I've built six 'exhibition-only' layouts, but never wanted a home layout - am I odd?

[TEAMYAKIMA]

I was musing this afternoon and I thought where better to muse than on RMweb. It suddenly occurred to me that over the last 50 odd years I've built six personal 'exhibition-only' layouts and worked on several other ones, but I've never been interested in having a home layout. Yes, I set-up and test my 'exhibition-only' layouts at home, but my attitude is that once I've proved that it works reliably, that's it.  Or putting it another way, once I know that a particular loco runs successfully with a particular rake of stock on a particular section of track, what's the point of repeating that move - without an audience!

 

I don't decry home layouts, it's just that I have absolutely no interest in them - maybe my thinking is that having an exhibition layout is a way of getting into shows for nothing 😀

 

Am I unique? Am I odd?

Edited May 15, 2023 by TEAMYAKIMA

[sir douglas]

It was quite poetic coincidence of not being able to exhibit a China layout because of the pandemic

[Dava]

 Building a layout for exhibition is part of the motivation for me, even if it doesn’t get shown very often. I have built about 6 small layouts in just over 40 years so I don’t pretend to be very productive. Three based on real locations as little pieces of history, and two display layouts for the GCR. Time for another one. 
 

Here is ‘Bunny Mine’, 014, based on a real gypsum mine near here.

 

Dava

[The Johnster]

I'm the opposite; home layout with absolutely no interest whatsoever in exhibiting it.  Your question is making me examine this, with a view to passing comment on why I think you prefer the public arena.  Incidentally, I'm a big fan of your layout, don't know much about industrial Chinese backwaters but you've convinced me that this is what they look like!  It's absolutely believable, gritty, dirty, probably cold, dusty, and ugly, a working environment in which people have to live, which, as a Valleys modeller, I can identify and sympathise with.  The Appalachian coalfields could probably provide similar 'atmosphere'.

 

I don't exhibit because:-

 

.I've done it as a club member in a past life.  It's exhausting and I found it quite stressful; of course I enjoyed it, but my willingness to operate was taken advantage of, which I eventually got fed up of.  In fact, over time, the club scene proved to not be for me...

 

.I don't like people very much.  I already knew this from my time working on the railway.  People can be delightful as individuals, brilliant company, funny, supportive, helpful, and generous in spirit.  But collectively they are loud, impatient, rude, stupid, arrogant, aggressive, unsympathetic, and stress-inducing. I don't want to deal with their stupid problems or answer their stupid questions, and before anyone points it out, I'm fully aware that I'm one of them and at least as annoying and irritating, probably more sometimes.  Doesn't make me want to engage with them much, and by and large they seem happy with that arrangement.

 

.Like 20% of the population as a whole at some point in their lives, I have mental health issues, which I mostly manage to cope with with the aid of medication, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy methods, and avoiding the triggers.  One of the triggers is crowded situations where one gets jostled by people moving about unpredictability in close proximtiy, which is pretty much the normal state at a successful show.  Better to avoid the trigger; that way it doesn't get pulled!

 

I am happy with my layout at home.  After many years of manoevering myself into the required position, a layout in the living part of the home, heated, ventilated, and in contact with my partner even if she is in another room, I have what I wanted for years, a layout that I can operate or model on at hand at a moments notice whenever the fancy takes me.  One of my 'operating scenarios' is to make a movement during the adverts on tv, going back for the next movement at the next break.  Or I'll spend a whole evening in there.  I operate to a working timetable in real time, but not continuous real time, 'layout time' is an analogue battery clock with an on-off switch that can be stopped if I want to do a bit of casual modelling or a minor maintenance issue has arisen.  As far as possible I work to the 1955 BR Rule Book.

 

Or I can decide arbitrarlily to operate freestyle, but mostly I stick to the timetable because that is what I find I enjoy best.  A working day at Cwmdimbath takes about five or six real days, and I probably operate a full session, about two hours, three or four times a week.  This is diametrically different to your point about making a move in practice but not seeing the point of repeating it if there is no audience.  For me, the point is that this is what real railways do, and in a sense Cwmdimbath is not a model railway, it is a real railway serving the needs of a real place (albeit one that never actually hosted a mining village, colliery, or branch line), only small and in the 1950s.  What could not actually be real about that, in what respect is it a model?  Ok, now we are bordering on delusion and compuslive behaviour, but good modelling is by definition to a degree compulsive and certainly obsessive...

