I’m putting the finishing touches on a new Timesaver layout. I’ve had a Timesaver since the late 70’s. The old one is going to be dismantled. I built my original Timesaver in HOn3 on a 1"x10"x5’ as I was living in an apartment with very little space and wanted to run my trains. I’ve found the Timesaver a fun and sometimes frustrating game. I’m glad I’ve had one around all this time. This is what I feel are some good reasons to consider having one.
Beside being a layout that requires very little space its inexpensive in that you only need five turnouts, one locomotive and five to eight cars (only five unless you are a Rubics Cube wizard)
If you have a layout great. The Timesaver is still a fun game.
The time saver is a good test bed for locomotives and rolling stock as it will challenge the best with the required low speeds, reliable tracking and coupler operation.
It a good way to learn the basics of the hobby. Since one is switching like crazy on the Timesaver good track work and flawlessly operating turnouts are a must. It’s small and easy to work on so even if you have never laid track it’s a great way to learn how to get things just right. Though there is no need for scenery it is certainly a good place to learn how to ballast or do basic groundwork, build a few small structures or trees, simple wiring, and maybe a simple control panel. All with very little expence. Even if you have to pull some stuff up to redo it’s not that big a deal.
For me it’s been a way to run stuff that’s a different scale or gauge from the main layout. My layout is HO and so is the new Timesaver but the Timesaver is built to handle 50’ cars and a CF7 while my layout that is being built is 1920’s era steam with smaller rolling stock. Before my Timesaver was HOn3 and the layout was Sn3.Then HO while the layout was HOn3.
The Timesaver is a good fast way to at least operate your trains if you have no place for a layout or while you are building one.
I suppose you are correct insofar as the reasons you give. However, we are not inside the skin of an engineer who must work in that one cab day after day, week after week, so, as modelers, we tend to want some variety. The Time Saver doesn’t offer much of that. We could use the 1-4-0 to place a new loco on the layout, but that would get as old as fast…for my tastes, at least.
If it has the advantage that you list, it would still have them as part of a larger, more diverse trackplan that offered more to buddy and his friends.
I’ve been putting off building a small shelf layout with a return loop for a while - just too much going on in life at the moment. I also want to handlay my next layout, and want to get some practice in first.
I’ve been thinking lately that a timesaver would be perfect.
(nevermind those may come along and say how unrealistic it is - so is running our trains in loops - it’s all toys).
I find it interesting that you’ve had one for so many years and still enjoy it. Very cool.
I also like how you could bring the thing into the house and set it on the dining room table, etc. when the mood strikes.
Due to moving my layouts have been short-lived and never fully complete. If it weren’t for the Timesaver I would not have run my trains much at all. While its a different type of fun than a real layout its still fun.
This time around the Timesaver is just over 7’ long because I’m using #6 turnouts and each track section is longer to handle modern 50’ cars. It’s also about 20" wide as there is an 8" shelf on the front with a control panel for the turnouts. It has folding metal legs like those on portable tables. I’ve got a spot to stand it up in a closet so its easy to pop up and put away. I have a control panel on this one as I’ve used both manually controlled turnouts and turnouts with switch machines on past incarnations of the Timesaver. I like using switch machines much better. It’s not just because there is so much switching but because of having to reach around and over cars so often can be a hassle. For the same reason I’m using Kadee magnets under the track . Bruce
You mentioned switch machines. I was thinking it would also be a good test-bed for using doorbolt turnout control - like Joe Fugate demonstrates on his website.
I hear you about moving, etc. Any layout I build in the next decade or so will be built with moving in mind, for sure. Like it will only occupy a 10x8ft space, etc. - something that will fit in ANY garage in any house I end up in.
You’re giving me Timesaver-fever man!
I figure it will also be good to help me figure out if I like switching or not. Truthfully, I just don’t know how much I’ll enjoy switching. The problem-solver in me thinks I’ll enjoy it, but it will be nice to learn for sure before I build a switching-intensive small layout vs. more of a railfanning layout.
I will also make it with #6 turnouts and able to handle 50ft boxcars.
I’m using Tortoise switch machines mostly because I have a huge stock pile of them but any type of control would work great as long as you don’t have to reach over cars all the time.
You will probably enjoy your timesaver, as it seems you like solving puzzles. The Timesaver won’t exactly be a good barometer of what switching in a more prototypical fashion on a layout would be like. Most typically ones layout will be more efficient. There may well be some spots that require more moves than others and might take a little thinking ahead but not the battle the timesaver can present. The Timesaver can be a challenge and more than a few people look at it as aggravating. Another switching game that is more realistic is the Inglenook Siding. In fact your track plan in your posts looks like a Super Inglenook with a few twists and very interesting
Let me first say that it’s obvious Bruce enjoys the Timesaver, and that’s great for him. But what’s fun for Bruce may not be fun for all. I know a number of people who’ve been turned off after building and/or operating a strictly traditional Timesaver configuration.
As noted in the link Bruce posted, there are many people who view the Timesaver as more of a railroad-themed puzzle and not a model of a railroad (myself included). If a person enjoys puzzles of the must-move-this-car-before-moving-that-one variety, it can be fun, I suppose, but it’s not the way the real railroad operates for the most part.
It’s worth noting that John Allen also did not view the Timesaver as a layout, but instead as a parlor game. His crew played the game over coffee for a small pot of money each week after operating the more realistic model railroad in the basement. He never included anything like the Timesaver arrangement on any of his three layouts.
If one is interested in classic switching challenges, I think it’s worth looking at Linn Westcott’s unfortunately-named “Switchman’s Nightmare”, which predates the Timesaver by about a decade. I spoke to one former member of John Allen’s operating crew who said that he thought the Timesaver had been heavily influenced by Westcott’s earlier design, but there is no other evidence and I personally doubt it. There is some general simialrity in appearance, but any small layout constructed around a run-around and leads is going to look a bit like all the others. Here’s Westcott’s design:
With some slight modifications, I think many people would find this more fun over a longer time. But to each his- or her own, of course.
Maybe part of the reason some people like Timesavers and others hate 'em may be in the kind of puzzles we each enjoy. Game designers define different types of puzzles, among them “ordering” puzzles and “sequence” puzzles. The classic Time
The main concern I have with the Timesaver is that it has become something of a cliche’–anytime anyone mentions shelf layouts or small layouts, the Timesaver gets mentioned. There are plenty of other shelf designs, some of which are directly puzzle-oriented and some of which are not. I would encourage anyone thinking of making a small shelf layout to consider looking at the prototype for inspiration. Any dense-track location can suggest many alternate sorts of track plans for a switching layout. Westcott’s “Switchman’s Nightmare” is a really different sort of animal from the Timesaver, in not much more space.
The “Gumstump & Snowshoe” plan (basically a double switchback with a dramatic change in elevation) is a whole other view of switching layouts–emphasizing the minimal mainline through a double switchback and a change in elevation, increasing the sense that a train is going somewhere, while other plans model a specific location (a particular industrial district with many customers, or a small yard) and imply that the “somewhere” from whence the train came is off the layout–this sort of layout minimizes or eliminates the mainline in favor of the territory where switching takes place.
A cassette to load and unload trains can also add greatly to operating possibilities–it means an easy and quick expansion when the cassette is in place, and a way to bring in different equipment without so much assistance from the 0-5-0 switcher.
The www.carendt.com site includes many variants on the Timesaver, just to show what else can be done with that sort of space, as well as several other common sorts of shelf layouts to inspire your own plans…but go look at a real switching district, if you can, to get more ideas flowing!
