After getting some help from my brother to add electrical for my basement, I've done all the work on my train layout so far. My layout is 16'x35' feet in size. When I get to the point when all that is left is little tweaks, I really will get a great deal of personal satisfaction for doing it myself. How many share in the satisfaction of doing it all on your own?
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Yup. 100%
Absolutely every bit of it is a product of my own design, and construction...and still building with great satisfaction.
Bob
yep, a one man dog and pony show. Some times a total cluster as well. 
I still have fun with it by my self.
Larry
Yes - building and rebuilding is most of the fun for me! (Although I was - and continue to be happy to ask and take the advice of fellow forumites).
... all the mistakes are mine too.
Yes. Some areas I'm quite proud of. Other areas not so much! 
I think my greatest satisfaction comes when I look at something I've done on the layout and I feel like I am really impressed with my work, knowing that I did it myself and to the best of my abilities. I think it's true that you really see your true self in your work. I describe the layout to some as three dimensional art.
Yep, 4'x12', 30" height, storage under, and it's on casters and rolls quite easily. Scenery is indoor/outdoor carpeting, track is tubular. Conventional operation.
As some singer 
who liked toy trains once sang: "I did it my way!"
Yep, every layout I have ever built, and there have been a lot of them , have been of my own design and construction. My current 0 Gauge 8x20 layout in all likelihood will be my last. I have enjoyed every moment I have spent working on all of my layouts and have derived a great deal of satisfaction knowing that I did them all by myself, especially the wiring because I consider myself to be electrically challenged.
Nothing more satisfying than wiring up something on your layout yourself and then pushing a switch and it actually lights up!
-Pete
Nope.
BOO Man,
Bob I am the last of my family line, build my layouts alone, seldom get any help from anybody. My boys run their trains with their Grandfather where God's tracks never end, I envy the OGR members who have Grandsons and Granddaughters very much.
PCRR/Dave
Boo Man posted:After getting some help from my brother to add electrical for my basement, I've done all the work on my train layout so far. My layout is 16'x35' feet in size. When I get to the point when all that is left is little tweaks, I really will get a great deal of personal satisfaction for doing it myself. How many share in the satisfaction of doing it all on your own?
No. Many years ago a friend spent a weekend with me showing me the fine art of mounting and wiring GarGraves and Ross track. Some guy named Mike Reagan. How could I ask for more?
Lou N
A great deal of my own On30 layout was my own work but no, I didn't do it alone:
I was able to run op sessions on a few local layouts and do an annual layout tour of layouts in the area before I really understood that I didn't want a loop at all. I'd read about operations, but only doing them on some neat layouts showed me how much you can do with even a small layout. Had it not been for all those people, my layout wouldn't be what it is today in regards for operations. To me, that was a big thing as I could have wound up with a layout that you couldn't get much out of in an op session to keep crews (usually two people, due to the small size of the layout) interested.
When I had my first op session ever, I invited Robert and Steve, giving them first crack. Robert couldn't make it, but Steve did. The other guy who showed for that first op session ever (as a Plywood Central) was the owner of one of the other layouts I've run op sessions on.
The rest, for the most part, was done by me, for the bench work. All the scenery was done by me, that I can recall. For sure all the rolling stock was modified, decalled, painted and weathered by me, long before the layout existed.
So far I have managed on my own. Layout #2 involved structural reconstruction of load bearing walls, a staircase reconfigured to access the attic, transforming an attic into living space, plus new electrical and lighting to service the room. Only then did the fun begin.
I have thought about having a local signals expert come by, when I get to that point in layout construction. For now, I have a to do list as long as a GG1, full of projects I can't wait to get at, and many more I haven't finished.
Bruce
Some of each. I do a lot of work myself and can definitely lose track of time when I'm in the train room. I'm also fortunate to have local train buddies willing to help, and we have a good time working together.
Bob, there was a time when I did everything myself, but given the size of the project, I have resigned myself to accepting help. The point is that I'd like to "finish" this thing while I can still enjoy it.
Over the last 4 years, I've had quite a bit of help, for which I am truly grateful. That said, I still put in 80% or more, of the total hours worked. As a result, I feel nearly the same satisfaction as those here who do 100% on their own.
Yep, my layout is 7 x 16 and I did it all on my own. It's a work in progress, but I enjoy every minute...well, maybe not wiring.
I spent about 3-4 months in 2010-2011 building the benchwork, getting my mainline down and wired, doing skies on my backdrop, and building 20 plus buildings. I was away from it for several years due to family issues. In December, I started working on it again. I painted the backdrop, installed the Atlas O signal system (20 signals), installed plaster wrap/sculptamold, made rock molds and installed them, installed Lionel telephone poles, made and installed speed/yard limit signs/state line signs, and installed SC2's.
My layout is a folded dog bone. I am currently working on long section that will have a yard. I am detailing the mainline section along the wall and will be adding the yard track within the next couple weeks. I hope to finish this section by 4/1. Once completed, I will have 80% of my layout track down and wired.
