Already Have a Layout? Keep Designing Layouts?

[Sir TophamHatt]

I already have a layout.  It's essentially an L shaped roundy roundy, but have just read through another topic and it gave me some inspiration so I drew up a nice little station with TMD area.

 

I'm too far gone to alter what I have now, which is why I wish I'd never started ballasting as I could have changed things a lot easier then.  But will keep the design for future use.

 

If you already have a layout, do you keep designing layouts?

 

Added a few options, so best to pick one closest to your situation.

[Harlequin]

Sorry, this poll is not very clear.

 

The question asks about whether you are designing layouts but the options just ask whether you have a layout. So you can answer the poll irrespective of whether you are designing layouts and the question will never be answered.

 

Edited September 3, 2019 by Harlequin

[Joseph_Pestell]

It's not the sort of question that really works as a tick-box-reply format.

 

So I will answer in writing.

 

Yes, and I don't suppose that will ever change. I will probably be designing layouts in my head when I am on my deathbed.

 

I have come up with a couple of new ideas just in the last week. I don't suppose that I will ever build either of them but I still get a lot of pleasure from drawing them and then tweaking them to make them better.

 

They evolve too - in quite strange ways. A video here on RMweb (oddly on the cars thread) rekindled my interest in SBB and I designed a largish "watch the trains go by" layout with an incline and rural Swiss scenery. Operational interest provided by a concrete unloading plant. That, quite bizarrely, led to a second plan, for EM. Basically the same track layout, but more compact and BR (ex-LNW) in an industrial town.

[CloggyDog]

I'm always doodling layout plans, even though I have 2 micros built, 2 more under construction and another 3 as firm plans (so I'd tick all 3 'yes' options in the poll)

 

My inspirations can come from the prototype (why was it done that way and is there a better way?) or I'll see an layout idea and sketch out options. Some might be a fully worked up plan, others a very rough sketch, sometimes alternative elements of a larger plan (which might also work as a stand-alone micro)

 

And some of those plans/sketches might become a future build, so I usually keep them in the 'folder of ideas' which is increasingly becoming stuffed with post-its, pages from notepads, backs of envelopes, exhibitors' info sheets...

Edited September 3, 2019 by CloggyDog

[Zomboid]

I prefer designing layouts to building them. It takes a whole lot less time and money, and there's no disappointment when they don't work out.

[Clive Mortimore]

Designing, or thinking about another layout when you have one that works well and you enjoy modelling and operating is called being a railway modeller.

 

I still have desires to build B and C sheds, the refueling point, may be chuck in A shed that were at Stratford. A roundy roundy with OLE called Chenford, using the buildings and track plan of Harlow Town, so I can run my GER line Mk1 EMUs. Not sure if I ever will because I am lucky to have a lovely railway room with a layout that I have wanted to build since 1970. It hasn't stopped me planning.

[Sir TophamHatt]

20 hours ago, Harlequin said:

The question asks about whether you are designing layouts but the options just ask whether you have a layout. So you can answer the poll irrespective of whether you are designing layouts and the question will never be answered.

 

Sorry, I would have thought the context of the poll would have set the limits of the answers :/

[The Johnster]

Circumstances dictated that I was unable to have a layout after my marriage breakup 30 years ago and I started again some 4 years ago, but spent an enormous amount of that quarter century drawing up track plans for layouts in various hypothetical situations and potential future spaces.  My interest is in South Walian railways, so that always 'informed' what i was doing, and over time the layouts developed into 3 basic scenarios, all set in identifiable general locations but ficticious.

 

Cardiff North Dock was basically a two level shunting layout, the high level feeding coal hoists with a small passenger terminus on the low level and some sidings serving small factories and a boiler house for the dock's hydraulic systems.  Cardiff never had a North Dock; it is an imagined extension to the north east of the existing Roath Dock.

 

Requiring more space was Crusader Yard, inspired by the real Crwys coal sidings on the Rhymney (Crwys is Welsh for Crusader), and including a terminus for a suburban auto service based on the real 'Maindy Flyer'.  It needed to be a roundy or have two fiddle yards, and was the most ambitious and space consuming of my projects.

 

Cwmdimbath, which I eventually built, is a Valley terminus with a coal mine off stage; because of the direction of the junction accessing it, coal train have to run up to the terminus and run around to be facing the right way for shunting at the colliery.  It is very loosely inspired by Abergwynfi.  It is the smallest in terms of space and much easier to fit into a room.  

 

The long planning and doodling period was very useful as each layout morphed/evolved into a more established form, so that when the opportunity to build one finally appeared (my life is much more settled now!) I was pretty much ready for the off.  So I'm very glad i did it, and enjoyed the process considerably as well.  But the muse left me as soon as I started on Cwmdimbath, which has focussed my attention ever since.  It's turned out every bit as well as I'd hoped, fun and satisfying to operate with plenty of modelling left to do on.  I'm 67, and it'll 'see me out'.

 

 

 

[tomparryharry]

I keep designing layouts. To a large extent, it's stopped nowadays. I'll doodle a trackplan or so whilst contemplating lifes rich variety whilst sitting on the po. There are a dozen or so plans to hand, and one or two in particular are currently 'favourites'.  As I write this, I'm having a short rest from the 1:1 Railway Room project out in the garden. 

 

Once that's finished the space will be created, and that will really screw my head up!

 

The one thought that has been borne out, is that any layout I'll build will have multiple operator capability.  The late Ian Hollis ran his exhibition 'Alkham' as   a real, albeit slightly fictitious location.  The working timetable was to a slightly compressed timescale, and a full 'run through the cards' was a 6 hour event. Ian loved nothing better than to have a team of operators operating his layout, and I can see why.

 

A roundy- roundy when I'm alone, and some facility for social interaction.  This is known as having ones cake, and eating it.

 

A good weekend in prospect, so I hope you get to enjoy it.

 

Ian.

[F-UnitMad]

With layouts I have built, I've spent ages designing them first. This is especially true of my current 'big' layout in my loft, which I really view as my 'last' layout and a long term project. I spent several months designing the track plan, so that I knew the layout would have the elements I wanted to keep me interested over many years, & not find issues with it once track was laid.

I also have some smaller 'shunty-planks'; 2 also reside in the loft & get used, the remains of 2 others are up the shed, "just in case" they might be needed again.

So I don't tend to design more layouts as such myself these days, but I'm always interested in track plans & layouts other people have, especially if their ideas, interests & aims are close to mine; I like to see how others might treat a plan that's very similar to my own, for example. 

[rodshaw]

I have only ever had one layout at a time. After a few years, when I'm getting fed up with it, I start designing a new one and then dismantle or sell the old one. They are always micro layouts, or at least on the small side.

But now I'm considering a second layout because I'm torn between my current TT layout and doing another one in HO. I'd really like one of each (if I can wangle the space) so the pencil and paper are out again.

[Nearholmer]

The best cure for this illness, if illness it be, is RMWeb, because here people invite you, yes, actually invite you, to help them design their layouts.

 

Vicarious railway modelling: a half-way house between armchair modelling and the whole rigamarole of actually building something?