League of Little Living Room Layouts

I'll be following this new topic with great interest...Howard...

Nice layout Andy... I like it. Looks like a door sized layout?

When we consider how to grow the hobby, one point never is brought up: Estimates are that 45% of this nation's kids are growing up in a single mother household. Which in many cases means they're living hand to mouth.

I used to take kids from single mother households under my wing - and try to show the kids what a "dad" looks like. One of these kids, I bought a train set for and together we built a layout on a door. Since his mom was clueless about trains, the layout was at my house and when the boy came over, we worked on it.

All these years later, I still have that layout. I've told the kid, who is now 20, that I will get the layout to him, but he's not settled enough for it.... girlfriends and two jobs... sounds familiar.

When I made the suggestion of maybe tearing it down, so I could have more space in my living room, he pleaded with me to "please not do that."

I think it's some continuity in his life: His mom has nothing from his youth, yet here's a layout he actually helped build with his own hands... something from his youth, and I think he really likes that. When he calls me he always asks about his layout... if I've done any work on it?

I remember his mom taking some photos of him running his trains. He was pretty proud of the whole thing. I told him then he was probably the only kid in his whole school that had his very own train layout, and he smiled really big at those words.

Brian;

I want to thank you for working with that boy to make a train layout He can keep.

I suspect you are correct in that being the only thing left from his youth.

I too have a train (Thomas) at my house that was given to kids that do not live there. They want it to remain at my house so it does not get damaged.

The kids visit occasionally and always play with their train. I set up my Den layout so it can run but they often want to lay the loop of track on the floor and run it separate.

Now that I'm thinking about it I suspect it's time for something new in that train set.

Mine is in the rec room in the basement, It's not set up now since I had to do some cleaning because I had it set up on the floor while planning the layout. Though I'am working on building the layout on a door to make it easier to move and work on and to get it off the floor.. Spring break is in a few weeks so I'll be working on it some more.

Cool layout, and interesting topic to talk about.  

No, I do not have a living room layout and I would be killed if I even suggested it to my wife.  

But it occurs to me that the layout you picture might also be sized so it would slip under a standard double bed.  When I as a kid I had, first, I had an O-27 layout that would fit under my twin bed, and then later, the "big layout" that needed a double bed to give it enough width.  The only difference from yous might be a restriction of height to slide under a bed: no tall Ameri-Town structures, etc.  

We had a grandson battling Lymphoma and Leukemia back in the mid 90’s. My wife agreed our living room Christmas layout should become year round as he so enjoyed running it whenever he could come over. After his passing at the end of 1997, the layout became “permanent” in his honor.

I have a living room layout, just not a permanent one.    I'll use 2013's as an example.

- walt

Andy,

   All our Christmas layouts have been kept in the formal living room sense I was a young boy. It's part of our family tradition at Christmas time.  Some were even 4x8 multi level layouts some were smaller, all depended on the home at the time.

PCRR/Dave

Here's my living room layout from 1959.

while the main layout is in the cellar, I do currently have a living room layout. I was OKed for a while longer(gotta love her!). I'd do more to it, but our kitten has taken an intereset in rearranging the town.

I think of them more as displays in recognition that I didn't put the time and effort into them as people with detailed layouts nor do I have the talent and expertice.

Theodore's treat train has been serving him faithfully uninterrupted for the past 5 years..

Also in the livingroom, Ma has a 36" bump & go handcar on a steamer trunk which has a painting of a cemetery for a backdrop. Always thought the backdrop was kind of morbid for 92 year old woman but it makes her happy.

I would love to see statistics on those that are married AND have a living room layout. Seems mutually exclusive to me. My wife is very understanding and supportive but there is a line... 

My wife insisted it be in the living room. She said she wanted to be with me even though she doesn't care to "play trains" with me.

My wife loves the trains - just not in 'her' living room. She gets a kick out of the carpet layouts for a day or two... We live in a really old house and the rooms are all really small so my options are limited. We're renovating part of the first floor and the basement isn't a whole lot better than a dirt floor dungeon - I look at some of the layouts on this forum and drool. I'm going to have to be content with my plans for an L-shaped modular "door" layout I can setup in my son's room now that he's away for college.

Wow, Spence.  You haven't changed a bit.  Small as those layouts were, they provided as much fun as our much larger ones do now, I think.  I loved my layout.  Wish I had a phot oof it.

Mine is in my living room and has been for the better part of 10 years. Its on two hobby tables that have been together at times and apart at times.

Right now its a bit disorganized as I expand from 2.5' x 5' to 5' x 5' and add a second level of track. 

Here is my slice of prewar standard gauge heaven.  I miss my old O gauge layout, but this new direction has been fun.

Handyandy, I have seen your layout before and liked it. Nice use of space and shows off the trains well.

it was my wife's idea for the Christmas platform several years ago, and it's her idea for the platform to stay up as long as it does. It's March and she's still fine with it.

Here is the 2012 version.....

Peter

Now that I'm home I found more pics. Here's a layout from 1981-82 in Baltimore.....after I got back into trains after college/med school.

Peter

I may not have a picture, but having a recliner in the middle of the bigger of two loops of a figure eight on the floor is what i have, fun and makes the sitting in the middle way easier. Adds a bit of none prototypical scenery.

There IS a line.  And it's all MINE.  She has a craft room that used to be my home office.  

Sorry for the vertical video, but my iPhone fits into a gondola this way...  LOL