Despite building many buildings years back, I have bought several Woodland Scenic Built ups. For $100.00 you can't beat what you get for that amount. Their buildings are great and the minor details added are well worth the money. I could never reproduce what they provide for that amount and I could never replace the time savings that those purchases provide. I hope to get the entire layout essentially completed to a point where it only requires tweaking. I am really enjoying the progress.
The problem is that I am already thinking of ways to expand the layout once I get to that tweaking stage. Hahaha!!!
Big_Boy_4005 posted:Bob, there was a time when I did everything myself, but given the size of the project, I have resigned myself to accepting help. The point is that I'd like to "finish" this thing while I can still enjoy it.
Over the last 4 years, I've had quite a bit of help, for which I am truly grateful. That said, I still put in 80% or more, of the total hours worked. As a result, I feel nearly the same satisfaction as those here who do 100% on their own.
Your layout is a monster. If this hobby is a labor of love, you are the Casanova of same.
p51 posted:A great deal of my own On30 layout was my own work but no, I didn't do it alone:
I was able to run op sessions on a few local layouts and do an annual layout tour of layouts in the area before I really understood that I didn't want a loop at all. I'd read about operations, but only doing them on some neat layouts showed me how much you can do with even a small layout. Had it not been for all those people, my layout wouldn't be what it is today in regards for operations. To me, that was a big thing as I could have wound up with a layout that you couldn't get much out of in an op session to keep crews (usually two people, due to the small size of the layout) interested.
- My friend Robert came up with a track plan after a discussion we had while waiting for trains to photo one afternoon, in the snow. He was thinking HO and not taking the bigger sizes of structures and clearances for sidings, so the finished version departed quite a bit from his original plan (mostly the center section). Still, he made more progress in 2 hours than I had in 2 years of thinking and going over other track plans. It was his idea to go into the middle of the room, something I had never thought of before. He also helped me lug the modular sections into the room once they were ready to install, get them into place, and got me started on how to lay track using a soldering iron (something I never did before) as well as putting feeder wires into place. He insisted on putting wires to every single section of track. I'm very thankful for that. It took about a week to put all the track into place and get it wired, from a few times for him coming by.
- Steve (who ironically saw his first "Trains" magazine cover for the first time after being surprised with the news, while standing in my layout room while doing the work), who works over at the massive layout at the WA state museum in Tacoma, loves wiring. So, he not only came over one day to do all the DCC wiring, he bought all the stuff needed to do so and all I had to do was pay him for the materials when he arrived.
When I had my first op session ever, I invited Robert and Steve, giving them first crack. Robert couldn't make it, but Steve did. The other guy who showed for that first op session ever (as a Plywood Central) was the owner of one of the other layouts I've run op sessions on.
- My lovely wife Jennette surprised me one day, when I came home I suddenly had curtains underneath! She'd made them and hung them under the bench work, better than I could have. I'm hopeless with a needle and thread. She also helped me hold lumber in place during the table top and leg construction. She also helped me paint the legs, one time early on a Sunday morning. I'm sure she's done lots of other things, but I just can't think of them at the moment. But most of all, she allowed me to move some large items out of that room. The room was my one demand for the house, that I have a room of my own, a 'man cave' if you will. She didn't have to allow that at all and could have said all my stuff had to stay there. The layout would have been a tiny little switching 'L' shape at best without her allowing that.
The rest, for the most part, was done by me, for the bench work. All the scenery was done by me, that I can recall. For sure all the rolling stock was modified, decalled, painted and weathered by me, long before the layout existed.
You make some good points about the input of others. I already realize things I would have done differently. I have 15 sidings and then a small yard. I have never done an operating session, but had that in mind when designing the layout.
I have done all the work, but help was close at hand. You can really appreciate the information you can find on this forum and the significant information you can learn from Youtube vids. That plus the number of books that are out helped me get to this point. Many of the tasks I do on my layout are firsts for me. This is my first layout.
When you think about it, you can really appreciate what guys did 20-30 years ago. The internet is an amazing tool. Those guys did not have the availability of information like we do today.
While my layout pales in comparison to many I've seen on here, it is all mine. I don't have a single friend or relative that is interested in trains, so it is very solitary hobby for me. I've built a few, each a little more involved than the last.
Yes it's all my fault! So many experiments, lots of quiet time, a nice way to explore new skill sets.
For years I worked alone but had running sessions on Friday nights with a group of blokes we used to talk a lot.
Then one Friday night a new bloke turned up and after a couple of hours said "I could improve your wiring for you" I said "No way, nobody touches the electrical you alter something then never come back how do I know what to trouble shoot if there is a problem." That was 15 years ago now the gentleman is one of my best friends and does all the electrical and does a very good job he also works out the operating plan which nowadays has moved from nights to Daytime every Friday. I still do everything else but having someone do the electrics and the operation plan has helped me a lot it is rare to find someone with a large operating layout that does every single thing himself and why would you want to! Roo. Yulan Valley Railroad.
