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Hi Everyone, I know its not much, but for me its a big step. Today I spent the morning cutting 6" concrete foundation wall to add a door to the soon to be Train room. Then I proceeded to frame in the door opening and install the door. I then went out side staked out where the new concrete slab is to go on Thursday, weather permitting. Right before the wife called me in I put one last touch on the new door, A nice Steam Engine sticker. See pictures below. Its going to be a slow go as were are working on a budget for this project! When finished the room will be 12' X 24' with one window. the rest will be for TRAINS!20170221_15303420170221_15323520170221_153043

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Last edited by mike g.
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Your right Bob, the concrete wall took most of the day, due to the fact I was using a 7" saw with a concrete blade along with a 4" grinder with concrete blade and a small jack hammer! Boy was it a good work out! Framing the door was easy! LOL

Hokie, all I had to do was wait for the wife to say go. and boy did I jump at it when she did!

It's great to have that much space.  It's okay that it will take some time.  That way you can plan exactly what you want to have.  A lot of folks were overly excited and eager and just started throwing things together.  Resist that...come up with a plan.  Like what your railroad is, where it is, what it's doing and the most important thing is that how will you and others interact with it.  Do you have a favorite railroad or place you want to model?

If you are doing a toy train layout or a display loop for your collection that's two types of layouts.  If you are going for the model of a railroad remember to consider the Who, Where, What, When and Why of your line....plausibility, purpose and most importantly participation for yourself and others!

You have a "blank slate."  You have the canvas.  Now, what will you do?  Take your time.  If you really want to get something going put up some temporary Fastrak while your are thinking.  :-) 

Hi John, thank you for all the wise words. I have been working with Carl and Dave from the forum for over the last year on my layout plan, and I am pretty sure we have it nailed down. I plan on running modern day Engines, I have some freight cars, I have a few tankers I need to get more of them, I have an Amtrak train with 6 cars, but still need to get a dome car and sleeper for it. 

I plan on running from Seattle to Chicago, running all the above, I have an oil field and station planned, some city stuff, mountains. I know there is a lot more to think about.

I plan on using MTH ScaleTrak for my layout. I know what others have said, but I love the look of the track and Like I said I am slow so I can wait on a few things if I have to.

mike g. posted:

Thanks Lee, I am going to need all the support I can get. Its just me here, I don't know anyone else in the area that are into model trains. Just the one guy that sells trains as a retirement income.

Mike, having people nearby who can help answer questions, give good advice, come out to help once you’re elbow-deep in the build and generally be there for you, is essential.

I couldn’t possibly have gotten as far as I did in the timeframe I did what I ref to as “The initial build” of the layout (as no layout is ever FINISHED, right), without several people. They gave me great advice, showed me their excellent layouts to get a good feel for operations, helped with the track plan, did grunt work on wiring and DCC and most of all provided a LOT of encouragement. Had it not been for all of them, my layout wouldn’t be what it is, and the upcoming 2017 On30 Annual article on my layout for sure wouldn’t soon be coming out.

I lucked up by becoming friends with someone who was well-connected to the local railfan and model RR community and therefore meeting others.

Had that not happened, I might have gotten more involved with NMRA events in the area, or hooking up with one of the groups I see at the model train meets.

I am an NMRA member, something you might want to look into. I joined to attend the Portland convention (but I couldn’t get the time off) and while I don’t have a flexible work schedule to go to much of their events, I was welcomed with open arms and get invites to events all the time. Most are up north in your area but there’s local stuff for me as well. You’d also be able to find out about the local informal groups that you might not know about. For example, there’s a very active Olympia group that many have no clue about.

An NMRA membership isn’t cheap, but if you could find the ‘live and in person’ versions of the really great people I see posting here, wouldn’t it be worth it? Let’s face it, you can have the most amazing layout in the world, but everyone wants to be able to get some kindred spirits around every now and then!

