Journey of a thousand miles starts with a single chuff (redux)

[Paul M.]

Here's a pic of Gene's layout that he sent me:



Uploaded onto my Trainboard account

[Paul M.]

He said this about the photo:
In the forground the mainline track is eastbound to Hannaville. The siding is for the tipple of GP#13 Mine. On the other side of the isle is the westbound track towards Leesboro, with Bradyton on the corner.

[Paul M.]

Here's a Panaramic of his layout, taken from the entryway....

[grumpy]

Where do you people find that much room in  a house to build that size of layout. A lot of work in a layout that size. My layout is roughly 9' x 9'and it is still quite far from being finiished.
Don

[Atlantic Central]

Grumpy,

Didn't you know? We are millionaires with nothing else to do. You have my sympathy, I would be grumpy too if I only had a 9x9 space for model trains.

Seriously though, its just a mater of priorities.

Gene has a two car garage sized building in his back yard just for his railroad.

I have a heated and cooled 22' x 40' room above my detached garage/woodshop just for my railroad.

One local modeler got permission from the county to add onto his basement without adding on to the house above so he could expand his layout which has been featured in RMC.

Most of my friends with large layouts have average suburban homes and their layouts fill all or most of their basements - average size 800-1200 sq feet. Some are even bigger.

Just in our local group of about 15 active members there are about 8 such layouts in various stages of completion. That is all wthin a 10 mile radius of me. And our group does not represent all the modelers in our town with layouts this size.

Every Chirstmas season a local group in our region cordinates a series of layout open houses stretching from Baltimore to Phily. Literaly 100 plus private home layouts in this size range are opened to the public through October and November.

I don't know where you live, but here in the Mid Atlantic the average detached home is 3000+ sq ft, they all have basements and most have two car garages.

You might be very surprised at the number of people with 1000 or more sq ft devoted to Model trains, but around here it is quite common.

In our local group we often help members building new layouts with the benchwork especially to get things going quickly. And we do share talents across the board. Those who are electrical types wire layouts, those who are good at structures build stuff for others, etc. We share all sorts of knowledge, skills and resources. We have used my wood shop to preassemble upper deck braces for one layout, and I have drawn layout plans for a number of modelers.

Sheldon 

[Guilford Guy]

I'm quite happy with a simple, operations based 4x8. I have a much better chance of finishing, well scenicking it before college on a limited budget...

[SteamGene]

Yes,
It's a lot of work.  But it's a lot of fun, too.  When you get down to it, I don't have much more than one or two scale miles of mainline track - or will have that much once the track is in.  The thing is - this is THE LAYOUT.  At my age there is no chance that I will ever tear it down and build something else.  But it has what I want - mountains for the articulateds, wide curves for the x-10-xs, a fair amount of switching possibilities, and a full engine facility.
Gene

[grumpy]

Sheldon
I live in St. Albert AB which is a city right next to Edmonton. WE have 9 months of winter and 3 months of poor skiing. Around here garages are used for parking your car or storing your leisure toys, Skidoos and Seadoos.With the cost of a 1200 sq ft detached being somewhere around $300,000 you cannot devote much of your living space to  model trains.Most of the modelers in this area are limited to very small layouts or don't have layouts and run on a club track.Alot buy trains with the hope of someday building a layout. Enough  said.
Don

[Atlantic Central]

Grumpy,

For whatever it is worth, $300,000 buys a modest single home here, but one with a full basement and maybe an attached garage.

My detached garage only cost about $35,000 to build 14 years ago. 1200 sq feet first floor, 880 sq ft second floor, heat and A/C upstairs. It would cost closer to $60,000 to build today.

The "average" single home here in our area is 2800-3800 sq ft and costs about $450,000.

My cars are parked in my garage, but my only "motorized" toy is a Gravely garden tractor to cut the acre of grass and plow a few inches of snow off the 500' of driveway.

I suspected that you lived somewhere "unusual" compared to us here in rural/suburban USA.

Enjoy your trains

Sheldon

[rogertra]

Victoria, BC.

3 beds, 11/2 baths, single car garage, no basement, 90x100 foot lot, $500,000.00

[Atlantic Central]

Roger & Grumpy,

Canada sure is expensive, here in Maryland USA we are neither the lowest or highest in cost of living here in the USA, actually we are slightly above the average for the whole USA.

Real Estate is cheap right now, you could come on down it a great big basement, with a nice house above it, and more land than 90 x100 for under $500,000.

I plan to retire to a more rural area where the cost of living is even lower, and, it is in a State with lower taxes than we have here in Maryland (one of the highest in the US).

Sheldon

[TonyD]

IMIO, Vancouver beats every big city on the planet hands down...but...if I had an extra half mill lying around, I think a tropical chocolate plantation with it's own 12 inch to the foot industrial narrow guage would be money better spent.... and the next time you needed a spur to the back 40, you could pull that page about the 'frog angles'....and light the torch.....sounds good to me.... the auger on the snow blower just swallowed itself this morning....

[TonyD]

Forgot to ask! Hey Gene! How long is the mainline going to be? It is one big loop isn't it? not point to point? Keep up the good work-Tony

[SteamGene]

Tony, the mainline begins and ends at opposite end of the lower stagin yard.  The back wall is 26 feet long exterior, so probably about 25 feet inside each side wall is a bit over 16 feet while the penninsulas have about a 12 foot base, by about nine feet and wide enough for a 30" curve.  I've used almost 325 feet of flex track, but that includes the staging yard.  All the turnouts are number 6.  (Of course Atlas has just come out with their #8, which I would have used for the passing sidings at least had they been available. 
Gene

[Atlantic Central]

TonyD,

As originally designed Gene's mainline run is approximatly 210 actual feet or about 3-1/2 scale miles.

I'm sure Vancouver is a very nice place, but personaly, I don't want to be too close to ANY large city. Where we live here in Maryland, what was once very rural has become too suburban. That is why we will retire elsewhere - in just a few years.

Sheldon