The large layout experience

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I recently started to dismantle my home layout after running it for about 10 years, and I had a few thoughts to share with you that I hope you’ll find interesting.

To put it in perspective, the layout had a double track mainline about 175 feet long, with a large yard and industrial switching areas. I had about 150 cars and 8 engines when I started taking it down. I had already sold off some cars and engines by then.

Am I glad I had the layout? Yes.

Would I ever build one like that again? No thanks.

Don’t get me wrong. When I was a kid I poured through Model Railroader every month and dreamed of the day I’d have a layout that filled the basement. It was many years before I finally had the chance and I couldn’t wait to get started. I was in a group at the time and had lots of help with drywall, bench work and wiring for DCC. It took months before the first train rolled, but just watching it travel through the basement brought a feeling of real accomplishment.

Over the years, our group spent many hours running manifest freights, intermodal hot shots and locals that worked the industrial areas.

One of the first things I learned that was a large layout demands a lot of maintenance. Track cleaning for one. Lots of track cleaning. There was one area in particular that always caused problems unless I’d cleaned it just before a meeting. Then there were the inevitable problems with electrical pickup and the odd switch that wouldn’t cooperate. In general, things ran well. But with that much equipment to maintain it was a chore at times.

The original group disbanded and there was no one coming around for a while. Then a new group got up and running and things got back to normal. We had a ball for a few years, but my work schedule started demanding more and more of my time. I found I almost never got down t

2

Thanks for relating your personal experience, Glen. Now that I have had two layouts, each with roughly the same footprint falling in the ‘small’ layout range, I would like to have something approaching twice the current size, but the thought of developing as much track and square footage as the one you describe, and with the maintenance demands I now appreciate only too well, I think I’ll pass. I would be content with twin looped 50-60’ mains, a yard with several tracks between 8-10’ long, and the rest the usual stuff. Mainly I would like to go further to eliminate the problems associated with looping around a layout, and a larger loop helps to do that when you don’t have to fold it to cross over as I currently do. A larger footprint makes rising to elevations easier. Terrain can vary to help create illusions of distance between stops. And so on…

But a basement-filling empire is not something that appeals to me at the moment. Perhaps if I were to build what I long for now, in time an even larger one would seem more attractive. As a lone wolf ralroader, though, the chores would triple and quadruple.

-Crandell

3

Interesting. I am moving to a house in Michigan with a 32’ x 56’ heated and insulated outbuilding most of which will be available for the railroad. My plan is to use 48" minimum radius and #10 turnouts as the minimum. In other words I am not going to have 500 turnouts and a spaghetti bowl of track. What I am planning could be done in a much smaller space. With the exception of track cleaning maintenance I hope to model in one to one scale as far as trackwork, turnouts, buildings, etc. One crossover on my PRR corridor layout is a #16 and will be over three feet long. Hopefully this will be easier to maintain and have a better appearance than most model railroads. I know someone is going to say 48" radius is sitill tight but that is the only compromise I hope I have to make.

4

Glen:

I keep looking at my Yuba River Sub, which takes up 3/5ths of my double-car garage (California Basement–nobody uses garages out here for such mundane purposes of actually parking cars, LOL!), and thinking “Yup, it’s large”–24x24 feet of non-parallel double track HO mainline, wide curves, an average 2% grade, a section of 6’ track to floor canyon, a-la-John Allen.

Like Crandell, I’m a “Lone Wolf” operator, unlike Crandell, I’m still DC and blocks, but that’s all right with me, since I’m modeling a California trans-Sierra mainline without the multiple train traffic of, say, Horseshoe Curve. And my operating sessions are always done in ‘real time’, so at most I might have two trains running simultaneously, something I’ve learned to do with DC block control very well.

And yes, maintenance is a kinda/sorta problem at times, since the garage is largely uninsulated and I happen to live in the Central Valley “Pollen Belt.” Which usually means running a track-maintenance train around the layout a couple of times if I haven’t had an operating session in a few days. And yes, occasionally, I have a Block that goes blooey, or a turnout that forgets that it’s ‘selectively’ routed. And since I run 95% steam and 98% brass steam at that, I sometimes end up doing more ‘tinkering’ with motive power than the fellow modeler who runs all diesel.

BUT–and I say this with certain reservations–it’s turned out to be the ‘large’ layout that I always wanted and I’m happy with it, despite certain shortcomings.

One thing, though, I’m not getting any younger, and as I enter my ‘sunset’ years, I’m wondering just how increasingly difficult it might become keeping the layout up and in shape. We’ll see.

But right now, I’m glad I did it. Layouts are never ‘finished’ and large ones are

5

What’s large?

