What crazy things have you done to make your layout a reality?

For my Bellevue and Schenectady RR, I switched to a tankless Hot water system to eliminate the hot water tank for my Wildwood harbor Scene, its now hanging on wall behind removable backdrop and Crusader Motel in photo for easy maintenance, works great and is more energy efficent. Happy Railroading!!!-Don Klose

My wife takes family, coworkers and friends to see and ooh aah over the RR faster then I do and likes the tankless system of hot water. Happy Railroading!!!-Don Klose

My wife is the same way...she grumbles a bit when the brown truck shows up but runs everyone down stairs at warp speed.  The dumbest thing was letting the mrs see the bill from Lou at ROW.....baaaaaaad idea...

This area houses my HO railroad, but still fits the bill of crazy things I have done to have a better railroad.

We did a house renovation in the summer / fall of 2009 that added about 300 sq ft. to our family room, created an upstairs mud room, new kitchen, redid two bathrooms etc.  Part of the renovation was to put in a basement under the extension of the family room area.  In the pic below, the new basement is to the right of the iron colored I beam. 

In order to get to that new basement, we had to dig out the existing crawl space. 

Here is a photo of the dig.  The Bobcat is sitting in an area appx. right in front of the helix where they punched through the foundation to get the Bobcat in.  Notice the plastic PVC sewer line, it was re-routed above the ducts.  We also relocated the water meter to an area of the extreme right of this photo. 

Here was the outside of the house during this dig.

This photo is the other side of the "island". 

This shot is looking back from the area where the orange super sucker is at.  I've got an O scale mikado and caboose sitting out that I just finished weathering a couple of days earlier.  I believe the shelf concept would have worked well in O too, but I would have been too constrained by the radius at the end of the island, and I want to run large articulated steam.  So, HO is still is.

Once I'm done, I believe the mainline run will be appx. 8 scale miles from staging yard to staging yard. 

Oh, and here is the extension from the outside.  The area under the extension is my crew lounge, dispatcher station, and houses the helix. 

Regards,

GNNPNUT

Wow! Looks awesome, I see you are in Illinois, you are lucky,

here in California, any kind of construction has been out-lawed,

less limb amputaion.

ncng

Well coincidently enough I am currently traversing my wifes washer/dryer with a double track wide shelf along the back edge so the lid of the washer will still open enough for her to use without banging into any rolling stock which may be there. This took negociation and some artful carpentry, but the project also opens up a continuous run capability for me which after much thought I realized I wanted.

Bob

Thats great guys! I love it.....GNN you take the cake....dig out the foundation to accomadate the railroad. Thats classic.....

We had to cut out an old sagging poorly built truss above the garage. Add a temporary support for the garage ceiling.

Install an engineered glu-lam beam, 2 windows and break through the upstairs spare room. Also add A/C, electrical, surround sound wiring X 2 and decor.

I painted myself blue, danced naked around the house widdershins, and sacrificed a chicken to get my layout room finished. 

Well, I put up with 25 years of a rec-room until our daughter graduated from University - Now the room is mine all mine my precious!

Why do I really believe that

We are a a little nuts.

Up and over the washer, paint booth and potty, no problem.

Back behind the furnace, easy.

Moving the hot water heater and softener, not so hard. Yes, there is a removable piece back here.

The big problem was this wall in the basement then held up the other three stories of the house. That had to go without bringing the house down.

And it's gone....  That was the very first thing we did before the layout started can cost, well, you don't want to know.

The Elder Gods are both cruel and demanding; they also seem to prefer KFC.

Selling my current home, buying a farm, putting up a 100' x 65' outbuilding. 

Moved the water heater.

Raised the air conditioning unit one foot on the outside because a pipe from it came inside exactly where the train tracks were to run. 

My trains run over the washer and dryer and under the steps also.

Left out the bamboo forest that the trains were running through and removal of that stray Burmese python...

Removing the bamboo was the sensible thing to do.

I think Dan's photo with with the toilet takes the cake.

There was a local layout where we had to follow the trains running through the bathroom.

Likely you kept the python to control incursions by the neighbors....

Wow I just stumbled across this while searching whether anyone had ever moved their furnace to fit a layout.    Tom Tee did my benchwork but I cannot use it where originally placed and I considered digging out the crawlspace (20k+) or moving the furnace (still looking... I only really need two feet!).    You guys are my heroes! 

Ya got to do what ya got to do

That's why it took me three years from the plans to begin the build. Move things and that did cost some $$$$

Well, I'm just getting started.  I have been trying to give away an 1873 Steinway upright piano, but no one wants it so I am going to gut it and run the trains right through it.  I have already installed a new smaller boiler and gone to a tankless heater.

Dang--we have some dedicated Railroaders who invest big time in the homeplace fixed assets to run trains. 

Even I thought I was crazy when I built a twin shelf airborne 5-track layout in the wife's kitchen back in 1992 at the mountain cottage[she concurred to get me off her Den carpet].But nothing compared to these stories and illustrations. Good for them ...and us.

The Hobby prospers I think!

That should make an interesting tunnel

I also wanted a tankless water heater however there are restrictions on how far the outside vent is and just could not place it anywhere and still be within spec.

filmcarp - just out of curiosity, does the piano work?

It has been sitting in the basement for 100 years. I'm not exaggerating.  It does work, and is intact, but needs to be completely rebuilt.

These pianos have limited value.  Fully restored they are valuable to someone, but an article in the New York Times last year talked about how piano companies make money now by removing pianos and throwing them in the dump.  Not Steinways, usually, but everything else.  No one wants them.

Most of you guys are lucky... you have basements.  I have a concrete slab crawl space.  Imagine that a house not in California without a basement. I researched putting in a basement after seeing gnnpnut's dig, but no go.  I found out why my and most other homes in the area have no basements, I'm on top of solid rock.  Grr, I love the area I'm on a mountain top area called Rock Spring but I don't thnk I'll get a blast permit.  So next steep is build up and put a second level above an attached 2 car garage and sunroom, prolly in a few years.  For now I'm lucky to be near a world class a layout at NYSME.

Well, I'm quite amazed at what some of you guys have accomplished.  Here's my story.  My attached garage layout was able to handle only 2 loops due to space constraints.  So we hired a contractor to enlarge one end by 3 feet, create a wall with door instead of the garage door, and run HVAC.  Now I have 3 loops.  It's crazy.  

GNNPNUT,

I think you one upped me. I could not get a Bob Cat under my crawl space, so I hand dug it out. 46' x 30'. But now I would not trade it for anything. Here is a picture of the final day of digging.

Go here for the complete details:

http://myrrlayout.com/R/Aspfil...p?Xfer_Code=30002780

I never intended to get involved with O-gauge because I didn't have space for it, but ... after having some "temporary" track on the floor, I realized I could run track around the perimeter of the room with most of it out of the way of normal foot traffic. I sit in a center stairwell for convenient viewing - it's like a 23'x 23' table with a small center operating pit.

At first I ran double-track along two walls with O31 turn-back loops, essentially a bent dog-bone arrangement. Later I arranged double-track all the way around the room with O54-O72 curves by tunnelling under furniture in some places.

you just can't beat the quality of handwork.

I kind of skipped over all that modification stuff and just built a whole house the way I wanted it for my layout.

As for the wife factor, my ex didn't complain she got what she wanted, til she decided she didn't want me. My current wife has no reason to complain, my trains and layout were here first.

My wife doesn't like parking outside but I feel lucky to have the 20x20 garage to myself.  I may move before long.  It pains me to have to tear down and start over but I will have a better place for the layout or I will not move.