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Small increments of time seem to work for me. I don't have all day to play with trains.
First, there is train room activities vs all other life, family, health, priorities/activities/interests.
Then there is the matter of seasonality, temperature, and general train room and outdoor conditions (as some projects require paint & staining to dry outdoors). There are other toy train activities such as train clubs, outdoor rail fanning and periodic forum binges. Layout, operating activities? I tend to be project focused. Things now of course are different then when I was actively constructing our layout/room
Add them all together and I can make no specific generalities re: train room budgeting time.
Depends. Usually I'll spend a a few spare hours a week in the train room ( when I have spare hours!) I have been known to spend an entire Day in there sometimes while I was getting the layout built, but that was rare. Now that the layout is pretty much finished, I'm lucky if I spend a couple hours a week. Just haven't had time of late w/ the kids
YES.
Some days just a half hour, others 6 or more. By the end of the year, I'm guessing that I will have spent around 600 hours working on the layout. That's not counting time spent thinking and planning. Add to that 300 hours for my helper Patrick, and another 50 - 75 hours for my new helper Matt.
Time spent running trains, maybe 10 hours all year.
Mostly it's just an hour or two or thee. That's kind of unfortunate, but there are a lot of other demands on my time. Or maybe I just have ADD and can't focus for more than an hour!
I doitboth ways. Some days I spent seven or eight hours straight on a project, other days I want only an hour or so of "decompression time" after work, so I do a short project. Buildings are good for that - you can just set them down and walk away at any time. I always have about four or five projects going on or ready at any one time, so I can find something to fill whatever time I have on my hands.
A few minutes here, a couple hours there. And WHOLE DAYS at York. 
Totally depends on the project to be done.
I've done as little as the time it took to place my 0-6-0 Dockside on the rail, run it once around the stock FasTrack loop and put it back on the bookshelf to spending 48 hours nonstop (I used to work at a shop that built trains for city parks. When you got close to the deadline, you worked until it was on the truck.).
I tore everything down after Christmas last year. On my current re build during the summer probable average 10 to 15 hours a week. Now, being a wimp in cold weather during this winter up to March April I'll be doing 40 hours plus a week trying to get something like a train lay out is suppose to look like. Yep I'm retired and looking forward to winter. Still having fun.
With the way our businesses operate we will have a few days straight of work and then a few days straight of play. On the days of play, I either enjoy the company of friends and family or work on train projects.
we are doing a some re-model of the club layout and we spend about five hours a week working on the areas we are re-modeling.
I run trains whenever the mood hits me,rarely does it add up to more than a half hour,i enjoy building the layout more than running trains,the problem is that i don't have any more room to build anything,it's been like this for several years,the only solution is to tear down & rebuild which is what i really would like to do,but i am afraid that i won't be happy with what comes out,& i don't know anything about computer programs to design layouts,i have been thinking about tearing down my layout for a couple of years now,so i will wait & see what happens.
hour or two some nights, some times get into the zone and do about four in a night but the weekends are the most time for me. I do about 6-8+ sunday i push hard.
Gerald...Go for it!
The excitement is in the unknown adventure!
All last winter from thanksgiving to April 20th I worked on the train display and trains everyday.Except for my 10 day north america train trip. Since april 22 I haven't run the trains thirty minutes total.
It depends on what project I'm doing. If it involves getting out a bunch of tools then I plan on a whole day. It something small that can be stopped and started again without getting out a bunch of stuff then whatever free time I got.
2 hours every night. And some nights are just for running trains 
I pretty much run something everyday or in my case night when I get home from working second shift. If I have a project going I'll usually split up the time between working and running.
The two train shops I service for keep me pretty busy, only Lionel, Marx and Flyer with some simple KLine, Weaver and Atlas thrown in. I operate my layout to get away from the repairs.
Most of my time is spent outside, or with the Grandkids (again running trains).
So we're talking an hour here, an hour there.
Small increments. I have several projects going and do what I feel like, when I feel like.
I like to spend an hour or two during the week days. On weekends I would love to spend all day, but usually take a break cause my back starts hurting or I need to run to the local hardware store for supplies. So it's broken up to one or two hours throughout the day of a Saturday or Sunday.
I'm in my train room, at the very least, 8 hours a day. Yes, it's in my large bedroom. That was especially handy while I was deciding what scenics to do. I was forced every night and morning to "think about it". It also forces me to keep my bedroom neat.
Now that I am retired I love to spend several hours at a time in the train room, and sometimes it works out that way.
Trouble is, with my "significant other" around there always seems to be some PITA project we have to do, or somewhere we "have" to go.
No way around that I guess; could be worse!
Rod
Rod;
I heard that !
I have the same issues, but I tend to just run a train VS work on the layout when I get any time.
That will have to change for a while tho, the layout is torn down and the trains are boxed.
Just moved to another town, but I got a BARN to put my layout in now 
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