I have a descent layout for it’s size right now but have it is just too short. I hate to admit it but I really do like loops. There is something about a train running in the back ground that is just good. I like to read and just have a train running. I built my first totally switching layout and like it except for that. So I am building a 4x6 loop to add on to it. Just when you thought you have the perfect layout you find something not right… GGGRRRR…
RMax
You are not alone in liking to have trains running around and around while you are doing something other than running trains. Though my current layout doesn’t have much capacity for switching, it can be done, but most of the time I just “let 'er roll” while I work on scenery or another project. Sometimes I just sit there and wait for the train to go by again and again and again. Soothing somehow.
Think you will find a lot of layouts that, if they don’t show visible loops, have some way to route trains so that they can have continuous running. Some do it so they can have trains running continuously during an open house or show, while they are otherwise occupied. Others have it just because they like to do as you and I do, let the train run.
Since layouts are seldom “finished” adding to yours is normal. Having the perfect layout is what we all dream of, but I think most folks would say there is something about their layout that could be improved. Whether they get to it or not is up to them.
Good luck,
Richard
Why do you hate to admit it? It’s what you enjoy about the hobby, so stand up and be proud of it. I too would never build a layout without the ability to “just run”. In fact, one of the ways I operate my layout is to put a slow-moving passenger train running around the loop, and then the freight trains have to dodge it as they make their drops and picks.
I’ve always builtmy layouts with a connection that alows a continuous loop for that very reason. Sometimes I just want to sit back and not work at anything, just watch and listen to the train roll along. Operating and railfannign aren’t mutually exclusive, as seems to be the interpretation of the concepts. I don’t see how a sneak path for a continuous run that you simpyl don’t use during a formal operating session somehow makes the layout unrealistic and unsuitable for operation. You just don’t use it - park a MoW train on it or a track gange if it really bothers you, and during the other days you are in the train room and NOT operating, let a train circle to set the mood.
–Randy
My current layout in progress has a continuous loop mainline and switching capabilities. I’ll be able to do both. But I do like to hear the train run as background noise.
There is no shame in loops.
99% of us started with a loop of track on the floor. The ‘roundy round’ is at the essence of the childhood fascination of model trains.
Some will tell you that loops aren’t prototypical. Personally, I’ve always felt that people who do things prototypically have way too much time on their hands. Show me a real world railroad that ran engines that were 6" long and I’ll talk to you about how prototypical is your basement empire. And hey, if that’s what anybody likes about model trains more power to them, but I like to watch em go round.
Real trains take time to get from here to there. Loops help a model train rack up the miles. Loops put distance real between stations we’ve modeled only a few feet (or inches) apart. Loops were the original ‘fast clock’.
Go back to the earliest issues of MR and you will find articles about and early pikes built by the most venerable names in the hobby which were little more than a loop around the attic with few or no sidings. These pioneers worked out timetables that instructed operators to stop at station A. Then make so many loops before stopping at station B. Proceed on another number of loops before stopping at station C. Ad infinitum, deus excelcio, et nauseum.
With loops any table top layout can be of infinite length. Just as the railroad in your NJ basement is located in Alaska because you ‘say so’, so too that station your express freight just blew through twelve times is NOT its final destination until you decide it has arrived. After all it was you who named the town in the first place, so just temporarily rename it eleven times while that long hauler passes on by.
That’s the way I roll.
I’m new… call me jonrail
I went the purest route and really started to like the switching . Switching is really interesting and I like it but the train runs are too short. I like to keep my locos broke in. If the locos sit for a long time they get sluggish plus the enjoyment of just having them run. Once you think you have everything figured out it’s time to change it.
RMax
Plan to learn.
Learn to plan.
Between those, if you do them right, you will have a great time in the hobby. I planned my first layout, and learned from it. Same with the current one. If you keep a booklet someplace with notes about lessons-learned, and incorporate them somehow into the next version, you are sure to have fun each time and to continue to learn. So, at this early point in my hobby ‘career’, I know that I must have something like a loop, but definitely a way to sit back and chew the fat with someone while the tiny hogger does his thing interminably.
Crandell
Welcome to Trains.com!!! [tup]
I too am a Loop fan where I can sit back and be a Railfan watching the train go by and by and by…
As the traditional Lone Wolf, I like to have a loop (2, actually) where I can let trains run unattended while I do switching. The looping train gives me a reason to watch out that I don’t “foul the main” with my switching operations. The second loop is almost completely underground, a subway line that I can only see at the edge of the layout as it passes through the station, runs through a short surface cut, or when I see the reflection off the window from the station on the back side of the layout.
And sometimes, I just sit down by the river and watch trains pass over the trestle.
Switching is the other side of the coin isn’t it? Once you’ve spent long hours (fast clock or no) working to get those minaturized goods to their destination it is somewhat expected by your “small business” customers that the items in question be left with the intended receipient.
I just wish the tiny little teamster thugs on my layout weren’t constantly employing the use of ginormous housecats to disrupt the day to day operations.
Or better yet, make those freights move to a siding, to make way for the passenger trains that have priority.
That’s what I do on my layout.
Rich
… OR, be like UP / BNSF and make Amtrak sit on the sidings while the massive Coal trains push through. AT least it seems that way on the CZ between CO and CA [sigh]
I do the same with passenger trains. In modern era, freight has priority over passenger for the most part
Modern era?
It is April 1954 on my layout.
Freight trains make way for passenger trains!
Rich
If I had chosen to model a different part of my prototype, I could legitimately have EMU trains chasing each other in both directions around a double track line that begins and ends in Shinjuku - depicted on innumerable schematic maps as a perfect circle but actually more closely resembling a deflated football. Of course, to be prototypical, I would have to have modeled most of Tokyo…
My JNR mainline is, in fact, a loop, but most of it is hidden and nothing ever orbits unless I’m running in a unit of powered rolling stock or (seldom) entertaining guests. The hidden track also incorporates reverse connections, and most trains that disappear into a tunnel reappear from the same tunnel (albiet the second bore) going in the opposite direction - not immediately, but when the timetable calls for that particular train to appear.
I don’t think that there’s a modeler anywhere who doesn’t wish for just a bit more space. Realistically, there’s a practical limit to the size and complexity of layout that any one modeler, club or commercial entity can build and maintain. It seems that I’ve reached mine - a double garage filler. Others may have more space or less, but mine satisfies me.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
When I started building my current layout in 1983, “Santa Fe in Oklahoma” I built it as a point to point, more more precise, staging yard to staging yard. Currently the layout has one large staging yard for Oklahoma City feeding into a visible yard also, Then there is the Enid OK yard with no staging, the Arkansas City staging, the visible Waynoka staging, and the Cherokee staging. There is also a Tulsa staging for the BN which is the Avard line. This is all on three decks. All but two of the staging yards are worked in a “mole hole” environment by one or two people.
In short, no train can run around the railroad chasing its tail. I had built 5 different layouts prior, the first two had chase the tail operation, then I started with a staging yard concept and the rest have been the same.
For me, there are several advantages, others may challenge that, but it works for me.
Bob
Those who disparage loops should take a look at their own layout. No matter how realistic the scenery, or how slow and prototypical the trains run, every single layout I have ever seen has way too much track and too many trains running at once to be considered realistic. In the real world, trains are a very small part of the scenery, but in the model world, they are the focus. Often to the point of too much.
Spoilsport! [8o|]
Hi,
I seriously doubt anyone is ever totally satisfied with their existing layout. There is always a “I wish” or “I should have” or “I should not have” or whatever change to the current pike.