My wife was looking at my most recent build, and commeted that I had only room for 2-3 more buildings. After takeing a good look, I reailze she"s right.
So,after every square inch of table top is under track,buildings, trees or road, what then? I can’t expand anymore, I guess you could super detail, but that’s mostly a buy and place type of thing. I can’t believe I’m the only one who built himself into a corner.
To just run trains is fine, but I think I would lose interest soon.
That’s how a great many in the hobby get to your point. They enjoy the building most, and then only after the idealizing, planning, and acquisition phases. When they get to where you find yourself at present, they feel deflated a bit, or dismayed, or eager to start a new layout.
There are others who are quite content to lay track on a G1S Pacific and to run trains with a $12 depot kit and two trees stuck in there someplace. Detailing and making scenery are secondary.
If you do decide that this one is baked, please don’t destroy everything willy-nilly. Consider keeping the best section as is for incorporation in the new layout, or at least take up and re-use the track elements, trees, and any buildings. I have even re-used entire hillsides made of ground goop that came up in one big chunk. A little care, some judicious trimming, and it fit right into a new layout.
I believe the vast majority of us “oldtimers” will readily say a layout is never finished. There is always something to add, to redo, to freshen up, to detail.
I do feel your pain. My HO layout is about 50 percent scenicked but I find I don’t have the drive as I did during the design and construction phase. I think many of us are builders first, operators second. I know I am.
May I suggest…if your layout is all you can manage at this time, you might look into doing some addition of operating signals. You can do as few or as many as you like, and make it simple or complicated.
I guess if it were Me…I would have to tear it down and start over. I have always been more of a builder, than a player. But at 74 I’m not too keen on doing that…But I DID down size and set-up sections to incorporate on My Grandson’s layout…Mine had become too big, for one person to really enjoy! So now I get into finer detailing and adding full interiors and Also adding annimation, like lighted signs with chase patterns and the like, working crossings and so forth. Annimation is a real attention getter on any display/layout.
Change a scene. You don’t mention time/era, change some of that. I based My layout on the late 30’s to the early 80’s…so it’s easy to change the time frame, by equipment, vehicles and even buildings…none of mine are glued down, they are all screwed in place on their own foundation. Remove two screws, disconnect two wires and It’s at the work bench.
Good Luck!
Have Fun! [:D]
Frank
Btw: Still a work in progress…a lot has been done to this section since the pic’ was taken about 3 months ago. The sign, lights up in different patterns before it is fully on…46 different ways to choose from. I caught the pic’ when it was fully on. There are also other’s in the scene now.
The term ‘done’ is very subjective. I can’t ever imagine being finished on my layout and only on my first. Perhaps walk away from it for a bit to explore somethings others have done that you think to replicate. Goodness, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done that even after putting in scenery and track!
There’s always something to upgrade and do. For me, finding anything to try rekindles the joy flame.
There are a few guy’s on here that are members of the “hole in the wall gang”. I suggest you join the group and knock a mouse hole through the wall and expand. What the heck, just knock the whole wall out. Don’t forget to add a beam and proper supports if it is a bearing wall.[swg][(-D]
The 1:1 scale folks in my home town have the answer.
Structures old and new cover almost every square inch of Las Vegas. So, when somebody really wants to put up the next, “Latest and Greatest,” the existing occupant is purchased, stripped, rendered asbestos-free and prepped. Then, usually sometime about zero-dark-hundred, there is a series of sharp cracks, a dull rumble and the standing structure is suddenly reduced to a trash sandwich, ready for the front end loaders and double bottom dump trucks.
Nobody has a law that says you can’t clean off a couple of square feet (or yards) of mediocre early work and replace it with your own latest and greatest. I would suggest that you squelch any urge to make creative use of explosives in the process…
Chuck (Las Vegas resident modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Yes, you do. I am at the same point as you. There is a lot of sentiment on this forum for doing just the opposite. The theory is, you are never done. Baloney. You’re done when you say you’re done.
You may well be a builder, much more so than an operator, and there is nothing wrong with that. I feel the same way. I get bored just running trains but my juices start flowing at the thought of building a new layout.
