> Mark asked:
> What would you do differently if you could start over?
Start over?? Ya gotta be kidding!!
I started my layout with the expectation it would take about ten
years to finish. It is now 25 years and it still is not finished --
and that is even after a large group of friends helped by building
kits, painting the backdrop, working on scenery, stringing wire,
making trees, etc. I would take a good hard look at TIME
requirements and attempt to evaluate how much time I wanted to spend
on making a fantasy come true.
It might be interesting to ask how much time does it take to build a
nicely detailed reliably operating train layout? How many man-weeks
per square foot? Or how many man-years per 4x8 sheet of plywood? In
my case, the layout is about 500 square feet in size. Lessee
now......25 years divided by 500 square feet runs about 2-1/2 weeks
per square foot -- and that is just my time alone. Not even counting
the substantial help from about 50 other people from literally all
over the world -- from Canada to Europe to Pennsylvania to New
Zealand in addition to all the local folks here in California.
To compare apples to apples, I should mention I used flextrack and
RTR turnouts to save time, but not money. My layout is not one of
those "flat" layouts where everything is on one level. It has
serious grades and considerable vertical height and lots of
mountainous scenery. Which justifies a six foot waterfall in one
corner. I also chose to become involved with DCC which chewed up
quite a few days/weeks/months to get educated, write a user manual,
co-author a book, etc. And then -- the big decision -- a computer-
controlled signaling system. A signaling decision is not to be taken
lightly. Trust me on that! Not to stop there, a Dispatcher's panel
on my PC when JMRI matured enough to be less of a risk. Just when I
thought I was finished, some guy shows up and offers to install a
genuine vintage 1940s-style telephone system so train crews can talk
with the Dispatcher who is located in an adjacent room. Sure is
nice, and he did most of the brain work (he works for AT&T), but I
had to wire things up and spend hours thinking things through about
how and where and so forth. Needed to crawl around in the attic
stringing cables which is not a whole lot of fun since you end up
breathing bad stuff. After the phones were installed, I really
thought I was finished, but sound caught my eye -- er, ear. Not DCC
engine sound, but crickets, cows (big dairy operation on my layout),
telegraph keys, machine shops, gas stations, lightning/thunderstorms,
grade crossing bells, and so forth. This month two college kids are
working for pizza and beer and stringing all the power and control
wires for 24 different sound modules. And I have been scrounging
around the surplus stores looking for really good power supplies.
Takes time to scrounge, but I managed to obtain three large
professional power supplies that normally sell for $120 each for
about $17 per. Best deal of my life. Turns out the power supply
distributor went bankrupt and his entire brand new inventory ended up
in the surplus house just days before I dropped in. What luck!
So the endless task list of things to do keeps growing as you make
progress and get closer to that imaginary state of being finished.
As you near the finish line, some advertisement somewhere catches
your eye (ear?) and the finish line just moves off another year into
the future. What fun, eh? Obviously, my layout could have been
finished a lot sooner if I reduced my list of "wants/needs". Yes, it
is possible to build a layout in two or three years, but is it the
kind of layout I would really want? I have been dreaming of this
type of a layout ever since junior high school and, by darn, I am
going to finish it with all the bells and whistles.
The main advice I can offer to folks just embarking on a layout
building project is to talk to lots of people about the TIME
requirements to build a layout and factor that into all your decision
making. Size, complexity, cost, your age/health, level of detail,
your modeling skills, etc., etc. are all factors to be considered in
relation to the time needed to actually get a layout finished. My
personal goal is a finished museum-quality layout so please do not
tell me no layout can ever become finished. Simply is not true. It
can be done. But I would suspect it takes about 500% of the original
estimate -- or more.
I am very fortunate to have time, money, space and a very tolerant
spouse. I will never be forced to move from my home and life is
good. All of these factors are more important than one realizes at
the outset when embarking upon a sizeable layout. Plan ahead. This
kind of project is a lot more complex than simply deciding which box
car to buy next.
Having fun....Ed L.
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