If you were going to build a layout designed to run 14 hours a day...

Hi Steve, the project is not necessarily folly. Trying to bring it home for five thousand is the issue.

I would guess, without looking at the location that a ten to fifteen K price mark would be real for parts, product and labor.

If they are going to run two trains at once they should have four engines on stand by.

It would be wise to project an engine rebuild about once a month. If you use a cheap starter set like the Polar express the engine pilot trucks front and rear would have to be rebuilt every fifty hours of run time or so.

I really don't think five thosand dollars a year for maintenance is tha far off the mark. We tend to forget how many man hours go into keeping our trains running over the course of a year, that is why we call it a hobby.

Even at ten dollars an hour for labor at about an average of four hours a week comes to forty dollars a week. Times that by fifty-two weeks a year and you come up with a number of over two thousand dollars. 

Now you have to add in repair and replacment cost and we are getting real close to 5K.

Remember, the above numbers are predicated on finding a trained maintenance person to work for ten bucks an hour. A counter person is one thing but climbing up on that ladder dusting, vacuuming, adjusting the display as it expands and contracts through the seasonal changes is another issue all together.

When ever you place a bid on anything double the cost of material and then add another twenty-five percent on top of that. This is only a rule of thumb but it is better to walk away rejected then a bum who could not get the job done.

I have had a set up that runs for a month most Christmas holidays 14 hours a day has to work with out any one attending it!

Now the G Scale is OK it does seem pretty rugged and runs well have seen it in several round the ceiling layouts at restaurants.

But what I set up is motion detector when people are actually in the area that starts the trains, wired to a power bar lights on layout come on and power runs to a DC transformer with a Momentum switch and really good breaker, track short protection.

For the O gauge gutted the reverse unit smoke and sound. When the power comes on the transformer slowly brings up the volts to where you have set it so the train starts gradually and does not wear out the gears. Runs for what I have set on the timer then shuts off if no motion where the sensor is mounted! This is the best way to save the engine from extra wear when no one is around to watch it.

I wired the engine and tender or extra cars with center rail power pickups and taped the couplers shut on all cars. The extra power pickups mean if the track is dirty or a bad spot there are several power pickups on the train and it has been very reliable with limited track cleaning. Taping couplers shut ensures no accidental failures.

Make sure the cars following engine are very free rolling little or no resistance on the wheels.

You want reliable track with little noise, longer each section of track the better. Gargraves is good can drop a power lead from each with ease. Or if RMT still has some on sale the old K-Line Super snap works very well, for additional solid contact use pins in each track joint as well. Either of these on a sound deadening board is good, hardwood underlay is very nice for noise deadening or the sound board pannels.

I would stay away from Fastrak not reliable for this, tracks do not always line up and way to much noise.

Track seems to get dirty easier then other brands and hard to clean off.

Keep the track design as simple as possible and all track easy to reach. No S curves. less curves the better.

You might check the train sales on now for Williams. Trainworld and Patricks trains and others have been blowing them out. Very simple rugged reliable enignes that are easy to repair. They have had diesel locos of various types for $99 and AA powered - dummy sets for as low as $139. Excellent engines to run.  

          Not being argumentative, Mario, but with four hours weekly nominally projected to maintain a display like this then that tells us that O gauge is not the best choice for this storeowner's purpose and a display of this type.

          As I said in an earlier post G gauge is his best bet, much more reliable with far fewer maintenance issues as well as more easily seen by the kids below.

          Do you have a Wegman's market in your area? If so, check out their running layout - it's G gauge. If an O gauge setup of this type is that fragile and needy to require an average of four hours weekly maintenance and that many yearly train rebuilds then that's likely one reason Wegman's corporate opts for G gauge.

          I spoke with our nearby Wegman's store manager and he flat out stated there's no way corporate would allow him to schedule one of his store employees to work on his store's train loop for four hours each week.

I agree Ken. I wrote my post in a rush and after I hit submit I remembered that I wonted to concur on the G-scale choice. In fact, when I got home from work I opened the thread up to do just that but you beat me to it.

Hi KJ356, I like eveything you said as well. The motion detector is a great idea, why have them running with no one there to see the action.

I do question the limited curve idea though. The problem with the continuous circle plan is that the trains are always making the same direction turn. This puts alot of stress on one side of the wheel sets and I find that engines and even cars can start to throw their wheels after a time. Besides, the S looks really cool.

Steve

I would agree with Mario about the cost to construct the layout for a basic around the ceiling store display layout.  A price of about $15,000 is realistic.  That would cover about $5000 worth of trains and materials and about $10000 in labor to install it.

I disagree with Mario on the selection of trains and maintenance costs.

Hi Ted, right on! You said the Magic word MTH. I'm not going to start a flame war here but there is no comparison between an MTH starter set and Lionel starter set. MTH is built to last and Lionel is pure junk!

I'm not going to entertain any discussion on the issue because a quick inspection of both products speak more then all the words posted here ever can.

Lionel does offer good product but not until you get to their high end line and then we pay out the nose for it. MTH, WBB and others provide quality at a much lower price point.

As for the G-Scale issue verses O-scale, G  is much more quiet when running and is a bit more visible. But, I will concede the durability point because since the fall of LGB the standard in that scale is gone forever. MTH tries but no one company can be all things to all scales.

Thank you all for this enlightening discussion.  I am going to meet my friend and his client today, and I have copied most of what has been said, here, leaving out the names to protect the guilty, so to speak.

I'll let you know what happens.

I would like to see the project built, but the client has to know that it is going to cost some big bucks, and he will have ongoing responsibility for maintenance after the project is complete, and it won't be done by either my friend, who knows nothing about toy trains, nor by me, who has enough to do with keeping my layout(s) going.

Good luck Steve with this project. If you are going to be involved with the planning make sure they get someone who has done this before and above all remember to have fun with it.

After reading all of what has been discussed, here, and listening to what I had to say. he is overwhelmed, to say the least. 

For example, he thought that he could just connect the power leads at one point and be done with it.  He had no idea that track cleaning might be a challenge, nor that maintenance would be an issue.

His preliminary design used 36 inch radius (O-72) which is good, but I convinced him to increase that to 48 inch radius (o-96) for smoother running.  I also got him to consider G Gauge, even put that at the top of his list, with 60 inch radius curves.  It will be interesting to see how that works out.  We all know that the bigger the radius, the better the operation...

He was going to use steel as his road bed, but I got him to switch to cabinet grade birch ply, with homosote for the roadbed.  He will use Plexiglass, or Lexan shields to prevent Junior from being konked on the head.

He had done some research on his own, and asked about Standard Gauge.  Personally, I like the idea.

As for his bid, he is going to go with cost-plus, basically time and materials.  I got him to talk to the folks at SMARTT, and they suggested a bid of $140,000.

There is one middle age woman in the store, who looks like she will not be able to do much ladder climbing, so any maintenance will have to be farmed out.

I'll take some pics if this ever gets built.

$5,000 to $140,000. WOW. Just to get him to think in that upper range is something. You are one heck of a salesperson. Rich should hire you.

Gerry