 

Which is a fine bit of self-examination and explanation, but gets me no nearer to understanding why you don't like operating at home, though it does arguably get me nearer to understanding why I do!  Well, everybody's different, except for those of us who are the same, in the same way as we are all the same except for the differences.  I can't really answer your question, but the nub of the matter possibly lies in differences in what we are trying to achieve for ourselves with our respective individual layouts.  You have created a scene in a hard-working industrial part of China and enjoy displaying it to the public, I have decided that I am running a real South Wales railway (only small and in the 1950s) in a real place (the model's geography is based on reality but there are no buildings, railway, streets, colliery; it is a remote valley that once had a tramroad serving a forge, all long gone and in ruins.  I've called my pub 'The Forge' in honour of it).

 

Or maybe you enjoy the challenge of building an exhibition layout, which can be taken apart for transportation and erected with a theatrical element of presentation and lighting, not to mention sound in your case.  This needs planning, design, woodworking, and building skills to construct a light but strong folding support for the model itself, and for it to look good for the punters, no mean achievement!  I don't have to consider any of this and my baseboards are far too heavy, lumpen, and cumbersome for more than very occasional breaking down.  They can be taken down though, as I live in a rented flat and cannot take the security of my tenancy for granted; I may one day have to find somewhere else at a time not of my choosing.  The value of this approach proved itself when, some half a dozen years ago, the landlord refurbished the flat, moving me into the one across the hallway for a month while the work took place.  I split the layout into the boards by cutting the track at the joins with a slitting disc, and we moved them over the hall and stacked them in a spare room.   When the time came to re-erect the layout, some minor damage needed sorting out and track relaid over the board joins and, hey, presto, ready to go, not much more than a couple of evening's work.  But your layout can be dismantled or erected in much less time with much less effort, and you must be proud of that!

 

A disadvantage (and an advantage) of not exhibiting is the absence of deadlines.  One needs self-discipline to avoid allowing tasks to remain not done for long periods, and self-discipline is not one of my strengths!  There are jobs that I have been putting off for literally years, to my shame, but they'll get done one day.  The layout is 'finished' but there is a massive amount of work still to do on it, enough modelling to keep me going for many more years that I probably have left.  In the six years it has been in existence, I have never been tired of or bored with it, and do not expect to ever be.  Is it possible that your reluctance to operate except publicly is a fear that you'll get used to it and it'll become boring if you run the timetable too much?

 

There are people who are serial layout builders, the challenges of that undertaking being the attraction of the hobby for them, and they may be completely uninterested in operating the layouts.  There was a thread on this site only a couple of years back describing the building of a passing station with a small goods yard by a very experienced modeller who has had much of his work featured in magazines and in fact was the editor of one at one time.  It was a lovely model, but I thought at the time 'wouldn't do for me, not enough shunting, just trains in and trains out or passing, and a pickup once a day.  Good exhibition layout but not enough to do to keep me happy' (there is plenty to do on your layout, I'd be happy to operate that all day long).

Not long after he'd completed it, he expressed the view that it wasn't satisfying in terms of operation, and probably started something else. 

 

Clearly, getting the balance right is both highly individualistic and personal, and not easily achieved.  We are both lucky in that we have layouts that we are happy with that suit our individual purposes well, though no doubt you went through the same learning process and made similar mistakes to me in your earlier attempts.  I attribute the success of Cwmdimbath for my purposes not to any skill or planning genius on my part, but to many years of drawing up plans for layouts that I never had any intention of building, some of which would never have worked anyway, and playing imaginary trains on them to work out what could and couldn't be done with them.  This gave me a reasonable working knowledge of what would satisfy me when I came to building Cwmdimbath, which has stood me in good stead.

 

 

[MarcD]

I build micro layouts but I very rarely operate them at home, even though they are very quick to set up. I built the first one as a bit of a display area for my wagon kits thinking I could drag it round the circuit. I'm now have two under construction.

Marc

[TheQ]

For many many years home layout was planned. It's barely started, then with the MRC I started showing club layouts, I've discovered I like showing.

 

So an inherited layout is being rebuilt as a show layout, then also some work has started on a small not quite micro layout for shows, while work has stopped on the home layout while it's reconsidered.

The plan forming for the home layout is to build the two stations as three removable sections each to be used for showing with a common fiddle yard.

 

However I don't like big crowds when visiting a big show, I'm there early, go round till it becomes unbearable, then retire to a corner with a coffee, and something of interest. Then return to wandering when the hoards disappear and I've recovered.

