Looking for advice as I consider a new layout...

Depends on your level of motivation and desires.  Some people drive an hour or so to a club layout but get to interact with other people, not be there in a lonely building 40 minutes from home. Do you need to get away from home or are you looking to stop in on the way home from work? Will the significant other get "suspicious"?  Where do you live? Is the winter weather conducive to driving 40 minutes to work on a layout?  Much easier to head to the basement in a snow/rain storm than trek to the car and sit in traffic?  Sometimes i have trouble just walking out to the barn loft when its nice and warm in the house. Granted its warm in the barn but its cold in between!  Best of luck!

@Farmall-Joe posted:

Depends on your level of motivation and desires.  Some people drive an hour or so to a club layout but get to interact with other people, not be there in a lonely building 40 minutes from home. Do you need to get away from home or are you looking to stop in on the way home from work? Will the significant other get "suspicious"?  Where do you live? Is the winter weather conducive to driving 40 minutes to work on a layout?  Much easier to head to the basement in a snow/rain storm than trek to the car and sit in traffic?  Sometimes i have trouble just walking out to the barn loft when its nice and warm in the house. Granted its warm in the barn but its cold in between!  Best of luck!

that is the million dollar question....traveling to get there....again trading size for access....as far as wife....she will join me much of the time on weekends etc....do gardening and other hobbies for her.   And don't mind being by myself in my train room as that is get away time...I deal with people all day long.....that part is fine....but yes.   It is nice to walk upstairs and work on the trains for 10 minutes or 2 hours...doesn't matter.  

@msp posted:

that is the million dollar question....traveling to get there....again trading size for access....as far as wife....she will join me much of the time on weekends etc....do gardening and other hobbies for her.   And don't mind being by myself in my train room as that is get away time...I deal with people all day long.....that part is fine....but yes.   It is nice to walk upstairs and work on the trains for 10 minutes or 2 hours...doesn't matter.  

I think its a great fit if your wife can also get away and do her thing.  As for size of the layout, i am working on a double deck layout roughly in the same dimensions as yours.  I went into it with a plan however to work on modeling a prototypical area, railroad and time frame.  This was not dictated by the size but my desire to model the area where i grew up, but inspired by my dad;s memories of the past of the same area.  This helped me design the layout in such a large space rather than having no clue what the track plan might be and struggling in that sense.  Maybe something you can incorporate as well.  Regards.

Is there any particular reason why you want to keep your current home?  If I were in this situation, I would buy enough land to build a complete living quarters co-located with the layout, and preferably part of the same building.  (I used to like running my trains in my pajamas )

If you're building the home from scratch, the builder could incorporate a "bonus room", full attic, second living area or whatever you need to call it for appraisal purposes, as layout space.  Electric trains don't like humidity!  If you were to construct a stand-alone building for just the trains, you would still have to run utilities, heat, cool, and insure it year-round.  Someday when the need arises, I believe that the complete home with a large bonus room / second living area would be easier to sell than a utility building with a small apartment.  From a pure cash-flow perspective I believe that you would be better off having everything at one place.  You also said that the land is CLOSER to your office.  This translates to reduced commuting time and costs, etc.

Full 1:48 scale trains (2- or 3-rail) need curves of O72 or greater -- a lot of space.  I would regard 25 x 20 as about the minimum.  For much of the country where there are no basements, it's a difficult proposition that sometimes entails difficult choices like the one you're facing.  My $.02.

I think it will work if you can spend your weekends there. Better yet if the property is on your way home and your looking at 2 short commutes. The new building isn’t going up overnight. If you have a solid track plan and a workshop at home. You could get a lot accomplished while it’s being built. You could have benchwork ready minus the legs. Maybe even get some track laid and wired. Wiring is a lot easier if it’s laying on it’s side and you can sit on a stool and do it. Most of your weekend work could be doing large assembly work where your wife can give you a hand if needed. Which at the end of the weekend really looks like you have accomplished something. Rather than spending the whole weekend doing something tedious under the layout. If you plan on doing some structures. Working part time. Some can take a few weeks to a month to complete. It’s also nice to walk into the train room and not have to deal with a huge mess with multiple projects taking place.

Some really thoughtful ideas presented here. What age are you and your wife if we may ask? Children?   Personally I would do everything possible to NOT have two properties involved - as Ted mentioned above, any compelling reasons to keep the current home?  You said the property is closer to the office. I would seriously consider building a new home and incorporate the train room in a practical manner. I am a real estate broker and a well designed new home with forethought consideration for resale sometime down the line would be your best long term investment.

I think that a trip like that to your layout would get old in a hurray.

I often walk downstairs to my train layouts for a few minutes or a half hour at a time and - of course - I also spend longer sessions with the layouts at all hours of the day and evening. Whatever your age now, I think you need to give consideration to your situation when retired - a time when you may want, and be able, to spend more time on model railroading. If I were in your position, I would first consider adding a train room to your present home or moving to a larger residence. Also, you can enjoy the hobby with a smaller layout than what you're contemplating. If you're like me, as you get older, you will prefer to be driving less and will not be wanting to travel frequently between two locations. The hobby needs to be within easy reach.

