How many of you have a "future" layout?

My current layout, like the Sovereign, is the one and future layout.

I guess that I do since I exist 10 minutes into the future,

Guilty, count me in!

Had a layout. I am going to move when I retire. (68 days) So there is one in the future. And still buying stuff for that time I can run trains again.

Until last summer, I had a future layout. I was buying at least one turnout or piece of rolling stock every time I hit the one good hobby shop in the area that had On30. I was also buying locomotives online. I painted, decalled, and weathered each as they rolled in.

So glad I did that now, as the stuff is way past 150% of the amount I paid for it just a couple of years ago.

But I had boxes stacked all over the place of rolling stock, track, parts, structures and lots of kits, just waiting for the day I finally started building the layout.

This is primarily why I've gotten as far as I have since July when I started cutting lumber.

I get some cars or an engine out of each catalog most of the time. But I don't have space for a layout now. For the past few years every christmas and July 4th week I put up a loop of track on the dining room table and run what I can on 036 fastrack. One day I hope to have space for a layout with 0-72 curves.

My layout is mostly built, but there is still a lot of work left. I feel I have shown great restraint in not putting everything on the layout until the track is all laid and powered. Then I still have to ballast and do scenery. That's when the unpacking party gets started.

I'm probably a half member of the club. I have a layout, but it is not the full size it will be when finished. Building it in phases as budget permits. I have trains on my current layout, but more waiting on the shelves for the expansion. Train purchases are tapering off too, as I have a pretty good selection now. May do some swapping out of some items or selling some and buying others. Still thinking about that one.

I should be working on a layout in either May or June of this year. I am moving on May 1st, and could start on a layout a few weeks later after the furniture and trains are moved in.

It will mainly be locomotives and rolling stock from; Reading Lines, Reading Company and Philadelphia & Reading Railways. Some Amtrak engines and one Santa Fe passenger set with matching F-7 ABA diesels.

 

I will start my upper level layout first, the track that goes around the top of the room. Most likely I will use 027 track for it.

 

Lee Fritz

I'm there. I'm planning a basement train layout plus a smaller trolley layout for upstairs once I move. In the meantime there is a small layout with a loop of Streets track and a loop of Fastrack. But I would like to take each layout in a different direction.

So, like, if somehow I persuaded you to come live at my house as a personal layout-builder, and I start sketching ideas, they should appear fully built 10 minutes before I get there, yes?......... 

 

(Contract clause #1: Cold refreshments to be placed in fridge at 10-minute intervals)

Not seeing indoor space becoming available any time soon, I've been considering building out doors. I have a good start on track, as I have a suspended layout under a covered patio attached to my work shop. It's about 10' X 16' two track oval, with about 18' of double track staging inside the shop. Track is Atlas nickel/silver with UV protected plastic ties. I have a nice pond that I would like to cross with a bridge, but there would be some engineering involved, as the shortest span would be about 10'. I also have to stay away from the waterfall, as the splash pattern is quite large. Power is no problem, as I have a 100 amp service in the shop. When I remodeled the house, I planned ahead and put in a 200 amp service.

We'll see how the summer goes, all the spring cleanup and yard work is done, but I have a rebuild project on the brick steps to the front porch. 

Don

I used to have a layout set in the future. I liked it because it was easy to follow prototype. 

I'm probably a step or two behind you guys in that I'm still looking for a house in which to build our next layout...

I had layouts in smaller scales in the past.  Now I just have a 4x8 slab of 2-inch foam on a folding table in our married daughter's old room.  It shares space with the bedroom furniture and some of my wife's things.  When our 24-year old daughter moves out, I will get her 12x12 room for the future layout.  I have a 2/3 finished ceiling level loop in our 12x12 family room.  I have a small enough collection that everything is displayed considering the ceiling loop only acts as a display shelf until completed.

I have lots of future layouts.  I dream up new ones a the time, and I collect the stuff for them as often as I can.  I thought it was supposed to work that way.  I'm in York getting stuff now for the future layout.