 

For showing I'm fine safely behind a layout

[fulton]

Not odd at all, I always imagined I would like a home layout to operate, had a permanent garage layout for twenty years, in practice it was only operated when friends came round, almost never by myself, what I really enjoy is building models, layouts, ships and aircraft. I also enjoy exhibiting, can operate all day and chat to visitors, exhibiting can be physically hard work, especially getting older, owned a box trailer in the past, now own a van, which takes away all the pressure of loading, unloading before and after a show.

[roundhouse]

I had a home layout many moons ago but since the early 80's they have all been exhibition layouts, often bigger than I could set up a home inside. At one time we were doing around 22 shows a year with a few different layouts, some local but quite a few an overnights stay away. 

Yes, it gets you in free to shows but the layouts cost way more to build than the show entry prices. We also end up bringing back more modelling items than we left home with. I do remember that at Wigan some years back, a number of us came back with at least one Bachmann 4CEP each and that was an issue getting into the car aswell as the layout, overnight bags etc. for the trip home.

 

I would like to have a home layout but there is no space for one with all the exhibition layouts. However I do have a test track for N and OO scale in the shed.

[Rich_F]

2 hours ago, MarcD said:

I build micro layouts but I very rarely operate them at home, even though they are very quick to set up. I built the first one as a bit of a display area for my wagon kits thinking I could drag it round the circuit. I'm now have two under construction.

Marc

 

Similarly I have an obsession with creating tiny micro layouts. For me 80-85% of the fun is planning & building them rather than operating. I have no permanent home layout, just my current US HO & OO shunting micros on the top of my drawers in my apartment. Lots of fun to whip out an 80 cm micro shelf with a funky trackplan for 60 minutes & hide it away again. 

 

The last decent size permanent layout I had was when I was a kid in my parents' garage. 

 

I'd love to build a micro to an exhibitable standard but that will take some practice! 😁

[298]

I used to say that exhibition layouts should get a discount on materials because they're effectively free advertising for manufacturers. However, I'm still finding it the case that there are too many layouts where the final effect isn't as great as the sum of parts for quite a few reasons. I do work with the best productivity when against a deadline 

 

I'm sure @TEAMYAKIMA has written before about something I can empathise with, ie getting invites to shows. Too far away, weekend that always clashes with something else, operators not available, and bad experiences beforehand are some of the reasons I've heard, even then assuming you're going to pick up invites. I'd say from recent experience over 70% of the invites are from friends or acquaintances who know what I'll have exhibitable in the future, 20% from enquiries for details at shows, and the rest from what has been seen on the media, such as a thread on here, eLayout listings, or from a show review video. 

 

I have been tempted to break with convention and ask a show organiser directly to attend specific events but don't like doing so as from experience the more someone is asking, the worse the layout is. 

[steve1]

Not odd at all to my way of thinking Paul. @TEAMYAKIMA

 

My first layout in the early 1980s was a home one but it didn’t last long. How, the dozen or so I have built since have all been small or micro exhibition type.

 

No desire at all for a permanent home layout. I can always run one of the others if I feel like a session. Best of both worlds!

 

steve

Edited May 15, 2023 by steve1

[Phatbob]

In the words of Sir Tom Jones, it's not unusual.  I know plenty of modellers who build layouts specifically for exhibition who've never built a layout for use only at home.  That includes myself.  At the moment there are four exhibition layouts packed-up for storage in my junk room, all of which are too large to set-up at home!

[33C]

I built a "layout" in my biggest cupboard, 7' × 3'. Double track oval with a dock area at one end, half relief station to one side. But, since discovering so many amazing railways, gauges, rolling stock and locomotives that have existed around the world, it is used mainly as a test track for my many "experiments! The pressure is off and the mind has free rein. My audience is here and online and the feedback I get, sends me off down another path. I have a finite layout in mind and storage for my expanding EMU collection,  but right now I'm really enjoying myself with the weird and wonderful prototypes which actually existed and trying to model them unconventionally.....

Edited May 15, 2023 by 33C
Added letter.

[The Johnster]

A cause might be that the sort of layout you want requires more than one operator to show it’s full potential, and large complex layouts need almost as many operators as the real thing.  So, if the layout is not to be exhibited, it can only be run on operating days when all your mates come around, and there’s always a new boy who has to be trained up.  This is fine for many people, Pete Waterman and Tony Wright come to mind, but it’s not for everybody and certainly not for me!

