A sad day for my Central Midland Layout


Ericsauto

Ericsauto

Well-Known Member
Well after almost eight years of building and expanding the Central Midland layout it has to come down. We have just purchased another Home and after 23 years in this home. I have been removing the scenery and packing up the trains over the past week. Now my problem is there is no way I am going to get this out of my basement without destroying it . I have all the track soldered and a lot of plaster. This weekend I will try my best not to butcher it.

The new house has quite a large basement ( 2300 square feet) unfinished which is great for a bigger layout. I have had thoughts of selling all my HO stuff and move to S gauge or O since I am getting older and have the room. I have a fortune in Ho trains . I think at last count I have 58 engines ( Most Dcc Sound ) I will lose my butt trying to sell them .

Anyway I attached a picture of the scenery stripped and ready to cut a part. Makes my heart skip a beat knowing that I have to cut it up. this layout has come a long way.

Any suggestions would be welcomed.




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Eric, the bright side may be a new layout with improvements you have learned. Save as much lumber as you can. Good luck on the new house.
Wayne
 
I feel your pain Eric!
My previous efforts had to come down when we switched from fibreglass to spray foam insulation.
I'm still in the process of cleaning up my friends estate and huge layout!

As for the track if you don't unsolder the joints I simply cut them out with a dremel and rail saw. It's a lot of work but I managed to salvage most of it.
As for going to another scale, well that's something you'll have to wrestle with. I have three different scales myself and kind of like the On30 stuff the most but like you I have a kings ransom in HO.
 
Sorry to hear that the layout is being torn down, buy like Wayne mentioned, I'm sure you've learned a lot over the years, and I can see that the new layout can be bigger and better. I have been working on mine for over two decades and now that the last of the track is down, I can see myself improving older parts of the layout with what I have learned over the years.

It would be a shame to take such a hit if you have to sell your HO collection. That would be something that I would have to do a lot of thinking about.

Good luck on the move.

Chet
 
I plan this Sunday to spend the day making some delicate cuts. I will try to post some pictures. I thought about late last night after I posted and it would be a big loss to get rid of my collection, so maybe with the more room I can expand and change this a bit. All in all it is a nice layout. Maybe broaden those turns. :)
 
Any chance of cutting it specifically to turn it into a modular layout that can be taken out in sections?
 
It would be a shame to have to liquidate the HO equipment. I do think a bigger and better HO layout would be the way to go. Trying to start over in a different scale could run into some big bucks. Years back I tore out an N scale layout to build my current HO scale layout and I took a bath on the N scale stuff. I am glad though that I did change to HO because there is so much more available in the way of detail parts, locomotives and so on, plus it is easier to see now that I am getting older.

I'm sure that there is a lot that you can salvage for a future HO layout.
 
Ericsauto said:
Any suggestions would be welcomed.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, I have none. Every layout I have tried to save, either in whole or part, has not been successful. I have pieces/parts of at least 7 layout sitting around taking up space, that still seem not to be usable in any scenario I can imagine.

This is another reason though, that I do not solder joints, esp on turnouts. One can usually always save the turnouts.
 
After you remove the track you will get over the heart ache of tearing the benchwork down after you make the first chop or cut.
 
KB02 said:
Any chance of cutting it specifically to turn it into a modular layout that can be taken out in sections?
Click to expand...

Am also sorry to hear of your dilemma; however, as others have said - this could lead to a bigger better layout in the long run.

I'd also have to agree with KB02 on "trying to" cut it into movable sections. You may not be able to save 100% of your work; however, if careful, you maybe able to save the bulk of it for transporting (depending on how far you have to go) and then re join it all at its new location.

Granted, doing that will require some repair work, but at least you'd still have the basis of the layout and still have the majority of your past 8 years work with you.

Regardless of all of that, hope the move goes well.
 