 

I did this in the past too.  In the 70s and 80s I built only carpet central at Christmas, but I bought stuff for the future.  When I eventually bought a house and built a layout, I had accumulated everything I needed (mostly).

 

Bill

Oh, yeah, for years I had a "future layout."  Lots of them.  First it was HO.  Then HOn30.  Then N.  It was almost G, till the manufacturers lost sight of what G scale was.  And now I'm retired, and I finally have a layout -- in three-rail scale.  Well, it's a floor layout.  And although the locomotives and rolling stock are scale, I've got to admit that not all the structures are.  But it's finally here, and until I can eventually find room for a "real" benchwork layout, I'm happy.

 

I, too have several future layouts. It all depends on the available space when I finally relocate and whether I decided to commandeer the back yard for an outdoor layout.

I'm definitely in this camp as well.  Two years ago when my son turned 4 we started playing trains.  The o gauge tinplate that came from my grandfather kind of got is going.  For a while it seemed like box after box showed up every weeK and we suddenly have a dozen prewar/mth reproduction trains and a 10 x 12 table full of tinplate accessories, etc.  It is like I have this whole vision in my head wondering if it will come together.  The basement is getting finished this summer/fall.  The goal is to be ready to set up permanent bench work by Thanksgiving.  In the meantime we throw some track together on the floor and run some trains imagining what could be and acquiring more and more and more...

I'm part way into the future. I will be about 1/4 finished by the end of the year. We were lucky enough to buy a house with a four car garage built in a L shape. We never use it for the cars so it's all mine. Don

Yes, I WILL HAVE a future layout sometime in the future.  My problem is that I am a professional procrastinator so my future layout will really be way out in the future.  My other problem is I am in my 60's so I need to work on cutting down on my procrastinationing (LOL).  But, that also may take awhile.

 

Anyway, I too, am stockpiling much needed track, engines, and cars and such.  Again, to be used in the future on the future layout.

 

Rick

I'm going with a garden train as well.  I'm testing different track sections to see which holds up best to the Arizona summers and monsoons.

If you check the links below, it will give a pretty good assessment of outdoor O gauge methods. I talked to Bob Canfield at length and we agreed the problems he had with his layout was the difference in thermal expansion/contraction properties of HDPE ladder roadbed vs. Atlas track and ties. John Blessing (Anoriza on the OGR forum) used HDPE ladder roadbed with Gargraves stainless steel track "loose mounted" to compensate. Ron Karlsson is using PVC and it seems to be holding up pretty well as PVC seems to be more thermally stable.

• Family Garden Trains O Gauge tutorial: http://familygardentrains.com/...ge_outside_index.htm
• Ron Karlsson's Outdoor O Gauge layout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...QTKxkCDMu3xu2ZcBfqvw

 

I got enough track to Build 2 tracks that can go around a 40 ft X 40 ft space. I have no intentions of building a layout until I turn 65, No scenery just open space with 1 or 2 buildings.

I'm there!  I have a 4x6' Homasote tabletop that sometimes has O gauge stuff sitting on it, and sometimes HO stuff.  I want to cut it into three 2x4' sections as a starting point for the future layout.  Running trains in circles, in either scale, on the current board just doesn't cut it for me.  I have got most of the trains I want; now I need to focus on track, structures, and power (which includes eventual TMCC conversion)

I'm building my "for now" layout now with my "tomorrow" layout in mind. One is a dealer display replica, the other a replica of either the 1949 or the Super O showroom layout.

Card carring member of buying for the future lay-out club.

 

Present lay-out is only in my dreams.

Yup, on the permanent type. nope on the fas-track on floor type. Planing some type of project involving layouts on a 4x8 sheet of plywood.

I started a garden 3 rail O layout a month ago and have laid about half of the 200' loop to loop folded over layout.  It occupies 60' x 30' of backyard.  I hope to place the golden wire in early summer.

