Let's See Pictures of Your Old Layouts

Nice work same era as Fred Hines layout in San Rafael,not to mention Jim Madden's Layout.

Mikey

Hi Mikey, I visited Jim's layout last year. Our only trip to the mainland in seven years. His daughter and her husband are living in the old house and learning how to run the layout. She asked me if there was anything I wanted. It was funny but I had traded a Lionel "banana" train, the Union Pacific M10,000 to Fred Hines years before that I got in the boxes from Berkeley Hardware they had taken it in as a trade in. I think they sold the set to me for about $30. I was just an old train to them at that time. Fred, had traded it to Jim the next year. I wanted it more because the two best train collectors I knew and learned from, owed it at one time. She gave it to me, plus three extra cars Jim had picked up somewhere. We went through some of Jim amazing collection. Jim always repaired my train at no cost. Fred's amazing basement layout with a set of original Buddy L trains. Thanks for bringing back some wonderful memories. Don

Early 2000's. Experimental 3-rail layout...

2006 - ? experimental scale S layout...

Andre

This is the only photograph I can find of my old layout.  I built it in a spare bedroom, with construction starting shortly after we bought the house.  It was slow going at first, but then my father became gravely ill and ended up in a hospital about an hour and a half from our place.  My brother and I would alternate days visiting him.  On the days I was at home I immersed myself in the layout.  It kept my mind off of the situation.  I had made quite a bit of headway before my father's passing.  Unfortunately, I walked away from the trains for over a year after his death.  When the kids were born I had renewed interest in the trains, as the kids liked to watch them run.  This is my son, who was two at the time of this photo.  He especially liked to help work on the layout and run the trains. 

Tom

I'm  not able to show you the whole layout, how it's changed, but I can show you a couple sections that have changed due to how I have changed along the way. Discovering the many new products for landscaping, etc. has helped, too, in my execution of what I saw in my imagination and became able to execute on the plywood...

Was (1995-ish) became...

..was....

became...

Moon Township, USA

FrankM

1975 I think:

Regards

Fred

I love these threads when they come up every few years......great pics.....

My earliest layout pics are on video and start at the 2:50 minute mark..... this covers my Lionel trains from 1958 to about 63. Earler in the video, I can be found dabbling with a Marx set, circa 56.

Then we skip to my college years in the early 70s.

Now, post college and medical school, living in Baltimore, doing my medical residency, circa 1981.

Layout while living in Philly, 83=85....non pics

Finished training, and moved to Richmond VA....1986.

Next layout, new house, 1987-89. No pics.

New layout. Attic finished.....early 90s....

Later 90s.....

Circa 1999-2000

2002......

Takedown....Fall 2003......

Then temporary garage layouts until 2011, when the current layout began....

Peter

My how times change. It’s incredible how we grow in this hobby 

Peter  that’s amazing how you growed so much over the decades and stuck to it. 

This is my layout 3yrs ago I only have a video of it and this was my second Engine also I didn’t know how to use my phone to shoot video 

Hey Doc (Peter)

You get the award for having a love for trains your whole life

I think a lot of us, me included, had a point where it was dorment, not you,

You always had something,like those college pictures, very nice post

Now, get your a** in gear,and go to the Train Room Tuesday post and give us a nice tour of your current layout,

All kidding aside,what a great picture history of your life with trains

Great topic Don.

This first pictures shows one of my annual temporary layouts constructed on a 5'x9' ping pong table. I spent a lot of time lighting all the building and even installed loose ballast on the track. Everything was either postwar or of the MPC era.

These photos show my last temporary layout that I did at age 20. This was right before the trains were put away for a bunch of years. I left the ballast off on this layout.

This was my last and only permanent layout. It was started in 2003 and we sold the house in 2017. These shots show the layout early on.

Here are some other shots as the layout developed through the years.

And this was at the very end.

1992 twin shelf, 5 track, 15x32 airborne operation. Dismantled in 2008. Operated with 3 pw ZWs until TMCC and replaced with 5 180 PoHos. Located in the Domestic CEO's Kitchen-Breakfast room per an agreement to get off her Den carpet. 

