I have not worked on a model railroad layout in nearly 40 years, but I have never lost my love for the hobby. Over the years my wife has given me a couple of “ready to run” train sets for Christmas, and I have accumulated a large collection of rolling stock, purchased at flea markets and garage sales, but have never had the space or the time to seriously get back into the hobby.
Well after a battle with cancer and the uncertainty of whether I will be physically able to return to my career things have changed. This year for Christmas my Wife gave me 30 feet of code 84 flex track and cork roadbed and 100.00 lowes gift card for bench work to start my layout, space is still an issue since I will be sharing the space with the Wife’s pottery and glass studio, and my wood shop. So I will be going modular, and I am not your normal model railroader, I am not interested in lots of switching and prototype running, but enjoy watching my trains run through many time periods and seasons, with a little fantasy thrown in just for fun.
Since Christmas I have been doing as much research as I could and have learned that the hobby has grown alot since that garage layout I had as a kid, and there is much I need to learn. I hope you all here on these forums will be patient with me if I start posting alot of questions.
Anyways I just wanted to introduce myself and share my story, any advice will always be appreciated, so “Happy Railroading”.
Ron
Western North Carolina
Ron, first let me welcome you, and also say you are obviously wanting to make up for some lost time. I don’t know if it would be appropriate to congratulate you for beating the cancer, or beating it down, as the case may be…but I wish you well, and certainly success here and with the disease.
Your wife means well, clearly, and she would like to share her space with your for a long time, considering the scare.
Would it be conceivable to just get some L-brackets driven into the studs every 18" and lay either shelf-boards or even 1.5" extruded foam insulation board? If you just want to watch trains run, a shelf layout around four walls will have that up and running in jig time. At the right height, it won’t interfere with your wife much at all. A window at the right height could be left clear by a lift-out or swing-out gate of sorts when you aren’t running trains if your wife and you would rather keep it unencumbered. Maybe fire and insurance regs will demand it, too, except when you are present and actually playing with the trains.
Crandell
I don’t think you’re in a club of your own when you say you just like to watch trains run. I think a lot of people on this forum have layouts that are primarily for railfanning and are beautifully executed. Nothing wrong with that at all. Even the folks that are hardcore operators and into switching, timetables and such usually design their layouts to have some form of continuous running. I probably fall more into the railfanning catagory, so that is going to be my primary motive when designing a layout, but the more I learn about operations, the more interesting it becomes so I may just have to try and indulge both. Anyway. the more you come back into the hobby again and the more questions you ask the more your thinking may change. Enjoy it!
Chris
I have a small layout under a carport that we made in to a screen porch . So I share a it with 5cats and 2 dogs . The train layout that my son and I have is ho scale / 1/64 scale . It is about 8 x 10 . We used life like track one sideing it is just one loop .I believe that run the train is just relaxing to the wife ,son cats and me . so all I can say just have some fun with the hobby
. Here is a photo of town on the layout
Modules are great. But you don’t need necessary modules, you can build segments. The difference, segments have not a standardized end plate. I’ve often build one big module, 10 feet and more from many segments.
Wolfgang
Welcome back to the hobby and congratulations on beating the cancer (from someone that has beat it three times so far).
Modular is great. Be sure to check out the Free-Mo people: http://www.free-mo.org/
Good luck and keep us posted.
Welcome. I came back 5 years ago when my wife gave me room in her music studio on my 70th birthday. I also wanted a loop of trackt hat ran through my favorite scenes. I had room for a pair of 4x8 tables connected by a 20x2 foot shelf with a corner. I had no grand concept so I started building. In five years it grew into more than I expected. I found DCC and wish I had started with it. I found pink (blue) styrofoam insulation and built some grand mountains. I also had so much to learn and have had a great time learning.
This forum introduced me to so many great ideas. I hope to watch your progress. I have some pics of what 5 years produced. You can access them in my signiture
First I want to Thank You all for the replies and the encouragement. So far I think I have decided to go with a sectional layout that can be disassembled into 2’ x 4’ sections and stored in a rack that I can roll out of the way when I need to use my wood shop. I had thought of a shelf system but My wife’s glass torches and kilns take up one wall, her pottery wheel and kilns another, my saw,s drillpress and other large power tools slide up to one wall and, my work bench and tools the remaining wall. There is also the fact that there is a move planned in the next year or so, hopefully I will be able to build a larger studio and have a more permenant layout space.