Layout in Multiple Rooms

I think you have already hit upon the biggest "con;" not being able to see what's going on in the "next" room and/or having to go back-and-forth between the rooms to operate the railroad.  Easiest solution would be to identify the 2 rooms WITHOUT a load bearing wall between them and just remove that wall.  Viola!! A larger room just for trains.  The only thing that might make this idea impractical is if you have some utilities or vents running through the wall to be removed.  Even then, still possible.

Chuck

Check out Eric Siegel's layout.  http://www.ericstrains.com/  His layout occupies one large room and two smaller rooms in his basement.

Since you can run command and have conventional trains too, look at Lionel's Trainmasters.

Jan

I belonged to a club that was located in an old county rest home. We o gaugers got the front bedroom and down the main hallway and the common room. The front bedroom we turned into a pit mine. We ran the mains along the hallway(60’) one room became a military base, one an ethanol plant with balloon track, one a forest/log facility. The common room was a city. The ho guys 5 rooms. The n guys tore down a wall and had two rooms.

You could wire in signals to work prototypical to an indication panel to trigger when a train enter and leaves a block section.

another option is a couple Wi-Fi cameras

Zach

I used to go to operating sessions at a friend's house that was in 4 rooms in his basement.  It was a 2-rail scale layout and it was the most fun layout that I have ever been on.  He used car cards to build trains and set cars off at industries.  The jobs were you could switch cars and make up trains, you could run a freight train from one town to each town on the layout where the single track mainline went into all four rooms.  At certain times the passenger train would make it around the layout and all freights had to be off the mainline to let the passenger train go through.  he used a fast clock so you had to watch the clock for the passenger train.  The fourth room was designed as an out of sight yard when the trains were staged and had somewhere to go to.  Having the four rooms was an advantage since the trains would leave your sight and go somewhere.  Used command control and everything ran perfectly, no derailments, or interruptions.  Great memories!

Art

@Jan posted:

Check out Eric Siegel's layout.  http://www.ericstrains.com/  His layout occupies one large room and two smaller rooms in his basement.

Since you can run command and have conventional trains too, look at Lionel's Trainmasters.

Jan

Eric Siegel does have a fantastic layout. It's still a work in progress, but it is probably one of the coolest layouts I've ever seen.

By the way, the device Lionel makes to run conventional and command is called a Powermaster. I use one on my own current layout, and it's great. You get the advantages of command control (walk-around capability, for example) with the ease of conventional control.

I cut a partial hole in a non-load bearing wall between two rooms to make my layout. It only had to be cut down to the height of the adjoining train table, but really opens up the space.

ENVY is a deadly sin, but your multi-room layout project will cause envy in many hobbyists who frequent this forum and wish for such space for a dream layout.

To provide line-of-sight views of the total layout, consider removing one or more non-bearing walls to create an empire with a  control panel that has a panoramic view of all areas.

If you ever decide to relocate, the "Train Rooms" may be a marketing challenge to a real estate agent in finding a buyer. But with luck, that buyer could be another train hobbyist!

Carry on, regardless ...

Mike M.     LCCA 12394