@juniata guy posted:Probably the biggest change I’d make would be the quality of the benchwork on the original part of the layout. I’ll freely admit I didn’t know what I was doing and made mistakes that I didn’t repeat when doing the benchwork for the three additions. In a perfect world I’d have scrapped the original section and rebuilt it correctly but, I was never able to find the motivation.
In the 31 years since I built the original section; I’ve never regretted the inability to park additional trains on the layout. As you note, that burns a lot of real estate. Additionally, I change out the trains on my layout every Saturday as, after 1 week, I’m bored with what I have been running and want to look at something different.
All curves and switches (except for a single 0-42 in the “yard” area) are 0-27. It shows up in the video Max posted but, to allow myself to run some larger equipment I removed the switch covers from the 0-27 switches. This allows me to easily operate engines intended for 0-31 as well as some scale flat cars and covered hoppers. I’ve had people ask if I regret using 0-27 curves and switches. There have been times my answer would be yes but, the constraints imposed by the 0-27 curves and switches has served to place a practical limit on what engines I can buy and, by extension, how much I’m paying.
Square footage calculates out to roughly 124 square feet.
I’ll close by saying thank you for the very kind comments from you and the others!
Curt
Thanks. Great insight. I built my first layout in our basement about 16 years ago, but as my 3 eldest daughters (now 27, 26, and 22) got older, they wanted the basement for socializing. Then, in an unexpected twist, we added a 4th daughter now 13, and we need additional basement space for a child's playroom, so down came the layout around 2011. Finally getting my basement back. My benchwork is done, and it's WAY better than the original. Learned from my mistakes!
I really like what you've fit into just 124 sq. ft. Nice long run for a train with the city scape separate from the industrial setting. I've got roughly the same amount of space, about 150 sq. ft., and have finished my track design on RR Track, but have wondering if I should forego some siding space for more accessories and/or landscape. Your video this morning made me reconsider even more. Going to do the mainlines today and see how it looks in reality rather than just on screen.
