Are You Building a Temporary Layout, or the Ultimate One?

[Sir TophamHatt]

Not counting any exhibition layouts, what sort of layout is yours?

While I appreciate there may be many different types, here's what has made me wonder:

 

My layout isn't going to be the ultimate one.

I've ballasted half of it and there are a few problems with trains randomly derailling (yet other trains don't!) and I have a sharpe curve that some trains struggle with.

 

I was thinking about ballasting the other half but then wondered why I would plough money into something that I know I will replace in a few years time.  I'm okay with how it looks at the moment... maybe.

 

But then I guess this could be one for testing methods of work before implimenting them on my ultimate layout.

 

Does anyone else who isn't going the whole hog feel like there's no point... unless you're going for the ultimate layout?

[Guest CLARENCE]

My layout is probably my last, as I'm turned 80 and probably won't get to finish it anyway. Though I'll try!

[Clive Mortimore]

All layouts should be the ultimate one but then they are all temporary in the big scheme of things. The most important thing is they are fun to build and operate and at the same time the builder/owner/operator is learning new skills. 

[timbowilts]

As we’re in the process of trying to sell our current house and relocate to Swansea/Llanelli I’ve had to dismantle my 16’ by 8’ double track continuous run layout. It had effectively been unfinished and stored since I got married 31 years ago!

All layout building activities are on hold until I find out where we are going to be living 

Tim T

[Zomboid]

I'm wondering what the future holds for mine. It's relatively small and packs up easily, but we're expecting a child in a few months and are planning on moving home to be nearer to work, so it seems pretty pointless to do anything to it right now as I may not have anywhere to get it out once we've moved.

 

Plus the baseboard has developed what I can only describe as a ripple, so it might be no good anyhow. Not that it really matters - I imagine hobbies are going to be nothing more than a memory for much of the next decade...

[Allegheny1600]

My layout is quite small (a BLT really) and transportable, exhibitable even.

It's definitely NOT my ultimate layout however and due to an imminent move, the ultimate layout will be some time in getting started.

When it is, however, the present layout will be incorporated into the ultimate version, continuing in its role as a BLT.

[TheQ]

My layout (EM gauge) is hardly started, but then I've spent ten years or so building the shed for it. The Shed is 63ft by a varying amount up to 16ft wide.

I've a couple of times tried to build the main station in the past , but the compression just didn't work. This time there is no compression so it will be about 34ft long..

Even if I were to complete the whole layout it would never be completed, because I would just go round again improving it..

It is however My ultimate layout.

 

As I've inherited an N gauge layout, I decided that would be the exhibition layout, which means a lot less complication to the main layout, as there now won't be a removable for show section..

[Joseph_Pestell]

Strategy has changed a bit.

 

Have now agreed that I will "retire" in two years time at which point we will probably move (only a few yards) to a new house.

 

I can't see the new property being big enough to have a space for my definitive layout. So I will probably built a couple of small layouts (BLTs) plus a test track oval to be permanently fixed, leaving plenty of workshop space to build a portable and exhibitable version of the final layout. The advantage of this is that it enables me to make progress now and also to model some other prototypes.

 

That's an answer that comprehensively fails to answer the OP's question!

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I hope mine is the ultimate, but there's no way of knowing if it is 'good enough' for that status until more has been completed.  Per:

4 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

... most important thing is they are fun to build and operate...

    it is still putting smile on my face, so ultimativity is still in reach.

[Big James]

My layout is temporary, when I move in the next 2 years it’ll be coming with me where I can hopefully extend it into an through station. 

 

Big james  

[crompton 33]

My layout is end to end built to Exhibition standard on 4ft by 2ft boards. The main reason it was built that way was when i move it can all come apart . Plus it makes it more easy to work on the rear of the layout if i need to.  Or if i need work do'ing under the board like on points i can just lift that board  out  makes life more easy.

Edited June 25, 2019 by crompton 33

[Reorte]

Very, very slowly tinkering on a bit of something I'd like to be my ultimate layout, which it probably won't be because it's also my first and it's unlikely I'll ever have the space for it. But I don't see any of that as a good reason to stop! Anyway if I did ever get close to finishing it I'd probably want to start again on something else anyway.