The Westport Terminal RR occupies about 16’ x 23’ basement. There’s one 12 track double sided staging yard, the yard at Westport and three industrial districts.

But: for maintenance turnouts are important.

staging: 22turnouts (11 manually, 11 with tortoises) for 12 tracks, each track with ON-OFF-switch

Westport: nearly 40 turnouts, manually operated and 11 with tortoises

Harbor Jct. 5 turnouts with motors

Third Street District: 16 turnouts (10 with motors)

Harbor District: 12 turnuts (manually)

Plywood District: 18 turnouts (manually)

There’re about 35 engines and about 250 cars at the layout.

I don’t think I have too much repairs. I’m busy with the layout since 15 years. And besides the layout I build modules. I can operate the layout, sometimes (too rare !) with friends.

Wolfgang

6

I am currently developing my ‘last in this lifetime’ layout, a moderately complex double garage filler. Originally, when I only had title to half of the garage, I had planned a much more complex (for the space) 9 x 16 on which to operate the same master schedule. When the opportunity came to double the footprint, I simply eased the strings on the bindings and expanded the same track plan - with longer straightaways, broader curves, longer yard tracks and sidings to handle full (prototype) length trains…

Many people seem to equate LARGE with COMPLEX. If you want a real maintenance nightmare, try one of those ambitious little plans that tries to cram the whole steel industry onto a 4 x 8 - with loads><empties on both sides of a two-sided backdrop! Then compare it to a plan that fills a basketball court with a reasonably accurate version of the UP route from just north of Las Vegas to just north of Caliente, NV. The Bronx Terminal of the Jersey Central had more complexity in a city block than the LA&SL has in 100 miles of nothing but miles and miles. I dare say that the model Bronx Terminal is a lot more maintenance-intensive than a double garage full of LA&SL would be.

Having gone the hypercomplex midget route, my personal preference is for large but relatively simple - and that’s what I’m building.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

7

Glen,

That is great that you had the chance to build a large layout like that. I’m on my 6th layout, 2 were on 4’ x 8’ sheets of plywood because that’s all the room there was living in an apartment in my younger days. I then built a layout in a rent house with 2 reversing loops in 1/2 a garage but that one had it’s own problems due to the lack of heat and a/c during the season changes. Then I finally bought a house and had a medium sized 20" x 15" layout in an air conditioned garage. My (now ex) wife took a baseball bat to it and really messed it up pretty bad. I then remarried and had a small double figure 8 layout in a 10’ x 9’ room but still it wasn’t big enough. (Seemed like I was regressing instead of progressing.)

My current home layout is a 23’ x 25’ and I still don’t think it’s big enough. Although I learned how to do a good job building this layout from the experience learned in the previous layouts, I still have dreams of that ultimate “big layout” in my future.

I’m going to retire in the next 5-8 years and when I do, I’m going to move away from this part of Texas and downsize the house but increase the size of the layout room. My ultimate goal and the Lord willing, is to have a room that is at least 30’ x 60’ with a workbench and a sink for my final layout plan. I’m going to start building hand layed turnouts as soon as the finishing touches are done with my current layout and it’s going to take me at least three years to design a final plan. I’m going to include a complete DCC layout equipped with train detecting circuits so that the entire thing will have a working signalling system, install a 12 volt supply under the entire benchwork for accessory power, and be at least three levels in height.

8

Your experience and the replies posted only go to show we each like to enjoy the hobby in our way and time. I started building my Santa Fe in Oklahoma layout in 1984 shortly after the NMRA National Convention in Kansas City. Up to that point I was doing a freelance railroad called the Mojave Western. It was on two levels and was pretty much finished. It took up the available space in the basement. However, more space became available and I tore out the Mojave to model my first love, the Santa Fe. My family was a Santa Fe family and I worked for them during college summers and then for 13 years following at the general offices in Topeka.

So I tore out most of the old layout and built a new one in the space which was now 29ft by 33ft give or take an inch. I went three levels, used a helix, and built the monster that is in my basement now. It has been in a finished state since 1998, but improvements and redos happen. I have an operating scheme set up that allows me to have a lone wolf operating session going on that can take 3 weeks to cycle. I have also had group operations. Yes, there are those trouble spots that take a little loving care every so often, yes I have way too much invested in equipment and wiring and DCC etc, but at age 73 I still enjoy working on it and running it as much as ever and I have allready promised my wife it is my last layout.

Would I be happy with something smaller, once in a while I think so, but it doesn’t last. So I would say you will know when you have the “perfect layout” because you will not want to tear it down.

