I've been noticing a lot of "New Layout" threads from those of you either planning or starting work on a new layout. If anything, that's always a great thing for our hobby. Just curious...are you new to the hobby? New to N scale? Finally ending your "Armchair Modeler" phase? Or building anew after a dismantled layout? Just curious to know what your situation is!
Metro, You are a long time participant on this forum who achieved a lot of my respect with the content of your posts. I wish you luck on your endeavor and have confidence that your effort will be satisfactory and your adventure will be fulfilling. Go for it!!!! Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
Thanks Ken. Actually I started my layout nearly 5 years ago! Still under construction though...My next endeavor is getting the dang thing running on DCC! Also, trying to finish up some major scenery. I have all these foam pieces stored in bags and boxes in my room and once the basic scenery is done I can finally get rid of most of that stuff! But I've been noticing a lot of "new layout" posts here lately and just want to know out of my own curiosity what possible factors are contributing to that...
I'm a returning modeller (from when I was 9 ) building my first layout since then.I had a British N Scale set back then, but am now going to do US N Scale.
I've always been interested in the hobby. my dad had a small loop set up in HO when I was a kid. he let me play with the rolling stock around the house. the bug bit me back in 05 before my first son was born. lots of planning but never had the chance/money to build something. now I have a good job and some free time to work on it. helps that I'm losing interest in videogames for the past couple years (which took up my free time before). been collecting trains and rolling stock for the past 6 years waiting for the right moment. that time s finally here.
It's that last one for me, although I haven't really had what I would call a completed layout in a while. Worked on a couple that got to trackwork stage but really never got to the point of running trains with regularity. This time, I decided to keep things simple and it's paying off. In a matter of about 3 months I have the layout planned, built, track down and trains running. I've even roughed in some scenery so I'm not running the "Foam Central". (the 21st century version of the "Plywood Central")
My current and soon-to-be-abandoned layout is 80% ready, including DCC and signalling (see my blog for details). Suddenly, when the question of expansion came into play, I realized that it is not expandable without continuing the design errors and mistakes I made. So I thought: "Why not start over? I already have DCC and most signals, I can re-use the track in hidden sections and make it better. Besides that, in 10 years I'll be too old to start over, so why not do it now?" That's the reason why we'll have the last session on June 18th and soon thereafter dismantling will start. I planned the new layout within 3 weeks with 3dPlanIt and it will have 4 levels. And I will avoid most mistakes this time.... Michael
I'm coming back to the hobby after about a 15-year hiatus. The last layout I had was in the early 90s (an HO layout built by my dad, brothers and me). In the mid-to-late 90s I was working on a coffee table layout (N-scale in the table under glass) but never got past building the benchwork and the occasional sectional track test loops. I had collected quite a lot of locomotives and rolling stock over time, but ended up selling a lot of it to pay bills and only kept my original trains including the ones my dad bought in the 60s and 70s, as well as some later stuff that I had customized for my long-planned PW&NJ railroad. Now I've got four kids, three of which really like trains (hey, the fourth one is only 8 months old and seems to like them too, but I'll give it a little more time to make certain!), not much of a budget (read that approximately ZERO) and a few boxes of trains, track, power packs, switches, structures, and roadbed looking for a layout to become. So recently I took out some of it and was showing it to my 9-year-old. He was hooked from the first look at my 69 Atlas GP-40. I then showed him an old sketch for my "future" layout and he started designing all sorts of layout possibilities on scraps of paper. I tried out the Atlas track planning software (to much disappointment), then stumbled upon a layout design built with XTrackCad. Found a great how-to here on TrainBoard and that's what's gotten us to today. Hopefully we'll actually get to build this layout sometime in the not-too-distant future. It's going to be on hollow-core doors and we're looking to be "green" in our construction so we're sourcing ways to get parts for free (used doors, leftover foam from construction sites, cardstock from packaging for scratchbuilt structures, etc.). I sure did miss model railroading, and it's great to be back! -Matt p.s.- And I'm in NYC right now looking forward to taking the kids on their first REAL train ride (LIRR from Long Beach into Manhattan).
I started a new layout in December 2010. We moved last year and my layout was not easy to move. I was pretty happy with the old one, started in 2006, and was sorry to take it down. The pictures in my album are of the old layout. I've been building layouts since I was a child.
I'm back again... had a HO layout with my dad when I was about 6, at 13 we moved into N scale, then I moved away at 22... now at 30 I'm getting back into it and having loads of fun with my 3 year old son (I know... very young for n scale, but he does awesome putting his own rolling stock on the tracks, driving, operating switches...)