Now, you'll have to excuse me. I'm going downstairs to take photos and videos to post on the OGR Forum...

MELGAR

All great responses.....thank your for taking your time to do so.   

So, as I look back at my original post I see a couple of details I left out, that along with some of the comments/questions above  I will address here below

1.  I currently have a house with a 16x22 bonus room upstairs.  I have a layout now I have been building for 13 years.  It is substantially complete save some scenery work I would do.   So I there is no more room to grow.  I have several Lionel 21" cars....and yes it is very tight (I have o72 min. curves) but I like them.  So that is what generates the question.   I agree it very nice to go upstairs when it is cold (although I am in Florida) raining or in pajamas to work on trains for 10 minutes or 2 hours....doesn't matter.

2.  However, this would be like the dream layout -  I would go to minimum of 20/25  x 30/35.   I would have a great place to actually run 21" passenger cars.   The tradeoff is accessibility for size.  Is it worth it?

@Mark V. Spadaro posted:

I think that a trip like that to your layout would get old in a hurray.

Mark's comment gets right to the point of what I am trying to determine.

3.  I am going to buy some acreage...20-30acres +/-   it is timber land/farm land.   That has pretty much been decided.  Investment etc...reasons that all would be another forum discussion.   

4.  I am 58 recently empty nester have kids are in college...so there is that transition.....plan to work another 9 years +/-

5.  Not ready to sell the current house.  But this land could certainly be a homesite in 5 years +/-   I understand all the financial aspect of two properties, investments etc.  Been in banking 31 years.

6.  The building if sold one day, would be great for tractors, ATV, fishing gear, workshop etc etc. if the next one did not have a train hobby.   So value would still be there if I never built a house.   Next guy would have  great home site with building to put whatever in.

7.  Still researching cost of the building - that will certainly play a factor in the whole plan.

8  So I guess the bottom line question is ....Is it worth giving up convenience to effectively triple the size of the layout?    Again realizing everyone has a different answer to that question.

thanks for all the feedback...enjoying the conversation.

I may have missed this detail, but with the amount of property you'll be buying and the fact you are constructing a large building to house the layout, why not add a small apartment for you and the wife to spend evenings?   Can just be a bedroom, combined kitchenette/tv room with a couch, and a bathroom/shower combo?

-Greg

@Greg Houser posted:

I may have missed this detail, but with the amount of property you'll be buying and the fact you are constructing a large building to house the layout, why not add a small apartment for you and the wife to spend evenings?   Can just be a bedroom, combined kitchenette/tv room with a couch, and a bathroom/shower combo?

-Greg

that is exactly the plan.....

msp,

I agree with Sam's comment that maintaining two properties is more work

A cautionary point ...

If/when the "train building" is unattended for days on end, consider the need for a security system - wired to the police department.  If/when it becomes known in that area that the building contains a large layout and (probably) lots of pricey trains, opportunistic thieves may target the building for its goodies.

Fortunately, train hobby appreciators and hobbyists are honorable folks, but -- unfortunately -- there are a few evil-hearted robbers.  Other OGR Forum-ites might chime in and share their horror stories.

Mike M.    LCCA 12394

@Mark V. Spadaro posted:

I think that a trip like that to your layout would get old in a hurray.

As someone who has contemplated the idea of a separate place for my layout, I heartily agree.  Lots of things will change in the next 10 years or so for you.  Although I don't have any serious physical limitations, I find that I have less desire to spend time driving, especially at night.  I've lived in rural and urban areas; rural was fun at the time, but I really like having young neighbors close by who can help out in a pinch (or in an emergency).

@Mike H Mottler posted:

A cautionary point ...

If/when the "train building" is unattended for days on end, consider the need for a security system - wired to the police department.  If/when it becomes known in that area that the building contains a large layout and (probably) lots of pricey trains, opportunistic thieves may target the building for its goodies.

Fortunately, train hobby appreciators and hobbyists are honorable folks, but -- unfortunately -- there are a few evil-hearted robbers.  Other OGR Forum-ites might chime in and share their horror stories.

Mike M.    LCCA 12394

Unless you can make frequent visits on an unpredictable schedule, your property will become a target, and even with a great security system it will take awhile for police to arrive.  My horror story is about a local club - their modest, unmarked, and nondescript building was broken into by some teenagers.  They apparently expected something more enticing (exotic cars?) and decided to vandalize the place by breaking stuff and discharging fire extinguishers everywhere.  Fortunately, insurance covered the monetary loss, but the layout was out of commission for over a year.  It left people feeling violated and scarred their faith in mankind.

It might also be worthwhile to look into what it will take to insure such a property - the fact that it won't be regularly occupied and will contain expensive contents may affect the type of coverage you can get.

IMO, there's a wealth of wisdom and experience in @MELGAR's post above.

Great points on security

i have checked crime in area - very little ….but still points are well made

To me, that seems like a very ambitious plan. Since moving into a new home is not in your plans right now, I would look into redesigning the existing large layout to accommodate the curves you need. It's always a fun challenge to rework a layout. I personally would not want to deal with the inconvenience nor the security concerns of a remote, unattended building, but I admire your devotion to the hobby. Good luck with your decision.