Bob

9

In the same vein, anybody else think about changing scales and realize you have so much invested in the one you are in it doesn’t make sense at this point or you can’t pull the trigger?

10

I’m on my first “serious” layout, although it is on it’s 3rd or 4th revision of that. It measures 12’ by 22’ and depicts a New England shortline set in 1997 (for now). There’s a four track staging yard, a 6-track classification yard, and one long passing siding. In addition, the 4% Mascoma Lake Grade spreads the towns out a bit and provides some mainline running to avoid looking like a spaghetti bowl - which the layout is not with ONE mainline track in each scene!

I think the size is just right for me - there’s not too much to upkeep but the layout can keep me and several friends busy operating for an hour. Plus I have room for plenty of stuff to include on the layout (including, in no order, a quarry, run-down industrial area, nice town, lumberyard and pulpwood chipping plant, paper mill, team track, scrapyard, mainline run with a grade, classification yard, engine terminal, and a typical concrete factory building.

11

I’m devoting 80% of a 100 X 60 room to model a 32 mile branchline who’s purpose for existing was the citrus industry, simplicity indeed, single train operation, no massive space/ turnout hogging yards. Curves will be generous with large number turnouts, unusually, this branch was constructed to mainline standards and offered Pullman service during my chosen era. With minium selective compression I should be able to replicate the large Sunkist co-op packing sheds and other industries, some were quite massive, the Sunkist shook mill for example, will require a 3 x 1 foot print without the associated overhead conveyor belt and out buildings (shook was the lumber used to construct packing crates).

Dave

12

I have my mainline finished on my first layout that is more than a plywood special. It is 15’ x 24’ and is something I have wanted to do all my life. I have room to expand if I so desire or I can tear it down if I lose interest. I have thousands invested so far and will never regret spending the money as it gives me so much enjoyment. I have done many things in my life that I really wanted to do. I have been lucky to be able to do this. Some I have kept a finger into and others I have let slip having had my enjoyment out of them. MRR is an interest that I can have into the future with my too many miles on it body.

I would consider doing my layout over as my improved skills and speed in doing things like track laying have given me a lot more confidence and the prospect of doing another layout is not so daunting.

I think I will remain a lone wolf on this though as I have learned from past experience, that if you include others in big projects in your home, sometimes they think they can come to the house whenever and just show up at the door at all hours to play.

One day the layout will come down. Either by my hand or by someone else. All I know is that at this point in time it is giving me a whole lot of enjoyment. It is the last thing on a rather long bucket list that was drawn up in my teens.

Brent

13

Two months ago my wife and I bought our retirement home. I am now in the early stages of planning the “big” one for retirement. It will use about 850 sq ft in the 1200 sq ft basement. My goal is to have an uncomplicated layout based on the Maryland and Pennsylvania RR. In particular I want to run 15 car freight trains and have at least one train length between towns while limiting turnouts to 75.

Since my biggest layout to date has been 14x23 ft this will be a step up. But I’ve always wanted a large layout so I will try this. I don’t retire for a couple of years and I have to finish the basement before I build it so I won’t be starting just yet. One advantage of modeling this shortline is that I can start at one terminal and build towards the other. If I reach a point where it’s big enough I’ll just stop and put a return loop in.

Enjoy

Paul

14

Dave, other than location & theme, you are doing pretty much what I would like to do. Use a decent size space to model a branch line but with enough room that the scenary, structures, etc actually scale with the trains and switch to O scale to do it. I am much more into recreating the life of the railroader on the ground than in intensive ops, but I’m sure a lot of others see it otherwise.

But for now I’m stuck trying to do it in HO in a 12x12 shared room. And I have worked in N, but time & eyeballs man, time and eyeballs.

15

Hi from Belgium,

Some of you know I am ready to build a very big layout in the few next coming months in Nscale.

My mainline run will be an around 132 meter long or an around 400 feet long.

I already know that the challenge is great and maintenance will be heavy time consuming especialy because of Nscale.

Most must be do by myself, but as many of us, it is a dream basement layout for which I am planning, studiyng and dreaming since more than 25 years.

Now I have found the home whit the basement and I am currently working on the track plan which take shape in an big Appalachian like country; thanks for the numerous book and articles of MR and the fabulous book of Mister Zane for inspiration.

I have already order nearly all the track ( ME code55) needed, so I have no choice anyway, I MUST LAY IT !!!

It’s a chance and beside many heavy life problems I have this one and hope to finish a day this layout.

I just will say that I hope you could also accomplish your dream layout even if it’s a great one. It’s more important that any problems of construction of maintenance that could happend.

I know the challenge is enormous but I feel right whit it.

