Bill F.,
I learned that lesson in 2002. I had an N-scale layout in a 10'x10'
bedroom. I wanted an around-the-room, loop-de-loop layout so that I
could just watch trains run around when I got home from work to relax.
It therefore had a duckunder at the room's entrance. Much like Bill L.,
since I'm 6'4", I made my layout high, but I still had to bend down
quite a ways. I then quickly got bored with the loop-de-loop track plan,
so I added extensions here and there to the layout (to effectively make
it wider) so that I can could add turnouts to the mainlines to add
operations. I had already removed the room's closet doors so that I
could still use the closet space without the doors interfering with the
layout. However, that left another duckunder to gain access to the
closet. I don't know *how* many times between those two duckunders I
came up too soon and scraped the top of my head or my back, drawing
blood. Then, quite literally, one day it was the straw that broke the
camel's back. I bent down one day to get into the layout and twisted my
back wrong. I spent a week on the couch (couldn't even lay flat on the
bed) to recover. While recovering, I made some decisions: I will never
have anything protruding out into the walk-space/aisle to poke, prod, or
injure me; and I will never, ever have duckunders. I am now on my second
layout since that layout and they have both been walk-ins.
I still remember when I reviewed my N-scale layout's design plan with
some of my friends at the time, and they all warned me about the
duckunders. However, sometimes one doesn't learn until one experiences
it. This was indeed my case.
- Peter.
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Peter Vanvliet ([email protected])
Houston, Texas
http://pmrr.org/ (my model railroad - RSS feed <http://pmrr.org/rss.xml>)
http://fourthray.com/ (my company)
http://houstonsgaugers.org/ (model railroad club)
http://nasg.org/
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