NJCJoe, another nice  picture layout tour

This is a neat topic. I harken memories of past train layouts among most cherished, ostensibly because they're associated with Christmas tradition.

Here's a picture of the middle section of my last layout. This was a "once in a lifetime" layout as it had four operating tiers all interconnected by switches and grades = a LOT of work.

Another Great Topic Don !!!    I'll have to see if I can put my hands on the original layouts I built in Oradell NJ in the 1960's and scan them...  But for now,  this was a layout my son, daughter and I built in Maine, circa 2000-2004.     Packed an awful lot of track and scenery into an 8 x 12 foot area.  

These are pics from the years after the 2003 take-down....2004-11......I was without a permanent layout (though forming the modular group in 2009 did help a lot!)

Basement floor, garage and outdoors.....

Peter

Our first layout. Started in 1999 and finished the following year. 

6.5'x10' 

Gargraves track and switches making double mainline loops, each with a couple of spur sidings.

Dismantled in 2007 due to damage during relocation. 

Have been using Fastrack since as well as fairly elaboarate Christmas layouts.

I never got any further with this little pike because we moved and instead of downsizing we bought a somewhat larger house where we both have an actual room for our toys. It was a good switching puzzle on 4X8.

Lew

This is the only photo I have of my original layout, circa 1961. We still have the trains, signal bridge and light tower, but the original Plasticville buildings are gone, and have since been replaced.

This is my layout of the late 1980s.  It was my last layout before switching to large scale.  I'm happy to be back into "O" gauge again.

This is a photo of my first layout...a bedroom floor and area rug pike. Pretty much stayed that way for years with the only addition being a small loop on a board under the Christmas tree...

Fast forward about 65 years and this was my first real layout which was put together in 2013...started with a foldable ping pong table and then added three (3) more sections...all having 027 track and switches. The photos show that layout from left to right...

Panorama of the main section...

The last run on that layout is shown here in 2015...

The new layout started in the spring of 2016...and continues to evolve...🤪

PDDMI posted:

This is a photo of my first layout...a bedroom floor and area rug pike. Pretty much stayed that way for years with the only addition being a small loop on a board under the Christmas tree...

Fast forward about 65 years and this was my first real layout which was put together in 2013...started with a foldable ping pong table and then added three (3) more sections...all having 027 track and switches. The photos show that layout from left to right...

Panorama of the main section...

The last run on that layout is shown here in 2015...

The new layout started in the spring of 2016...and continues to evolve...🤪

It's amazing sometimes the amount we can get out of limited space, little siding's, buildings, etc.

Another very nice showing

December 1967 - House rules - for two weeks in December the rec-room floor was ALL mine...Note how the exit door to the garage was cleverly blocked by the rocking chair over in the corner on the left side.

Putnam Division posted:

I love these threads when they come up every few years......great pics.....

My earliest layout pics are on video and start at the 2:50 minute mark..... this covers my Lionel trains from 1958 to about 63. Earler in the video, I can be found dabbling with a Marx set, circa 56.

Then we skip to my college years in the early 70s.

Now, post college and medical school, living in Baltimore, doing my medical residency, circa 1981.

Layout while living in Philly, 83=85....non pics

Finished training, and moved to Richmond VA....1986.

Next layout, new house, 1987-89. No pics.

New layout. Attic finished.....early 90s....

Later 90s.....

Circa 1999-2000

2002......

Takedown....Fall 2003......

Then temporary garage layouts until 2011, when the current layout began....

Peter

 

 

 

Hey Doc, just out curiosity, how many years from off to college to your first job?

My first layout was about 8 X 10. All the lumber came from crates that Ski-Doo snowmobiles were shipped in to dealers. The dealer was about a block away. His son and I had volunteered to un-crate the new sleds so that we can have the lumber for building forts, tree huts, and of coarse my layout. Winters were fun growing up there. When there was no snow, we were always swinging a hammer. When the snow came, we would go riding.  We would unhook the speedometer cables and ride a different sled every night til the snow melted. The customers were always told their new sled was properly pre-broken in. Not great suspension travel on those sleds back then. Even with wearing a kidney belt, to this day, I still have red blood cells in my urine.