I feel your pain. I had to tear apart a beloved layout in 2010, because it had too many duckunders. I myself had no problem with them, but some of my "more seasoned" guest operators couldn't handle that kind of repeated crouching to get into many of the industrial switching areas. If I wanted to keep hosting op sessions, I needed to redesign and replace 80% of the layout. It was a painful task at first, but I just kept focusing on how much better the new layout was going to be - and that kept me going. Looking back now, I'm glad I did the rebuild.
 
Following along as I expect to move in the next few years, hope to learn a few tips from yours. The way I look at it is I've learned a lot since I built mine, many new ideas to incorporate on the next build.

Best of luck and let us know how it goes.

Steve


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Twenty-five plus years ago, we moved from one house to another. I had built my layout in the old house in such a way that it wasn't that difficult to break it up into modules, which I moved into a purpose-built room in a finished basement in the new house. But time got away, and the modules sat there for 20 years! For various reasons, it was determined that the new space was needed for other things. We decided to build a 14' x 28' addition to the house, with half going for a study for my wife, and the remaining half as a dedicated model railroad room. The square layout was not what I had originally had, nor planned, and I have probably made a bunch of mistakes, but have been able to salvage 90 percent of benchwork, track and buildings. As I am pushing 73 and have other priorities, I probably will not rebuild the layout again. Since I have been in HO off and on since I was 14, I have a LOT of rolling stock, and there just isn't room to run nearly half of it at any one time. So, I will just relax, and enjoy what I have.
 
I kind of wish now that I did not solder all the joints. I think I can save at least 80-85 % of the original. I will have more room to expand the layout in the new house for sure. The room I have allotted for the trains in the new house will be 32 x 18 , quite a bit larger than I have now. I guess on the bright side I will get that staging area I always wanted or like commented just use pieces of the old layout in a new design. I am sure I will not be doing much to it this winter because we will still be unpacking. Oh well the hard work will pay off, it always does. Maybe an s gauge running along the ceiling??? We'll see what the next eight years will bring.

I really appreciate all the comments and ideas, makes me feel better.:)
 
So the layout is down and I can say that at least 15% of it will be unusable again. Not bad considering some had to to be cut up smaller to get them out of the basement. The mural on the wall is painted over and the layout is ready for moving. I had a lot of ideas when I was tearing it down, like what I can do to make it better. Will I reuse everything on it again? Maybe not but I can imagine the possibilities from going from a a 24 x14 room to a 31 x18 room in the new home and no doors to get in my way. I will have a full room to work with. :)

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Looks like you have been able to save a lot there. Now you have to think about the future layout. Your mind will probably be tossing things over while you're moving, but I'm sure that you'll come up with a plan. Keep up posted.

Good luck on the new layout.

.............................................. Chet
 
Eric,

Considering all that you had to do, loosing only 15% is a pretty good result. Glad it worked out okay and hope that it can be moved with little or no damage. Looking forward to watching it being put back together.
 
wombat457 said:
Considering all that you had to do, loosing only 15% is a pretty good result.
Click to expand...
I am hopeful that is all that will be lost. But experience tells me that getting it apart is only the first hurdle. This thing still has to survive getting into and out of a move vehicle, the ride in the conveyance, storage, and time.

I got one layout out of a basement intact but the moving van took its toll. It was in about 20 pieces at the end of the ride. Open grid bench work doesn't transport well. Another, this one was N-scale, made it into and out of the trailer, but broke trying to get it into the door of its new home (for the sake of about 1/2"). Yet a different layout (The Gulf Colorado & Santa Fe) , one nice piece river/bridge scene that almost seemed like a modular unit, made it all the way to its new storage space. Sitting in there over the summer the plastic water "melted" and ruined it. Yet another, the "Yuma Southwestern", some of the HO layout pieces made it in OK shape and got stored in my shed. After about two years of rubbing and tiny bumps from other items folks were getting in and out of the shed they are pretty much trash. Still have them but am not hopeful for a re-integration.
 
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