrase “good enough” to creep into your track laying vocabulary. Reliable trackwork is pivotal to joy in this hobby. Even small gaps and kinks will cause occasional derailments and that’s no fun. When it comes to track, if an error is perceptible it is not good enough.
don’t glue anything that could go wrong like roadbed or track with scenic glue. still working on my first modual tearing up the roadbed. never again.
My most common mistake is impatience. I have only limited time for my RR so I tend to try to do too much in a given period of time. Then, I have to go back and re-do some stuff. So, I guess I’d say time is a factor.
Jimmy
The biggest thing I have learned is:
There is no such thing as “good enough”. If it’s not right, it’s wrong.
I started building my first large (room size) layout in July 2008. Here are the “physical” mistakes I have made:
- Seek Advice First I selected plain old pine boards to build wall brackets and other benchwork. Based on feedback on this forum regarding warping and sag, I switched to boards ripped from birch plywood, replaced the handful of brackets I had already installed, and completed the benchwork using entirely ripped plywood. My benchwork is sound and true, and the original brackets made from the pine–which have been sitting in the layout room since I removed them–are in fact showing deformations.
- Know Your Limitations I bit off more than I could chew regarding my artistic abilities and my backdrops. I started painting two tone blue (darker at the top blended to lighter at the horizon) despite advise to just keep the backdrop simple. The blended backdrop (about 15% of the ovarall bcakdrop) looked OK, but after painting the remaining backdrops in the solid light blue, the latter selection was obviously the right choice. By comparison, my “more realistic” backdrops looked like something Elmo did on Sesame Street.
- Stay The Course I spent a lot of time–maybe too much time–researching helix design and construction and planning my own helix. I had to find the right balance with regards to helix performance and space considerations. I came up with what I felt to be an ideal design based on my requirements, but at the last minute I went larger because I thought I could sacrifice aisle space. I was wrong. After building the helix base, it was cumbersome to move past it in the aisles and even just getting in the layout room was a chore. I have since rebuilt the base using my original dimensions, and
Agreed. It’s a never ending learning curve!
I would say trying to cram too much stuff in too small a space is a big one. Some folks(George Selios) can make that look good, but most don’t.
Cover them up ?!? [:O]
Nah, just find a prototypical reason for what you did – there’s a prototype for everything. If anyone points out your “mistake,” all you say is : “Well, the ABC-XYZ RR did it that way.” [swg]
Don’t buy things you don’t need.
Many of us have shelves full of unbuilt kits, etc., that seemed like great deals at the time. But, even if it’s half off MSRP, it’s not worth even that to you if there’s no place for it on your layout.
Conversely - if you see something you do need for a good price, and sometimes MSRP is the only price you’ll see, then you might want to grab it. Many MR items are limited production, and once they’re gone, they’re gone.
Finally, understand that eBay can be a godsend, or an addiction. It is very easy to get caught up in “winning” an auction, and actually pay above MSRP for a readily available item, just because you want to “win” the bidding.
I second everything that everyone has already said, my only additional advise would be to never stop imagining, never stop thinking, and by all means, never stop enjoying the hobby.
I made two mistakes when I first started to get into model railroading. The first was that I bought almost anything that appealed to me. I never planned or even thought of an era to build so I ended up with a lot of rolling stock from different era’s. When was the last time you saw a bunch of 40’ box cars from the 50’s behind a few AC4400CW’s? LOLOL. You really need to plan and stick to an era before you purchase anything. The second mistake I made was thinking to big right from the start. I have a fairly large untouched basement that I started building a 20 by 40ish monster layout that was just to big, to complicated and way above my skill level at the time to attempt. I got very frustrated and almost left the hobby. I ended up scalling it down to a more manageable 8 by 12. I learned a lot from building that layout and have since added on a large L shaped extension, made it a little wider and a little longer.
A comment about, “Good enough.”
There are two aspects of model railroading about which I am fanatical:
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Trackwork.
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Wiring.
By no coincidence at all, they are the two which have the most profound effect on operating trains over the road (and switching the yard, the industries…)
My good enough for wiring is neatly cabled, all solder joints sound, all terminal strips fully labeled, everything documented (both on disc and in hard copy.) Everything is fully tested immediately after installation. No quick and dirty, “I’ll fix that later,” work - if this becomes a habit, later will probably never come. And if any light or motor (including switch machines) doesn’t work as advertised, it is either tweaked until it does or replaced with a like serviceable item.
As for trackwork - good enough is defined as being able to run my designated derailment check train backward through the new work in both directions at twice the local speed limit. The derailment checker is a collection of junkers which will hit the ties at a harsh glance - no weight, ugly flanges and other tracking problems, headed up by a loco with mis-drilled tender truck side frames. If that will run without derailing, nothing else I own will ever have a problem.
So, GOOD ENOUGH actually IS good enough - if you set the good enough bar high.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - on derailment-free track with bulletproof electricals)