 

My current layout is a fairly simple BLT apart from the addition of the colliery, and is a fairly intense thing to operate to real time, and as it represents a terminus in a network of largely single track branches on which traffic was more intense the closer you got to Tondu, keeping to the timetable in order to take your allotted path further down the valley is essential; a delay  to a southbound train at Brynmenyn will knock the timetable back over three branches for the rest of the day!.  I enjoy this form of operating, against the clock to the rules at realistic speeds, but can see why it is not for everyone.  
 

But it limits the size and complexity of layouts I’d want for home use as a lone wolf operator to ‘not much more that the one I’ve got’.  This realisation has led me to the conclusion is that my ‘lottery layout’ is pretty much the same trackplan, but with the ability to handle coal trains of a more credible length; any more needs automation, which would be very complex for a terminus layout.  
 

Much as I enjoy them at shows and on video, I would not be satisfied with a ‘watch the trains go by’ setup, not enough involvement for me.  I wonder how many of those who do not have room at home for their dream layout at home exhibit or become involved in club projects do so for this reason.  There was certainly a time in my modelling life when a single line BLT would not have cut my mustard, leading to a  repeated string of failures base on small double-track main line terminuses that were too busy for me to operate without stress or abandoning the real-time principle, which in my mind equates to unstructured and unrealistic train set operation which I won’t allow myself to put up with.  Possibly this viewpoint is ‘informed’ by my having worked on the real railway; it may look as if nothing is happening, but I know that the guard is performing a brake continuity test, or the shunter has to walk from his last coupling-up to a set of points that need changing 50 yards away, and the driver knows there is no point in rushing about then having to wait for him to catch up.  I know that the driver has been given the token and the board is off, but he’s got to walk from the signal box to the loco. 
 

I greatly enjoy this largely imaginary part of the life of a Valleys colliery branch, along with the equally imaginary issues; goods clerk ringing farmer up to come down and clear a feed delivery from a van on the mileage road that’s been there a week enjoying the cheap storage costs of demurrage, colliery manager complaining about lack of empties while he finds it convenient to fill his yard with loaded wagons to fill orders easily, Control asking for any shocvans on hand, that sort of thing, the day-to-day things that crop up on a real railway, only small and in the 1950s.  You can’t exhibit this; it happens in your head!

 

There is no set right way to build, use, operate, or exhibit a model railway; we each gravitate towards the method that suits us best individually, and we each have our own preferences that motivate this gravitation, but these preferences may change over time.  It’s a highly complex situation, which is what makes TEAMYAKIMA’s question such a good one!  He’s not odd, and neither are you, probably; I’m possibly a bit weird, but can pass for normal in a crowd!

 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by The Johnster

[PhilH]

What would appear to be even more odd is that I enjoy building layouts, but don’t seem to have the urge to operate them.

[t-b-g]

I enjoy building layouts and I enjoy operating them but my last layout that was set up permanently at home was built with my Dad when I still lived at home.

 

When I got my own place, I never had room for a layout that would be operationally satisfying so i built a succession of exhibition layouts.

 

Then the opportunity to have Buckingham arose and a shed was built to house it.

 

So now I get the best of both worlds. I still exhibit my own layouts but there is what I regard as the best layout to operate that has ever been built ready for a running session any time I fancy it.

 

It tends to get run once a week when one or two friends come round. I have run it "solo" especially during lockdown but it is much more enjoyable with a team of two or three. So if I am alone, I prefer building things. If I am with friends, I am happy either building things or "playing trains". With people here running the layout, several hours can pass by in a flash.

[roundhouse]

7 hours ago, 298 said:

 

I'm sure @TEAMYAKIMA has written before about something I can empathise with, ie getting invites to shows. Too far away, weekend that always clashes with something else, operators not available, and bad experiences beforehand are some of the reasons I've heard, even then assuming you're going to pick up invites. I'd say from recent experience over 70% of the invites are from friends or acquaintances who know what I'll have exhibitable in the future, 20% from enquiries for details at shows, and the rest from what has been seen on the media, such as a thread on here, eLayout listings, or from a show review video. 

 

Very much agree. Since the pandemic the number of shows that we would get follow up invites has really reduced mainly due to those shows no longer taking place or a change in the person selecting the layouts.

 

I am also finding that there are far fewer invites that originate through this forum than in the past. I tend to get a fair few through Facebook these days.

 

I am also reluctant to tout invites as they rarely produce such unless I am already known by the them.

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, PhilH said:

What would appear to be even more odd is that I enjoy building layouts, but don’t seem to have the urge to operate them.