I can only second what Rich has stated - a layout is done when you think it´s done! Which in effect means you start losing your interest in it! This can happen at any time during a layout build.
I am in the same situation with my layout. OK, I could add more detail here and there, but it would not mean a dramatic change to it, just adding to the expense. As it is a small layout, my decision is to sell it.
That may be the answer for you, but not for all. Even prototypical operation can get boring after a few minutes, if all you can do is switch the two or three industries you have on your small layout.
Let´s face it, the time to move on has come when you start having second thoughts on your layout or don´t feel inclined to do work on it or operate it.
That´s the time the lyout is finished - in both meanings of the word.
When sometimes I’m alone I’ll take out the tracks, cars and locomotives. (Sometimes I don’t because I don’t feel like it.) When it’s all put together on the tracks they start rolling along the oval. Around 5 to 10 minutes I get bored because there’s no scenery, buildings or cars. So I switch railroads at least 3 to 4 times. Play time is about 1 hour and putting something away is another half hour thru 45 minutes close to a hour.
I don’t know if I’ll be this way if my layout might be built. It gets tiring designing track plans on paper, but it’s the only thing I have. I do have Scram but that gets boring twice as fast.
I’m not bored or burnt out, so mutch as nothing let to do. My house was built in 1884, basement walls are field stone,24-30 in. thick, a hole in the wall aint gonna happen.The next room is an unused fruit celler,dirt floor.
I came up with my own car card system for switching, have 14 spots to switch, with spurs coming off main both ways, so you have to do a little planing. But I found I grow tired of that after a while. But I can spend hours at the bench every day,there for I must be a builder more then a player.
I’ll build till I run out of real estate,then perhaps go back to where I started, and maybe rekitbash some of my first kitbashes.
I think its OK to build a building just to build it,and then set said building on a shelf right?
“…I think its OK to build a building just to build it,and then set said building on a shelf right?”
For you, why not…or absolutely…either way, answer for yourself because you are using your time and your money. We shouldn’t dictate your choice of trains, or your track plan, or your way of running your trains. We shouldn’t decide how or when you spend your time and talents. If you would like to try something new or different, or if you want to tear it down and start fresh, it’s always your call. And if so, you are always ‘right’.
Saw a fellow at a recent train show in Canada who ONLY builds structures. They are fully detailed and lit and sit on very nice bases that include a small power supply. He had a very nice display. He also placed well in the contest they had. Bill
A valid question, especially for smaller layouts. I’ve given the question a lot of thought myself as I prepare to construct a small ISL. I love operations, and operate on the club layout I’m a member of on a regular basis, but sometimes I question if an ISL is going to hold my interest operationally. It seems that after a while, it would get repetitive. I’ve got a few ideas for when my ISL is ‘finished’:
Super detail. This may not be for everyone, but super detailing is not just about scenery. I’ll probably start my layout with straight out of the box cars with only minimal detailing, and go back later and super-detail them: separately applied grab irons, etc.
Try scratch building. Not just structures or rolling stock, but I would really like to try to scratch build a steam loco someday.
Variety through friends: in order to keep the repetitive feeling down, I’ll remain active in my model railroad club and hopefully get to operate on other people’s home layouts.
In the end, if none of that is enough/doesn’t interest you, by all means start fresh.
Food for thought. You spend $XXXXX amount of dollars on lumber,track,buildings scenery materials,vehicles etc,etc. Then you spent $XXXXX amount on cars,locomotives ,KD couplers metal wheels etc.
After all that investment run trains and get a return on your thousands of dollars investment.You can always add details to the layout like working crossing gates,signal cabinets, working block signals add interior and people to those vacant buildings,place drivers in your cars and trucks,then add license plates,DOT decals to your big rigs add Dumpsters to your industries,add rip rap like blade covers from disposable razors for machinery.Weather your cars and locomotives.
Or you can rip out that $XXXX amount and spend $XX,XXX by starting over.Remember everything cost more.
I’m never done with mine. I just add more detailing. I have many details to build/model for my transloading yard, such as dry bulk trucks, augers, conveyors, my AMTRAK station, my street scenes, my locomotives and cars, refreshing landscape details, (such as static grass), it goes on and on!
