Multi-room layouts - thoughts?

Moving a layout is a lot of work but multi room layouts do work.

Good Luck

You need to check Eric Siegel's layout.

www.ericstrains.com

His layout spans multiple rooms, large and small.

He has a lot of video product reviews, how-to discussions, and tours.  

Jan

For a while my layout ran underneath the staircase landing. The finished part of my basement is a 'C' with the stairs making the center void of the C. The biggest problem I had with it was that there was always a portion of the layout I couldn't see. You can use cameras to keep an eye on it, but thats really it. How annoying would it be to have to go next door to fix a derailment?

I think you would be far better off knocking out the dividing walls between the rooms and making it one large space. 

BUT, it would depend on what you wanted to do. An operating scenario involving a few localized operational scenarios would probably work quite well with a few rooms and a local operator in each room, handing off the train to the next operator as it goes. 

Thanks all.  This house we are interested in has a very similar space configuration as Eric's.

I have operated on multi-room layouts.  The key to success is being able to easily walk along with the train as it moves around the layout.  People always get nervous when a train is out of sight for more than about 5 seconds.  

My club has a version of a multi-room layout.  One portion of the layout is not easily accessed from the other rooms.  Therefore, no one runs in that section of the layout.  It is wasted track and space.

Joe

I wouldn't have a problem with multi room layouts.  The different rooms make it easy to do different scenes, the walls make for easy dividers.

My attic split into a finished side (Train Room) and unfinished side (storage). Trains "leave" the Train room crossing the stairwell, and re-enters on the opposite side of the room. The space is approximately 45% finished/ 55% unfinished. I am hoping that the time that the train is out of sight will add to some of the interest. There is a really long passing siding. It is very "workable" to have a train leave on one track and return on another. Or, have one train leave and a different one return.

Gilly

I'd say go for a multi-room configuration.  In my case I started with a 13x11 basement bedroom that had a full bath and closet.  The layout was modeled after Harper's Ferry WV.  Problem I had was that I disliked the fact that trains heading west along the Potomac had to curl under town through a tunnel and immediately reappear heading east on the Shenandoah River.  Solution was to put a hole in the wall and continue the double line main into the closet (which had been rendered unusable by the layout) and then into a storage room before returning.  This gave me enough track for a train to 'disappear' before returning on the south side of town.  I've been operating two trains on the same outer loop now this way for years and have only damaged one car due to a derailment in the storage room.

At one point I actually considered moving the bathroom to the storage room space so I could enlarge the layout room.  The cost to do so would have been as much as the value of my entire collection and layout so I scrapped the idea.  My 'tumor' of a layout is now going to grow into the storage room to become a model of the Western Maryland RR featuring the depot and turntable at Frostburg.  The unfinished backs of the closet and bathroom walls will become a perfect backdrop for the Frostburg station.  I plan to keep track of the action in the each of the rooms with Dropcams like Eric's trains does.  This extension will get me a decent length yard and a graded spur line long enough to cross over the main which is prototypical of the Western Maryland.

I'll still probably spend most of my time in the Harper's Ferry room but it will be neat to build trains in the Frostburg room and follow them down the Potomac to Harper's Ferry.  I like the idea of trains starting and stopping at destinations along the line and creating different scenes in each room.  Neither room had duck unders (accept to access closet track when necessary) so I'll be free to move with remote from room to room.  I wouldn't do multi room without command control and the ability to kill power to sidings with engines to avoid/reduce accidents.  Finally I've gotten in the habit of visually checking to make sure all mainlines are clear before initiating operations.