 

Not odd at all IMHO, Phil.  There is huge pleasure and satisfaction to be gained from the building process, and there is no reason why everybody has to be interested at all in operating the layouts, the building process being the entire reason for being involved in the hobby for many people.  Build a layout, test run it, then on to the next one...

[Jeff Smith]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

 

Not odd at all IMHO, Phil.  There is huge pleasure and satisfaction to be gained from the building process, and there is no reason why everybody has to be interested at all in operating the layouts, the building process being the entire reason for being involved in the hobby for many people.  Build a layout, test run it, then on to the next one...

I absolutely have to agree.  The problem then is what to do with all the layouts here in the US.  I did sell the one US based one but both the others are British, P4 and O-16.5......

[Jason T]

I have so far built two ‘serious’ layouts with a third just beginning. Of these, the first was very much a home layout, the second is an exhibition layout that could easily be operated at home due to it’s sit and the proposed one will be exhibition only.

 

At one point, I would have argued that for me, having a home layout or one that could be operated at home was where my interest sat but have realised as time has passed that I am far more interested in making rather than playing. I love operating layouts at exhibitions and have been privileged enough to do so on some well known and very well respected layouts, as well as the one a friend and I built but at home, I would much rather be tinkering or constructing.

 

 I noticed this with my home layout. I would start operating/playing but would invariably find myself at the workbench in under 30 minutes. As such, for me, an exhibition layout makes more sense as I get to create, share my creations with others and have set times when I have to operate (and thoroughly enjoy those times).

[Chris M]

Railway modelling covers a broad spectrum and each one of us does our own thing. I don’t think it the least bit odd to build layouts only for exhibitions. The only aspect of the hobby I find a bit odd is the collectors who never run the locos in their collection. If that’s what makes folk happy then it’s fine. 
 

I feel quite differently to the OP about watching trains go by on my layout at home. I never seem to tire of watching a procession of different trains either rolling by or stopping at the station and then continuing. At exhibitions with the same layout I enjoy spending the whole day running trains and again watching them go by, albeit from the back rather than the front of the layout. That possibly makes me a little odd.

 

There does seem to be a trend where maybe the middle sized exhibitions are starting to disappear. There are still plenty of very small shows but there doesn’t seem to be so many that are big enough to be worth travelling a distance to see. I seem to do ok for invites - 1 in 2021 (not long after the layout was complete) and 5 successful shows in 2022. I have two planned for later this year and 1 for 2024. Bearing in mind this layout needs a van for transport I reckon that’s not bad.it is of course unlikely to go to any of the very small shows due to the cost of hiring a van.

[Clive Mortimore]

On 14/05/2023 at 19:03, TEAMYAKIMA said:

I was musing this afternoon and I thought where better to muse than on RMweb. It suddenly occurred to me that over the last 50 odd years I've built six personal 'exhibition-only' layouts and worked on several other ones, but I've never been interested in having a home layout. Yes, I set-up and test my 'exhibition-only' layouts at home, but my attitude is that once I've proved that it works reliably, that's it.  Or putting it another way, once I know that a particular loco runs successfully with a particular rake of stock on a particular section of track, what's the point of repeating that move - without an audience!

 

I don't decry home layouts, it's just that I have absolutely no interest in them - maybe my thinking is that having an exhibition layout is a way of getting into shows for nothing 😀

 

Am I unique? Am I odd?

Hi Paul

 

Thankfully we have a diverse hobby where there are few rules, the compulsory bus on the bridge being one. Until our last house move I had only built exhibition layouts and been involved in building club exhibition layouts.

 

I now have a home layout I find very satisfying to operate with many repeated moves -without an audience!   😉

 

There is no wrong or right type of layout, the right one is the one you enjoy. It is a hobby we do for fun.

 

Oh, please mister
Just leave me alone
I'm only
Lookin' for fun
Lookin' for fun
F, U, N

 

  

[F-UnitMad]

16 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

There is no wrong or right type of layout, the right one is the one you enjoy. It is a hobby we do for fun.

Amen!! Nail + head = hit!!! 👍👍👍

[AndrueC]

19 hours ago, PhilH said:

What would appear to be even more odd is that I enjoy building layouts, but don’t seem to have the urge to operate them.

Oh I don't think you're alone in that. I've always said that the reason I wanted a roundy-roundy was so that I could watch the trains without having to do anything myself. Eventually my layout will be fully computer controlled then I can watch a random/programmed timetable and occasionally insert my own choice.

 

But I definitely get more fun and interest out of the construction side of things. The trains and rails are really just an excuse to create scenery for me :)