Transman posted:

Putnam Division posted:

I love these threads when they come up every few years......great pics.....

My earliest layout pics are on video and start at the 2:50 minute mark..... this covers my Lionel trains from 1958 to about 63. Earler in the video, I can be found dabbling with a Marx set, circa 56.

Then we skip to my college years in the early 70s.

Now, post college and medical school, living in Baltimore, doing my medical residency, circa 1981.

Layout while living in Philly, 83=85....non pics

Finished training, and moved to Richmond VA....1986.

Next layout, new house, 1987-89. No pics.

New layout. Attic finished.....early 90s....

Later 90s.....

Circa 1999-2000

2002......

Takedown....Fall 2003......

Then temporary garage layouts until 2011, when the current layout began....

Peter

 

 

 

Hey Doc, just out curiosity, how many years from off to college to your first job?

14.....College 71-75....Med School 75-79. Medical Residency 79-82. Chief Resident 83-84 (basically an extra year as junior faculty in charge of the residency program). Renal Fellowship 83-85....been working at Richmond Nephrology ever since......

www.rneph.com

Basically no trains 74-80......I had a weekend off in February or March 1980. I saw that there was something called a Greenberg Great Train, Toy and Doll Show at Towson State.....I went and it woke up the train genes.....called my parents  in the Bronx and asked them to bring the trains down when they visited that Easter....the rest is history......

Peter

Very interesting, 14 years, I like your awakening story also, Mine is trains when little, then at 42, (1998) during the day with a little time to kill,stumbled into a train store called Loco Lewie’s,,I’m looking at postwar stuff and the guy asked me if I ever heard of MTH?, I said no, the rest is history.  Back to you Doc, like your story,thanks 

Here are two layouts from my past.  The first a simple loop on a board with some Marx and Plasticville buildings, circa 1961.  The pedal car was also for me that year.  The second is of a layout I was building with my kids when I lived in Savannah Georgia circa 1984.  This layout was L shaped and only lasted about 9 months since I changed jobs and moved to Phoenix Az.

Rolland

A couple of early versions in my current house.  The 4x8 was the first one I put up as soon as we moved in.

Great topic, fantastic  visual histories everyone!

Putnam Division, Peter, fantastic photographic eras. I believe I have seen your photos in another post. 

From your photos, I recognized the same Kustom Bass amp I once owned.

thanks for the memories.

leroof.

Hey Robert Butler........I really like the way that you took over the basement rec room.  I usually start a Carpet Central on most Septembers (since 2007).

I've accomplished the same tactics at my house.  Very nice!  I'm really enjoying the pictures and I see I have a R E A L L Y long way to catch up to NJC Joe as far as collecting train signs and outdoor train signal stuff!  Great inspirations  here on this thread!

1952 in a yet-to-be finished basement in Queens.

Track and trains by Lionel. Layout, station, and bridge by my father.

Crank

Here is a picture of me from 1975/76 running my trains in our unfinished side of our basement. Had 2 sheets of 4x8 plywood in shape of a "L".

Here is part of my old layout from 2013 in my condo apt spare room. K-Line track , Ross Tinplate # 4 for the track cross-over. and K-line switches.

Redjimmy1955... and then in 1980 when I had an apartment all to myself I really went wild with the entire living room floor and I didn't have to negotiate with anyone! 

Great stories all - Thanks for digging out the old photos for us to see.

Peter, did you ever build another Super O layout back then? Still some of the best looking 3 rail track...

does this count?  1976

- walt

Yes, Walt, it does.   I assume that is 1967?

I started late in the game. Here's my first build: 2012.  Most of what you see was not yet wired up...some items never did operate as we moved in 2013 and I dismantled it.  However, I did learn much about modern era control systems, scenicing, etc.  Biggest lesson learned....there's never enough real estate and you really should measure first........