Have the track down and about 75% of the scenery done. Just about lost all interest after the son passed away. It's all covered up and the trains are the the boxes. Don't know if I should sell or not.
I am sorry to hear of your loss. I hope you can get interested again, perhaps as part of continuing on. Charlie
My Dad's old HO layout will probably never be finished but I occasionally clean the track and run trains for old time’s sake. We had big plans for it until he passed away over a decade ago. No one lives on the property anymore but by brothers and I use it as a family retreat and reunion location. The place is way out in the back woods and the layout is located in a dedicated room attached to the garage. My kids and my nephews took an interest in it for a while but they are now mostly in college, grad school or working overseas and have little time for it at this point.
Trains: You certainly have our condolences from the TrainBoard members. Getting the layout running will possibly take some time. If it has been covered, I would suggest that the first order of business will be to clean the track and the engine wheels. Then maybe dust a few things so you will have some scenery to repair. Get the transformer operating and let us know how it goes. :thumbs_up: There will be plenty of help here at TrainBoard. Perhaps you would like to post another thread if you have specific issues or ideas.
We moved to our current house in 2002, and I began immediately to construct an N layout in the garage. I wanted to get the layout up and running fairly quickly - in part because it gave my dad and me something to work on and plan when he would visit. And I thought it would be good therapy in a way to help him recover from the heart surgeries and stroke he went through. Unfortunately, Pop passed away in 2003. I didn't really lose interest, but progress has been (embarrassingly) slow without my main trouble-shooter/consultant - and pal - to help me. A couple weekends ago, my nephews came over with some of their N equipment and we operated the layout for a while - it convinced me that I need to make more progress. I was planning to devote time to finishing up some re-designed trackwork this weekend - early this morning a water pipe in the ceiling of our bedroom broke, and now the lower level of my house is filled with fans and dehumidifiers from the restoration company. And this will need to be followed by the dry-walling, plastering, painting...
Trains my condolences. For Christmas in December 2004, I received in the mail a copy of MR, confusing as at least 20 years passed since I packed up my nscale collection. Under the tree that Christmas was a SP PA1 with a set of daylight passenger cars in nscale with a card from Dad. This past February I lost my father, I did not realize how much it would impact me, but it has more than many know. I am lucky to inherit his H0 collection, unfortunately his switching layout was not salvageable. The turn of events got me interested again and I shared some real good train times with Dad in the last year of his life. Now my son and daughter are enthusiastic, as well as one of my young nephews. I hope and hold dear that this was part of Dads plan...perhaps Dad just wanted something he enjoyed to be past down. Now I need to get the layout done and soon I hope put together a HO switching layout. As the anniversary of his passing gets nearer the need gets stronger. To paraphrase E8 "I hope you can get interested again, perhaps as part of continuing on" Best Wishes
Don, I had seen a couple of your photos of the layout--sure looks great! I sincerely hope you will decide to keep progressing with your hobby, as it is great stress relief. Pardon my tardiness, but do you have a track plan? Seems you have a rather sizable setup there. And D&RGW is always a great choice!!
Our 30' x 14' club layout is probably 50-60% complete. There is about 300' of track laid with much more to do in the main yard as funds allow. The layout about doubled in size last April due to a member donating the benchwork from a dismantled home HO layout. The topography is all in place and many areas are ready for basic scenery. Interest in the layout has increased over the last summer and we picked up a few new members who are N scale specific. The club also houses a 1200 sq. ft. HO layout in the basement of the shop. Last Thursday, one of the HO guys brought in a Kato loco he picked up on eBay and donated it to the cause! We are currently developing a web page for the club and we're hoping to post pics shortly. Good things are happening.
I use my layout in part to honor the memory of loved ones. I have my "memory fence" - made from RAM chips and dedicated to my father's memory. I also have planned "Mount Vivien" in memory of my first wife who passed after 5 wonderful years with her. Life goes on as they would want me to.
I have a plan but not sure how to post it. It is a folded figure eight, with three long passing sidings. It is on a table 48" x 16', and about 2" wide in the middle.
Trains, try reversing the img/ with /img in the last code bracket Lots of running to do on that one!!!
Mike, Thanks I just figured it out. That's the basic layout. I flipped the end on the left, so the ends are opposite and added a coupe of more sidings.
Well, after a few agonizing years of trying to figure out if I really want to dump my 35 years of old HO stuff and attempt to jump on the DCC N scale wagon, I've gone and done it. The wife has been informed that as of our anniversary date, the dining room table will soon become the new test area for some N scale "equipment" that's coming into the house. I'm still coming to grips with the optical differences (to me) of HO vs N scale, but I've just run out of room for any more HO stuff. That, and the fact that none of it is DCC and most of it is pretty archaic (albeit useful) rolling stock! So, for better or worse, I've made the switch to N and will probably be bothering everybody here for answers to dumb questions one more time. AD
im about as far as i want to go with my currant layout (4x8) i will be starting a new one in the next month (15x 3' 4" about) and most likely giving away my currant one
After 2 years Paint Room - 100% Backdrop - 0% benchwork - 100% (expect fascia & drop cloth) tracklaying -100% track painting - 60% ballasting-0% feeders - 45% buildings acquired and roughed -100% buildings completed - 0% amount of pink grass -100% amount of topography other than track support -0% electical work - busses -85% panel - switches/leds acquired, but panel needs to be revised - 20% MT/Accumates - 98% DCC Converison -55% (but the target keeps moving) OVERALL 30-40 %
I moved into my home in June 2003 and filled my entire basement with benchwork by that fall. Most of the track was in by the following spring. In May 2006 I extended some of the lower level benchwork by the Kellar Helix for about 20 additional feet, and put in all the track from the top of the helix to the end of the lower benchwork. I'll eventually get scenery on the 45 to 50 feet of the Kellar Branch main track that is not inside the helix. This summer and fall, I've slowly added scenery a section at a time on the Kellar branch and throughout the rest of layout, reworked several of the numerous staging yards to now include industries and sidings for better operating options, and revised my operating system (for close to 50 trains/700 cars) from hand generated switchlists to a paperless system that is less prototypical but immensely less time consuming between sessions and easier to use during sessions.
At the present time I am a "Huh?" Three years ago I was at about "Huh plus seventy-five percent". Then the widow lady next door became my snuggle and my layout room (self-explanatory) became my train room (Library) and my layout became non-existent. I am currently residing in dreamland and it is going to be a couple of years before I can do another one and this one will have to be - and will be - portable. In the interval I have dozens of cars to convert to Z-Scale body mounted couplers and twenty or more diesels to put my house-road colors on. And, as I outlined in another posting a few months back, I have entrepreneurial ambitions to become a future manufacturer of brass passenger cars.
