What if you had unlimited funds and space what features would you include in the ultimate layout?
In my age, wishes (and dreams) tend to get smaller and maybe much more realistic. I would never start a project I would not be able to finish to a degree I could enjoy the fruits of my effort. That puts a dramatic end to what one could do if one had unlimited space and unlimited funds.
Having said that, what would I do? I´d model a small town terminus of a branchline, including engine facilities (steam era). I´d also have one or two small intermediate stations on a sinle-track line, with sufficient track length to support, say, 30 minutes to complete the round. You could do that in a average sized room, but as my scale of choice is 1 gauge or 1/32 scale, I´d need a gymnasium for that!
If that was the case I’d still be doing the same thing I’m doing now. I don’t think funds and space are the main issue. For me I need to see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel.
have you seen the articles on Rod Stewart’s layout? Warren Buffet also has a layout.
[:D]
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What if you had unlimited funds and space what features would you include in the ultimate layout?
Just take the full time to finish my Maclau River in Nscale…so I don’t need to work again…
When I got back into this hobby a few years ago, if given the space at that time I would have preferred to do an around the room shelf layout.
I’m the type of person that likes to scratch build and make almost everything for my railroad.
Looking back now I’m more satisfied with the 4 by 8 layout choice then in the beginning. I now think an around the Shelf layout may have been a little overwhelming considering the time it takes to build things.
Take care
Track fiddler
Well, yeah, but Warren Buffett’s railroad is the BNSF.
My layout, now in storage and awaiting a new home, is 13 years old. It fits in a 24x24 foot space above the garage, and is in HO. I have found over the years that building 1 square foot of layout takes one month, if I can spend enough time on it.
I have pretty much everything I want on the layout - an operating subway, a turntable and roundhouse, a carfloat and terminal, yards, staging and plenty of industries. If I had more space, I’d like, well, more space. My industries are all pretty close to each other, and it would be pretty nice to have more than a train length between towns.
Other “druthers” are things I’ve learned from the experience of this layout, and maybe I’ll get to fix them when I reconfigure it for its new home. I’d definitely build another carfloat terminal, and probably use a wheeled table to move the float from one terminal to another. I would make the subway point-to-point and larger, instead of the simple, small oval as I built it. I’d like more staging and I’d want it to be double-ended, and a separate loop for trolleys. I’d like to expand my passenger service, too, including an electrified line for the GG-1.
Too much dreaming? Probably, but dreams are what model railroading is all about.
I would want some kind of standard/narrow gauge interchange - right now I just “pretend” by having a few adjacent tracks.
I would buy an actual railroad…
If I had unlimited funds I would probably buy like 100 acres in the black hills and build a 1/2 scale railroad.
Walt Disney had a 1/8 scale live-steam train in his back yard and visitors would always be given a ride around the place. One day someone said, “Hey Walt, you should charge people a nickel for a ride.” The rest, as they say, is history.
(No idea if this story is even remotely true, but Disney did have a fairly large-scale live-steam train in his back yard.)
I think I just aaw the ultimate model railroad - Ken McCorry had an open house today and I was just speechless. I’ve seen plenty of pictures, but you really can;t get an idea of just how big it is until you see it in person.
–Randy
Do you have a link to some of those pics of that layout?
Just Google Ken McCorry, you’ll see all you want. I did, and yea, it’s great. It’s claimed to be the biggest home layout, in the country. Howard Zanes has to be a close second!
Mike
My railroad dream would be to realize making my G.N.O. Railway. To be set in the 1980s with the rest of other railroads like Conrail.
I will like to finish my other railroads, BN, NYC, ATSF, SP, UP, BNSF. To share one layout and/or multiple eras 1960-2007.
It will contain few industries, freight yard, intermodal yard, 2 Amtrak station, 1-3 mainline trackage, open scenery, cities.
Fabricating a 1:1 replica of a NYC 4-6-4 Hudson from blueprints and run it on a 100-mile section of track as a tourist train. I would also make it so that the streamlining could be easily added and removed to achieve a Dreyfuss Hudson. Yep, that would be my ultimate layout. [Y][:P]
Tom
It would include a little bit of everything. It would be super long and take a really long time to walk your train through the entire layout. It would include at least two cities and a mountain pass in between them plus several farms and lots wilderness along the way.
I wouldn’t do any thing different, I’m content with my layout as is.
Mr. Beasily, I really like your theory of calculating time. I just ran my time invested and my layout isn’t quite finished but using your one month per square foot comes very close to my layout.
I started on it in 1989 and today I have about 4 square feet to go. I had to put my layout on hold with very little work on it for 20 years do to pressure at work. The overall time will come very close to your formula, 8½ years total for my 105.5 square foot layout.
Mel
As far back as May 1951 MR, Linn Westcott tried to visualize and plan the “perfect” layout where cost is no object. The article is called “If I Had a Million” and it is worth reading even today, for his wish list if not for the actual track plan itself.
Interestingly, in our own time a very fine modeler named Monroe Stewart has basically built Westcott’s “If I Had a Million” trackplan in N scale (and designed and built the house to accomodate it). Even in N it is huge. Featured in January 1997 Great Model Railroads.
Dave Nelson