How big would you go?


Z

ZimDalf

Member
How big a layout would you build if time, money, and space where no issue? And remember with unlimited money hiring people to help build is no issue.

So how big would you go? Would you like to keep down to a size you could manage it yourself? Or would you go huge and hire a dozen people? Or even dozens of people?
 
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I would never hire anyone to build a layout even if I had all the money in the world. That would be defeating the purpose of doing it all yourself.
I've built layouts for people that had lots of money & they went as big as their kids wanted it. 1 was 12 by 24ft & the other 1 was 24 by 44 ft.
Mine is 24 by 36ft & I would like to add another 24ft if I had lots of money.:D
 
I think I'd build a large building in a location that would get a good amount of foot traffic. Then, I'd invite several railroad groups to build their layouts in that building and charge people a small fee to watch. The $$ would go to the electric bill and fund the groups projects.

As far as me personally, I don't know. I think I would have to hire someone to do the tedious things that I can't quite master or have time for, such as tree building.
 
money no issue this big!

Hangar.jpg
 
Kevin, A hangar would be a good start, but the A/C bill would have to be paid by Obama.:D:):eek:
 
Larry said:
I would never hire anyone to build a layout even if I had all the money in the world. That would be defeating the purpose of doing it all yourself.
I've built layouts for people that had lots of money & they went as big as their kids wanted it. 1 was 12 by 24ft & the other 1 was 24 by 44 ft.
Mine is 24 by 36ft & I would like to add another 24ft if I had lots of money.:D
Click to expand...

Who says the point is to build it yourself? Look at all the clubs in the world.
 
I think maybe I'd keep working on the one I have now, but hire people to do one with double stack trains and auto hauling trains. Hey who says we can have only one?!

New question to add in: how many layouts would you have?
 
I would be perfectly happy with something about the size of a 3-car garage, which is heaps of space for N. Anything bigger than that and I'd never get it finished!
 
I would most likely build a large building with some sort of retail shop attached and make it a club so many could enjoy it. The retail shop would most likely be a hobby shop and would support the club bills hopefully keeping everything running smooth. I would model the line I want in HO but also add things that people like. Right now I have a plan to model 30 mile stretch of RR and once I have the layout space I will see what I can fit and how much main line I can fit between the yards and customers on the line. If I am lucky I will try and model it mile for mile but somehow I dont see myself having an 1800 ft mainline on a home layout in HO scale, LOL. That plan alone would most likely require a 6000sf space!!!!!
 
That's a very good question. My layout room started off 12' x 16' and the land baron (my wife) let me tear down a wall adding 12'x 9'. Sort of "L" shaped now, 24' the longest demension now.
I prefer to have the main line only go through a scane once, not having a birdsnest of track. Also I prefer to do a lot of switching. Unfortunately that does cut down on the length of the main line. My layout is a point to point, but does have a hidden staging area that allows for continuous running.
Being that I am a lone operator, I don't want to have a layout too big to the point where maintenence becomes a headache. If I had another say 10' x12' area I could add on, that would be about all I would need. I enjoy scenery work and the added length of mainline would allow me to add one more good size town, and perhaps another small town, and more indiustries to have added switching opportunities.
I have visited people across the country that have had fairly large layouts (and a lot of $$$ to spend) and maintenence was one comment I have found as a bit of a problem. They were lucky enough to have a number of modelers who ran on the layout during operating sessions who also help with the upkeep on the railroad. The owners of these railroads admit that without the help of friends, it would be hard to keep up.
I am pretty happy with what I have now. I still have one more town, with a yard and engine facilities to build yet. Enough to keep me busy for a while.
 
The Building would be a 2 story thing with a walkway around the inside to look down on the layouit and adjust the lighting. The layout would be 75 foot by 350 feet and have 3 distinct layouts within one scenery.
 
I would look at the question more toward the length of the mains and the size of the yard. In scale, a realistic HO transition era train might be as long as 100 coal hoppers with two Y's on the head end and a pusher at the back. In order to replicate that length in scale, you would want a main in the order of 150' as a folded loop or other configuration where the train isn't snaking through the same scene at the same time. Depending on the configuration, it could be done in 10'X20' (necessarily with a lot of hidden trackage, which would hardly be ideal) all the way up to a single loop with sidings taking up about 6'X50'.

Ideally, a train room should have about 250 square feet to play with in HO. From my perspective, anything much larger becomes a layout management nightmare, after the building of it, and less about just running trains. That's not an endictment of larger layouts by any means, I'm must saying that the way I do things it would be more about the layout and less about enjoying carefree train-play. I would rather construct a more modest layout that I can control manually and keep clean, and so on, and still run my trains more than anything. I'm hoping that my current layout build will be much less troublesome than the last, or at least in its early days.
 
montanan said:
...
Being that I am a lone operator, I don't want to have a layout too big to the point where maintenence becomes a headache...
Click to expand...

While I'm not a lone operator, and do love to operate, the maintenance as you get older will just get harder, and harder. That's why mine will stay just like it is, no matter how much money I have.
 
I still have a nestegg I could use to put a downpayment on a small fixer upper house and finish the attic for a train room for a modest N scale empire. Really, any room would do. At age 57 in this economy no one ever calls me for a job interview.....not even for a greeter (growler :p) at walmart. So maybe I'll have to start over at McDonalds wiping tables.....if they get desperate enough to call me. Boo Hoo.....sad but true.


Mike
 
MGWSY said:
I would most likely build a large building with some sort of retail shop attached and make it a club so many could enjoy it. The retail shop would most likely be a hobby shop and would support the club bills hopefully keeping everything running smooth. I would model the line I want in HO but also add things that people like. Right now I have a plan to model 30 mile stretch of RR and once I have the layout space I will see what I can fit and how much main line I can fit between the yards and customers on the line. If I am lucky I will try and model it mile for mile but somehow I dont see myself having an 1800 ft mainline on a home layout in HO scale, LOL. That plan alone would most likely require a 6000sf space!!!!!
Click to expand...

I like the idea of combining a club and retail space. It could also include a pub / restaurant.

I'd have the 'layout room' be enormous, with deep scenes that wrap around each other with wide walkways. The layout would have arms that wind into the retail space and the pub, so that people following a particular train would end up being moved throughout the building.

There would be at least two class 1 railroads represented, with half a dozen or more primary yards (think Seattle, Chicago, St Louis ...) and more than thirty small towns and outlying industrial areas with local operations or shortline regional railroads. It could be operated as sub-clubs within the greater club. The branches could even operate in different eras.

The restaurant would be on a second floor, where one side looks out onto a real railroad yard and the other side looks out over the layout.

I'd probably make it O scale. For those of us not fortunate enough to grow up using the Metric system, the 1:48 scale works GREAT for easy math. 1in = 4ft. And the larger size is much easier to see and work with. More animation can be built into the scenery and the cars themselves.
 
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