Marc

16

Glen, this posting sort of make me sad, but I all so know where you are coming from. My first love was car’s, Mopar mainly. I spent ever extra dollar and free time on my cars. I did races and did pretty good. Ever spare hour where spent on the cars. Getting up a 2:00 AM to detail the cars before a show. Thousands of hours looking for a .10 of a second here or there. Then I built my dream engine, Blown Big Block. (it is in my icon) Then one day I woke up and was sick of cars! That was 4 years ago and I have not touched any of the cars seines then.

Same thing as sort of happen to my friend that owns K-10 Model Trains. Ken has a huge layout, it is 61 X 80. I asked Ken if he ever runs it by him self, and was told No. Just to much work for one person.

But you and I still have our memory’s, I still recall what it felt like when I cut my first 10 second run, feel my Cuda pulling to the side when I nailed it at 60 MPH and the thump of a 628 lift solid cam at 30 MPH.

Hope you have some PIC to share.

Cuda Ken

17

I’m not sure how some of you guys do it - completing a large layout, including scenery, over a period of several years. I am working on my dream layout - it will be 33 x 14 when completed. It’s hard sometimes to keep going after many years.

I’ve been working on this layout in sections. First section (5 x 7 in size) was started in 1986! I did not work on it for about 5 years after a move to our current house (in 1988) due to a lot of remodeling work. There were also years of kid activities after that which took up time. But with about 18 available years to work on the layout I am only slightly past half-way. It seems there aren’t that many hours in the week - maybe an hour a night with a few hours on weekends after the yard work and some other errands and the other activities (fishing takes up a lot of time in the summer!). Sometimes I spend a few weeks building, repainting, lettering and weathering cars, or building a locomotive kit, or building some structures and finishing off a few square feet of scenery. The layout does not get any bigger during those projects.

In a few years if I can retire (God willing and the economy don’t crash) I will have more time. But I am really interested in how you guys have managed to actually finish a large size layout in 10 or twelve years. How do you do it?

George V.

18

I’ve had my (more or less) dream layout up for about 5 years now, but it remains a work in progress. I’ve just recently removed some of the far flung and temporary sections to begin working in earnest on a badly needed operational revision.

Overall the room’s roughly 14 x 18, so by no means is it a massive layout, but to do the things I want to do operationally, I need to make some changes.

And that’s what really drives any design. To arbitrarily say I’ve got 125 of main line doesn’t really say much. What does that main line represent? Where do the trains come from and go to? What kind of traffic should I be modeling? By answering these questions, you can answer a lot of others, such as how big your yard should be, where you should locate junctions and sidings, and so forth. This is true regardless of the size of the layout.

I’ve often thought about simplifying and trading in my operations-oriented N scale layout for a sleepy branch line in HO. While the former is blast to run, the latter would be a fun challenge to build.

Lee

19

I failed to add in my earlier post that my wife gave me a lot of latitude in the time I spent building the Santa Fe, and I also I took early retirement in 1996, so other than some part time work as a pastor at various locations, I have had blocks of time available that allowed me to finish mine. But now I am slowing down and I don’t have any desire to rebuild, or replace.

Bob

20

Glen, your posting and the subsequent responses to it certainly stimulated my thinking about a definition of a large layout; I read posts like this with considerable interest as I am currently needing to design a layout to fit the first fixed space I have had available to me in more than 20 years.

Any definition of “large” is going to be subjective; a 20’ X 20’ space does not, in itself, sound intimidating–many posters here on the forum indicate that they are working in spaces larger than that–but I have a friend/acquaintance–an N-Scaler like myself–who found a space that large to be very intimidating. He attempted to fill that space with an N-Scale layout; he started construction about ten years ago with three model railroader friends assisting. This layout was located in one of the retirement/senior citizen communities in the Phoenix area; within a couple of years two of his three assistants passed into eternity and the third suffered medical problems that has practically incapacitated him at least as far as model railroading goes. This left my friend as a "lone wolf’ modeler–his layout became an exercise in frustrating maintainence and he rendered it to oblivion in about six or seven years. The last I visited him–and that was a couple of years ago–he had designed and was constructing a layout that only filled about half of this 20’ X 20’ space; it is going to be easily managable for one person and he was absolutely ecstatic as he was building it.

I exercise my Model Railroading Fantasies by designing an N-Scale layout to fit into a 3737.5 square foot space–it renders to a effective 39’ X 95’10" space although it is, in reality, in the shape of a “b” with the “b” being 20’ X 20’. I have fitted close to 900 linear feet of double track N-Scale trackage in this space which scales to 27 miles and with a 6:1 time clock is about a 162 mile long mainline; like Eric Broomann’s&nb