Guilty!  We have a "current" layout that will be taken down when we move, and thus I did not invest in ballast or non-reusable scenery.  I'm certainly not looking forward to packing all those buildings up in a year or two!  Someday, though, our future/permanent layout will be built wherever we settle down.

 

I also plan to run a ceiling layout through several rooms of the house, and am collecting a variety of tunnel portals in anticipation.

 

-Dustin

 

 Brought to you by Soylent Red and Solyent Yellow high energy vegitable concentrates, and the  new delicious Solyent Green!

 

 

 

  My future is my past

 

 I plan on at least laying track where Gramps had his.

But I'd need to invent a time machine to recapture what was, or even be able to afford all the replacements .. Much of what I have now will be moved, & integrated eventually...hopefully.

 

 

 

 

Count me in. I have a future layout that appears occasionally (and briefly) in the family room decorated with Christmas items, and then sadly disappears again. I have some space in the garage set aside next to the laundry room, but I have to finish a couple of other projects first (it all takes money). I have the burning desire now, but someday...soon I will be able to run trains at will. 

i'm part of this club too, i have a ping pong table with two loops on it for now, but as soon as we get the basement cleaned out i'm hoping for a modified version of the 1957 lionel layout that can't be made like it is in the ad anyway. it'll be 6 feet wide instead of 5 and about about 6 foot longer with wider curves and a third loop that will go around the outside of the original track plan. ummm i hope.

Dave

Count me in as a member of the future layout club. I have a spot for a large layout but we may end up buying a new home in a different location.Where ever I end up it will have a large spot for the layout and scores of display cases. My job keeps me on the road 11 months out of the year so I just keep buying locomotives off and on.

Of course we all are planning that next layout.  The current layout will only receive scenic accents until demo sometime in the next 3 years.  Then everything goes into storage while we seek a new location.  The next layout may never happen because I really would like to be done with home ownership.  I have seen grass, I know where they keep it, I can visit it at any time is my motto.

BIG RAIL,

   I kind of have a future layout, have been planning to add a DCS layout to the Log Cabin

where the cathedral ceiling joins the walls, this future layout has been in the planning for

some time now, but keeps getting pushed off into the future, due to all my other responsibilities. 

PCRR/Dave

Count me this category.  No place to build one, yet.

 

Larry

 

 

I'm a member as well, but hope to get started soon.  I a couple weekends I'll be laying tile in the train room, then less than a month later I'll build the bench work.  Hopefully before summer's end I'll have the top on the bench work and put some track on it.  I know it'll take a couple years to buy all the track, but I'll have at least one loop powered and useable once the table top is on.  The biggest thing that'll prevent me from get it done sooner is how much kid number 3 is going to cost me being born this summer.

I got my first layout at age 3; a 4x8 sheet of plywood with an HO loop.  converted to O at age 8 with the gift of a 1948/1949 postwar set from my dad's 2nd cousin.  some years later, I convinced my dad to add a 4x4 extension to make an "L" which of course lead to mysterious scrap wood bridges appearing to connect the corners when my parents would next come down to the basement.  Over the years the layout moved back and forth between the basement and a spare bedroom more times than I can count.  at age 18 it was agreed that the trains would go into boxes when I left for college.  I'll be 25 next Friday.  since then I've graduated college and moved to an apartment out of state for a temporary work contract with eventual plans to move back home.  this means I've been getting a steady paycheck for a couple years now, so of course, I've been buying all that cool train stuff I always wanted but could never convince my parents to buy.  They always enjoyed my hobby with me, but even I knew there was no money tree in the backyard, haha.  so eventually when the trains do go back up, I expect a lot of "where'd you get that?"s and "I don't remember that one?"s   Till then I'm still buying a piece here and there, and keeping my running desire tamed with a carpet central that's taking over my living room. 

 

so to make a long story short (too late) my future layout currently exists in my notebook at work with plans sketched in the back pages and notes and ideas in the margins.