Yes. From the ground up.
Except for a few structures from Dave Duhamel and Stu Gralnik. I did all the work as far as design, bench work, wiring, scenery, structure building and everything else involved in building a layout. Been at it for 27 years. Wasn't much to go on as far as info in the early days. Back then you were somewhat limited in design as there were no walk around throttles. Luckily if you viewed my layout today it looks like it was designed for operation with walk around throttles. The additions added later on when the Al Trol throttles hit the market worked out. Raising a family I was on a budget and couldn't build the whole layout at once.
At one point I had fired myself for lack of productivity and progress. To get things moving again on layout work, I made the decision at the Penn American Railroad Board of Directors emergency meeting to hire myself to continue layout construction reporting directly to me on a quarterly basis.
Future evaluations of progress will determine if I get satisfaction of this phase of model railroad building.
Now, that's a team, J Daddy!! 
Me ... I have little dinky railroads. So, it's always a one man operation.
Yes, I did everything except the actual train table. For the sake of time, I had my a contractor friend of mine help me build the benchwork.
No. I had help for the assembly and purchase of materials (can't lift 4x8 sheets of plywood onto the roof of an SUV on my own) for the benchwork.
Everything else - wiring, track, scenery, etc, etc. I did myself.
For the most part I did all my layouts myself. Except for the now. The one in the attic and the one in the basement I had just a little help from the depot. Cutting my plywood and Masonite. Other then that all me...........Paul
I don't have a layout yet. But a good size one is coming. A retired fellow with lots of electrical experience is more excited than me for it. He has offered to help all the way, mostly with electrical. I have full intentions on taking him up on it. Plus it'll be fun for him too.
I did everything. No other hands on my layout except later scenery work done by Dotty. This was after the layout is done. YES, they do get done. After 35 years, nothing else I can do other than cosmetic changes.
Yes, about 99.8%. My then 14-yr old neighbor girl painted a few rocks and added a few windows to a structure, and my wife built a small scene; other than that, I did the rest.
First order of business, though, was to completely finish the basement, which took me from Aug 2010 to Jan 2011. I started on the layout in Feb 2011*. What gets me is that I was working full time then, as I did not retire until Dec 2011. My days must have been 30 hours long. A few weeks ago I remodeled the full bathroom, which I had just done rather plainly back in 2010.
* It took me about 1-1/2 years, from Feb 2011 to mid 2012, to complete the bulk of the layout, and I have been adding details and making a few improvements since then. As many others, I really enjoy the designing and building.
Alex
In a simple word, YES. I also do all my own repainting, kit-bashing and scratch-building. It is supposed to be a hobby that is suppose to be fun. The big catch phrase here, is what one would consider to be the definition of "fun."
Mr Union Pacific posted:Yep, my layout is 7 x 16 and I did it all on my own. It's a work in progress, but I enjoy every minute...well, maybe not wiring.
You and me, both! I had never wired a layout with feeder wires and all that. The last layout I made, it was HO scale with Atlas track and you had that one piece where you just screwed the wires into place. I didn't solder anything, then. But my pal Robert clued me into the merits of what he calls, "bullet proof" track, by soldiering everything and putting in feeder wires all over. I'd never wired a layout for DCC, so I decided I needed help from an expert. I'm not above asking for help when I need it, and I don't consider it a sign of weakness to tell people, "Yeah, I didn't get wiring, so I had a lot of help with that."
Frankly, electricity is one of the few things I just don't 'get', along with reading music. I can tell you in each case what everything is, but I just don't understand it...
brianel_k-lineguy posted:In a simple word, YES. I also do all my own repainting, kit-bashing and scratch-building. It is supposed to be a hobby that is suppose to be fun. The big catch phrase here, is what one would consider to be the definition of "fun."
But just because you don't enjoy one aspect of the layout, doesn't mean you don't consider it fun. I think it's best to farm out the stuff you don't want to do (for whatever reason) as that is no longer fun if it's one or two tasks that you really don't like.
I have done all of the design and construction on both of my current layouts. First layout is 12'-by-8' built between 1999 and 2005. New layout is 10'-by-5' started in 2014 and now about 80% complete.
MELGAR
I've done all my own work. I started in January 2016 and am near being able to run a train. I switched out all the track starting last fall from Lionel to Ross switches and Gargraves flex track. I started with a 9 x 4 but then I added an extension and a bridge as well. If I could do it all over again I'd change a bunch, but I figure this is a decent first go at a permanent layout. These pics are bit dated as I've completed my control board and have it hung, I've added a stand for my Z4k and most everything is wired up at this point.
I pretty much do all the work on my layout myself. However, when I "need" street lamps and phone poles knocked over I have a cat that "helps" me with that task.
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