Yeah, I know, 3-rail isn’t their thing. Yeah, most of them are HO or N guys, but there ARE 3-railiers among them, I know a few down in this area.

Just give it a thought. I couldn’t imagine my layout without the people I’ve directly dealt with! 

FYI, do you plan on going to Monroe on Saturday?

Hi Lee, Thanks for all the information I have been looking around our area for people and found one in Shelton, but everything else is an hour drive for me. I will look in to the NMRA membership and see what it entails. No I wont be going to Monroe on Saturday as it is if I drive around its a 21/2 hour drive if not 3 hours.

Dave, I just thought I would takle that when the time came, but then I know that's not a good idea! LOL

DoubleDAZ posted:
Mark Boyce posted:

You should have a well thought out plan by the time you get the room built!  I'm looking forward to seeing the plan.  Maybe you have a topic in the planning forum, and I can't recall it.

Mark, here's a link to the planning thread.

Thank you Dave!  Yes, now I see which plan it is.  I even commented to Mike how much I liked his swing up bridge!  Super!!

mike g. posted:

Hi John, thank you for all the wise words. I have been working with Carl and Dave from the forum for over the last year on my layout plan, and I am pretty sure we have it nailed down. I plan on running modern day Engines, I have some freight cars, I have a few tankers I need to get more of them, I have an Amtrak train with 6 cars, but still need to get a dome car and sleeper for it. 

I plan on running from Seattle to Chicago, running all the above, I have an oil field and station planned, some city stuff, mountains. I know there is a lot more to think about.

I plan on using MTH ScaleTrak for my layout. I know what others have said, but I love the look of the track and Like I said I am slow so I can wait on a few things if I have to.

You are running my line!  :-)  I do Marias Pass which is the southern border of Glacier National Park in Montana.  

Your plan sounds very ambitious.  You may want to consider focusing on one area because it will be a great challenge to have some continuity/logic in your scenery attempting to depict that long of a run.  You can use your mountains to "divide" one scene from the other to improve your visual display/scene integrity.  If you are going mountains, you should consider focusing on either Washington state in the Cascades or the Rockies in Montana.  Your "end points" don't have to be visibly modeled...

Modeling smaller areas is a logical approach to consider especially considering all of our space constraints and scale.  Even in my basement, I'm depicting about 180 some odd miles of track with two miles of scale line and that is pressing it.

Food for thought.  :-)

 

mike g. posted:

 As far as I am concerned this the best place for information and friendship!

I also agree 100% with this. I’m on a couple of other model RR forums, one is more devoted to fine craftsmanship and has a really good small core of people into On30. Lots of very impressive model work can be seen there, in various scales (including some European guys and their travelling layouts). And while I do enjoy the model work and many of the people there, I mostly enjoy this forum for just the simple big smile, “Wow, cool!” reaction I just need to have every now and then. Many of you know I’m not into 3-rail, but it is the same scale I model and there’s a lot of very impressive (what I think is called, “Fine scale” 3-rail? I can’t recall the labels for the various applications of 3-rail) work being shown here.

There’s a couple of people here I don’t think as much of as some others (which is unavoidable on any forum, I’m sure there are more than a few that don’t think much of some of my opinions), but the positive people list, to me, FAR outnumbers the not-so-positive-for-me list. Guys like you Mike, Suzukovich and several others I wish I could recall their login names to give proper credit to. You guys have given massive encouragement and kind words since I've been here. Many times, you guys bring a smile to my face when I really need it (my life is hardly a tale of woe but we all need a smile every now and then, right!)

I don't know how many people frequent this forum are subscribers to the magazine, but I will confess to buying issues when they have something I find interesting. Again, I'm not a 3-railer so such content is largely lost on me. But I have seen several issues that had some good 2-rail or On30 stuff. I just bought the newest issue over at Wal-Mart (where I was surprised to see it) the other day and loved it.

That's all from this forum.

It's a special place and I appreciate the people here.

 

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