[The Johnster]

Like David, I am probably on my last layout due to age, though he's 13 years further down the line than me(!), so in that sense it's my ultimate layout, but it's not my lottery layout, which would be much bigger and professionally built.  It's finished in the sense that the track, signals, basic scenery, and buildings are done and I have enough correct stock for my location and period to run the timetable, but there's loads still to do.  More locos, more coaches, I've got enough freight and mineral stock, relaying in Peco bullhead Code 75, Dapol working signals, scenery improvements (mostly rock outcrops on the mountainside), lighting in some buildings.

 

Kits must be built for some loco chassis and coaches, 

[steve1]

No intention of ever building an "ultimate" layout. I'm a serial layout builder with multiple interests when it comes to prototypes.

 

steve

[Kris]

I would not call mine an ultimate layout but it has the potential to become a small part of one. Whether this happens or not who knows. 

[Ian J.]

Unfortunately, right now the only proper layout I'm building is in my mind. However, I am putting together a small folding test track so I can at least test locomotives when I get them.

[Dave Hunt]

Although I've worked on club layouts and other people's exhibition layouts, I haven't built one of my own since I made an 00 Midland MPD way back in 1980. I did start 'the ultimate' S7 layout over fifteen years ago but no sooner were the baseboards made than it looked as though we were going to move house so everything was scrapped - and then the house move didn't happen! Somewhat discouraged I let things drift for a long time and it was a good few years before I got my railway modelling mojo kick started again. I have always enjoyed making things, especially locomotives, more than operating and among other things have a stock of ten scratchbuilt S7 locos and a few other items of rolling stock that have spent far too long in a display cabinet or cupboards so last year I decided that it was high time I did something about it. I'm very lucky in having a large brick workshop modelling space into which I'm starting on repeating my MPD of nearly forty years ago but this time in S7 so it will be 26 ft x 3ft 6in and loosely based on Hellifield, albeit with the turntable and a siding moved so that the boards aren't too wide. So far I've made the baseboards and one and a half points. Being S7 I'll be making everything including trackwork but that's what I really enjoy - when (if ever) it's finished it will be more of what I would describe as a working diorama than what I suppose many people would think of as a layout but it will serve the ultimate purpose of providing a stage for my rolling stock and the buildings I want to create. As  I'm now 72 it will undoubtedly be the last great project but ever the optimist I'm making it capable of being knocked down into six boards that can be transported should we ever move house again. And if I get round to making the handful of kits I've been given over the years and/or scratchbuilding anything else there'll be somewhere to display and run them.

 

Dave   

[Nearholmer]

“Ultimate” can mean “best” or “final”, so probably only The Good Lord himself knows the answer to the question.

 

Which is possibly an overly fatalistic response.

[CF MRC]

I think I / we have been building our ultimate layout for the last 35 years. 

 

Tim

[Neil]

I'm currently building two layouts; a big thing in the garage  which is a nostalgia trip back to the half remembered quiet corners of my childhood in York and a small portable thing representing an imaginary bit of a Belgian town. Neither are ultimate layouts but neither are temporary stepping stones on the way to the ultimate layout.

[Stubby47]

The 'Ultimate' layout is the complete Chacewater to Newquay branch, with all intermediate stations and halts and of course the branch to Treamble.

Time, space & money will probably always prevent this from ever happening, so the exhibitable layouts I create are mere sections, sub-sections or complete fabrications that are possibly part of this line.

Edited June 27, 2019 by Stubby47

[Stevie]

I had to say "other type " as I have  started a 4mm, 3m length  Minores as a terminus for a full circuit of the garage. So once I have disposed of all the crap left over from the house rebuild I have a 6mx4m space. But there is the other O gauge shunter in the cupboard 

[Andy Hayter]

I have ticked ultimate, but in fact it is two ultimates (one French; one British outline) with a third in the pipedreams phase.  Each will be the ultimate for the periods/regions that interest me.

[Sir TophamHatt]

Has anyone changed or upgraded their layout in small ways?

I built one, but then decided to relocate it (to a bigger area ) and so just started again.  However this one is going to be there a good few (5+) years, so I expect I'll be upgrading/adding to bits of it in that time rather than a whole "rip out and start again" sort of thing.

[The White Rabbit]

How about 'the diversion'? (And now for something completely different...). It could be a dalliance before returning to your first love or it could be the start of something magnificent, a complete change of direction? Only time will tell.