How many of you have a "future" layout?

Wow.

Have you posted about this in detail somewhere? I'd love to see/read more about that.

A pal of mine has a massive HO layout and his concept was to justify running steam with double stacks and Superliner consists, he'd say it's, "the summer of 58," but he also says he's not telling you what century it is. He also modelled things like a crashed variable roboto jet fighter from the Japanese animated series, "Macross," which was all rusted over, suggesting at least a century into the future.

Guilty here!

I tore my layout down last fall, and have a "future layout" to be built soon.  It is much smaller then my old layout but has much more realistic operations.  I wont even be able to run my trains in a loop as it is a strictly a switching layout.

 

 

My favorite part about a future layout-plenty of time to build structures and locomotives.

 

 

For my new layout I will use O gauge tubular track, 031 & 042 curves with some Gargraves track as well. I will try to put some Super Streets in the layout as well, I have mainly D16 curves and a few D21 curves.

Bought some Plasticville freight cars(2 quad hoppers and 1 tanker) from WBB when they offered them as club cars, not sure what I will use as an engine for those, maybe a GP-38 or SD-45.

I have several transformers for the layout from my old layout; a post war ZW, a post war Z, a post war KW, a post war type R(not sure if RW), 2 MTH Z-1000's, and a couple of smaller Lionel transformers from the post war time as well. Power won't be my down fall but I might overload the circuit breaker with all those transformers on one line.

 

Lee Fritz.

I have an unfinished basement room that is 17' x 16' that needs a floor and lighting finished in.  Complicating matters is 8 large rubbermade bins (the kind with wheels) full of s gauge trains That is in the way of finishing the floor.  The only progress I have made is adding to the pile of trains! 

 

Ben

 

Reading the title, I was thinking along these lines.

 

 

Good point. Once my benchwork was done, all I had to do was to pull the finished (already painted, decalled and weathered) rolling stock out of their factory boxes. I only had to build ONE car once the layout was in a state where I could run trains as everything else was done except for weathering the locomotives...

My new train room(spare bedroom) is 11 by 12 feet, guess I will have go with two levels, maybe three levels? Will try to use either K-Line 042 switches or Ross Custom switches in 042. I will not have any Lionel switches unless they are the post war 022's.

 

I am starting to pack away my display items, should be moving next Friday or Saturday.

 

Lee Fritz

Not that a buy a lot, with my kid in college and paying the $$$$$$ for that, but yep, that's me, slowly working through obstacles to get to having a layout. Right now I am in the finish the basement off, which is about 75% done, but seems to have been stuck that way for a while as all the other crap around the house, garden work, fixing the results of (non existent) climate change aka the winter from hell, and so forth, don't know when it is going to happen. 

Exactly!! There was a guy who posted on here long ago that had a very futuristic looking layout with all kinds of wild colors and shapes.

See if you can incorporate a Wye. That way you'll be able to at least turn your locomotives around.

What would you like to know about it. I built it as modules arranged in a figure 8 pattern e that fit in a utility trailer. Everywhere the eight touched a side of the trailer I installed a full height mirror. I cut windows in the box trailer sides and installed one way mirror glass so when you looked in it reflected down the "streets" in an infinite figure 8. There were also mirrors mounted on the ceiling and floor so it reflected and made it look so much higher. The skybridges were made with sides that covered the fact that there are. Figures mounted on top and bottom of them so that in the up/ down reflections the bridges had people standing on them.

 

The buildings were four feet high and lit from inside. There were 2600 modified and hand painted figures. I had four self contained DVD players mounted on buildings that were playing video ads that I had made with video editing software like you would see in Times Square.

 

There was a simple loop of track that had a RailKing Aerotrain on a timer. 

 

I took it apart a few years ago after showing a few times around Southern CA.

 Ah man, that's way too cool. That I saw, you hadn't mentioned that was a mirror box before. Before my time here obviously, so did you have a thread that covered it?

 

I wondered if the city planner was tall, or had a safety engineer beside him.

  Really, I thought the wall height was to further stress the confinement of an overpopulated area. Claim it!

 

 I built a few wall hanging mirror boxes, and slobbered over some magicians stage works, but a giant train layout in one? That's "thinking in the box"

   

I'm in the process of finally taking down my layout to build a new one and have been buying stuff with that in mind for 2 years now.

-Greg

I have two O-gauge layouts at present, but am always planning or imagining alternative layouts - that is part of the pleasure for me.   My next layout will expand my 6X12 to 6.5 X 12.2 - a small expansion obviously.   I am space constrained now, but this revised layout will allow me to have O-72 Fastrack on the outer track.   Not sure when I will start on this revised layout.

Good morning, I am always thinking of my new layout.

My Plan is from East Altoona PA to Gallitzin PA.

 

As a young boy I remember going to the Horseshoe Curve with my parents and then later on school trips and standing in the parking lot and looking up and the trains going around the curve this was the late 60's and 70's.

 

Although in my mind it is all steam engines and new diesels as of yet.

 

I would like to try to recreate that same scene as standing in the parking lot and looking up as the trains go around the curve instead of standing track side at the top.

 

I know it sounds a bit nuts but I have several ideas of the level to start out at Altoona and then the final height at Gallitzin.

 

On the west side Gallitzin there would be a return loop (as there is now) large enough to hide some trains and helper sets and move trains around so anyone watching does not realize that the train going up the curve did not simply loop around and came back down, there would actually be a different train.

 

As like many of you every train show there is a few more pieces and parts going home and going under my existing layout so when the day comes I am ready.

My wife said I can have a layout in the future.  She put it at the bottom of my Honey-Do-list.  For some reason the list gets longer but the layout stays at the bottom on the list!

Could we be married to twins separated at birth? Describes my situation to
a t..
On Apr 25, 2015 9:17 AM, "O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum" <alerts@hoop.la>
wrote:

Mark,

Yes that is a great place to model!!  Not nuts at all!  You may need a good bit of space to pull it off right, but it would be an exciting model railroad to run.  I've seen it in the diesel era, but so much better in the steam era.  As you may remember, I am with you on all steam!

I thought I was the only one!  I'm still in the 'armchair-engineer' phase, but just as

well, since for the past year, my wife and I have been unpacking and sorting out our

new home.  If I'd had a railroad before that, I would have had to tear it down for the

move, so I'm glad I waited.  This year will bring the finishing-off of a 14X21 room in

the basement and then the build.

 

     Hoppy

I built my layout in 1985 and since I make changes all the time, You can say it's a future layout.

I have a nice layout (at least I think so), but I still occasionally watch for good deals for stuff for my dream layout. It will be O-72 around the outside (at least two tracts, with a somewhat detailed main level. There will also be a couple other tracks (possibly smaller curves) that runs throughout the towns and such. There will be a turntable and roundhouse. An upper level up on a hill will be American Flyer S gauge (a loop or two with a station and maybe a trestle). Around the bottom will be a few feet wide shelf with all prewar standard gauge including a nice passenger station, freight depo and a power station.

 

 

yes. Ill be ready to start building it in 2025....

The "future" layout has finally begun.  Hope to be ready to run by autumn.  Leaves will fall, trains will run, and happiness will abound, fun will be had, all around.