That's one for the older crowd ("The Vapors" hit from 1980 - during my college days). That said, and to bring this back to on-topic in the forum..... DW and I have decided to enter a major downsizing phase of life. Sell the 5 bdrm house and rent a two bedroom apartment. One of the challenges for me is loss of a dedicated layout room. Fortunately, I converted to being Unitrack centric last year and my current shelf layout was disassembled, with all track components 100% salvaged, in about 8 hours. Soon, I'll be in an apartment with a minimalist approach to a layout. I'm thinking temporary set ups on folding tables in order to run those fantastic Kato name passenger trains. I'll never lose interest in that aspect of the hobby, but since scenery was never my thing, I doubt I'll miss a "permanent" layout. I know that our hobby has an aging demographic. No doubt, I'm not the first to approach such a transition. Do any of you readers have similar experiences to share?? (closure - Kato, especially their Unitrack, is wildly popular in Japan where fewer people live in large homes and temporary layouts are reported to be the norm)
I went the other way: from a two bedroom apartment to a house. In the apartment, I did manage a four-by-eight, mostly roundy-round with one per cent grades, spurs and even a turntable in the other bedroom. There was still plenty of room for a work table and even a two-by-four nineteenth century pike. I did it all with a mixture of track types. I do not know how big your bedrooms are, but you might be able to manage more than you think.
I went from a house with a basement to a 2 bedroom apartment with no stairs a while back thanks to a couple of life changing events. I am in the process of building a modular layout(I've one move left in me and that's south someday) in 2 1/2 by 4 foot and an 1 1/2 by 4 foot sections. Right now there are 3 of them that occupy the living room along one wall with my modeling area under the middle section. When my youngest son graduates and starts his career, the plan is to move the layout to the vacated bedroom and make it into an "L" with a couple more sections. I am a member of one of the local N clubs so I do get to run longer trains there a couple of times a week. Which leaves the home layout more for testing locos and freight cars at the moment.
You may have already considered this, but you might want to have a look at T-Trak since scenery isn't something you care much for. Before the founder of our local club passed away he had developed a huge T-Trak layout. Funny thing was that he lived in a large house and could have built a permanent layout, but he was particularly fond of T-Trak. I am 57 and am starting to consider the move to downsizing. I currently have a basement but tore down the big layout I had built in favor of a layout I've wanted to build since I was a kid in anticipation of that downsizing move. Back in the 70's a book called N-Scale Primer was available and there was a layout in there I drooled over for years but never had the money or skills to build it called the Hoosier Southern. But today, I just won't use 9 3/4" radius curves on anything other than a trolley or logging line and all the layouts from that era were using those tight curves. So I changed them to 11" and all the 11" to 12 3/8" with the help of Unitrack. The layout is 4'x6' and can be slid into the corner of the room when not in use. One of the things I really like is knowing is that all the work I am putting into it will move with me when that time comes.
T-Trak modules!!! Build a bunch and rearrange for variety. You can set up whatever you wish for each occasion. Make detailed scenes.
Thanks for the feedback!! T-Trak looks like a fun option. I may or may not ever go that direction. Amazon sells some nice commercial grade 4' x 2' folding tables with adjustable heights up to 32". I'm thinking that I could make one 2' x 4' module that is 2" in height and I could lower that table by 2" to allow completion of a loop on "naked" tables which would just be folded up when not in "running" mode. At this point, I just need to keep all of this in mind as I downsize tools, etc. in the garage.
