Hey Everyone!!


MikeyBones

New Member
Just moved into my new place! Ready to start layout. Quick take....I love trains, might be strange to say that on here (DUH!) I'll explain. I was told buy quality trains, stock, track....not cheap sets....I did.
I love passenger equipment, from Amtrak back to the Super Chief. I own enough Amtrak to make any train in the country. I also own several "Name trains"
My problem....What's the best way to model the "Broadway Limited" a GS-4 pulled Daylight and Amtrak's "Empire Builder" on the same layout.

My area is 12' by 24' plenty of room for a nice size passenger station and..........

Any suggestions??
Thanks
Mike.
 
My problem....What's the best way to model the "Broadway Limited" a GS-4 pulled Daylight and Amtrak's "Empire Builder" on the same layout.

My area is 12' by 24' plenty of room for a nice size passenger station and..........

Any suggestions??

First of all, welcome to the forum! Thank you for joining, glad that you found us. Have a look around, post some photos and if you have any technical questions, let me know. We're just moved to a new server, so things are running faster than ever.

As for your question...

Option 1) The simple approach. It's my model railroad, and I'll do whatever I want. If that means having the Broadway Limited take the siding for the Southern Pacific Daylight, so be it! You can play it off as them being historical excursions, or you can simply say "I don't care, I just want to enjoy my trains". Either way works. Hikers like to say "Hike your own hike" meaning you don't have to do what everyone else does. The same applies here.

Option 2) Create a "generic" scene with a few interchangeable elements. Put in some staging tracks and create a scene with some gently rolling hills. Could be Pennsylvania, could be west of Chicago, could be California. Granted, the mountains look different in those places, but rolling hills are rolling hills. Create a station scene for a moderate sized town. Use a generic depot. Smaller depots tend to be railroad specific, and easily recognizable. But you say you have some room for a nice sized station.

Walther's Union Depot would fit the bill perfectly. It could be in any small city. (I'm sure that's why they picked the design) and any era, right up to modern times.

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Build that and a classic town and you have a generic stage to run you trains on. Run PRR one week and Southern Pacific the next.

Want to go "above and beyond" create some signs you can easily swap out for the station, and have a few structures that sit on pads you remove and replace. The classic filling station becomes a 7-11 and the old school drive up burger place becomes a McDonalds. Change out the cars and maybe a billboard or two, and you've established the era.

By thinking of the railroad as a stage set, and making it generic, you can do a wide variety of trains and eras.
 
Hi Mike, welcome. All railroads lead to Chicago so if the SP train was the Golden State, you could have the Empire Builder, Broadway Limited and Golden State all meet there. I'm not familiar with how the railroads interchanged there but I know those three trains all ended up in Chicago. I think that or add another 1000 sq ft. Maybe 2000. I also agree with Bob, the layout is the set and trains the actors. With that idea, the show depends on what is playing this week.

A movement in model railroading lately is called TOMA, The One Module Approach, the idea being you break up the layout construction into manageable modules, taking each to some level of completion before tackling the rest. Temporary staging can fill in for unbuilt sections. It can keep you from being overwhelmed or stuck on one step you find more difficult. Joe Fugate is a big proponent of this type of construction and is rebuilding his Siskiyou Lines layout in this manner.
 
A movement in model railroading lately is called TOMA, The One Module Approach, the idea being you break up the layout construction into manageable modules, taking each to some level of completion before tackling the rest. Temporary staging can fill in for unbuilt sections. It can keep you from being overwhelmed or stuck on one step you find more difficult. Joe Fugate is a big proponent of this type of construction and is rebuilding his Siskiyou Lines layout in this manner.

Well, it may be new to some folks, but I was doing it back in 1981. I was a member of a local modular railroad club. I had a 30" x 8' module in my 2 bedroom apartment. I used a 2' x 4' segment on each end for the turnback loop, and an 8' board across the back for track on the back side. It looked like a dang slot car track, but it let me run trains.

Fun story to go with that. Moved to a new town and was apartment hunting. I told the manager I had to have at least 12' in one of the bedrooms. We look at the apartment. I measure from wall to wall. 11 feet 6 inches. Nope, sorry, won't work. "You're seriously going to pass on the place because it's six inches too narrow?" "Yes, yes I am..." The look on her face was pretty good. Guessing she told somebody "you wouldn't believe my day... this idiot shows up with a tape measure..."
 
Hi, Mike, welcome. If your SP train was the Golden State, it, the Empire Builder and Broadway Limited could all meet in Chicago. I'm not sure how the railroads interchanged there but those three trains did all go to Chicago. Bob also has a good plan, the layout is the stage and trains the actors. With that approach the show can change whenever you want. I think some sort of terminal will make good use of your space, at speed passenger trains need lots of track. Even at a paltry 60mph, that is 60 ft of layout per minute. East out of Arcadia, CA on their second district, the ATSF ran 100mph or 100 ft of layout per minute. At that rate, even the giant La Mesa club's main line would take only 16 minutes end to end.

A current movement in layout construction is called TOMA, The One Module Approach. The layout is divided up into manageable sections and completed one module at a time. That way, there is obvious progress, trains can run sooner, the builder doesn't have to do one task for a long time, etc. Joe Fugate is a big proponent of the idea and is rebuilding his Siskiyou Lines in this manner.

edit: My post above disappeared half way through typing so retyped and posted and found the original already here. Weird.
 
edit: My post above disappeared half way through typing so retyped and posted and found the original already here. Weird.

Sorry to hear that! Sounds like you may have gotten disconnected momentarily. That happens on occasion, especially these days with so many people at home and trying to surf the web. If you're watching a movie, it gets pixelated or may stop. Here, the forum can lose track of where you were. Sorry about that.
 
edit: My post above disappeared half way through typing so retyped and posted and found the original already here. Weird.
In this reply box, the forum seems to retain what you have written, at least for a time, until you stop, or even now it would appear, when it stops you and when you go to the last post in the thread, there it is in the reply box beneath, from where you can then continue. I have found that this still occurs even if you change your mind and backspace it off. It then requires 2 or 3 more backspacings to clear it. Maybe the Cancel button is in the preview part. Must have a look next time. Nope, none there either.
 
In this reply box, the forum seems to retain what you have written, at least for a time, until you stop, or even now it would appear, when it stops you and when you go to the last post in the thread, there it is in the reply box beneath, from where you can then continue. I have found that this still occurs even if you change your mind and backspace it off. It then requires 2 or 3 more backspacings to clear it. Maybe the Cancel button is in the preview part. Must have a look next time. Nope, none there either.

That's a feature, not a bug. :) That way if you get disconnected due to network issues, you don't lose everything.
 
Fun story to go with that. Moved to a new town and was apartment hunting. I told the manager I had to have at least 12' in one of the bedrooms. We look at the apartment. I measure from wall to wall. 11 feet 6 inches. Nope, sorry, won't work. "You're seriously going to pass on the place because it's six inches too narrow?" "Yes, yes I am..." The look on her face was pretty good. Guessing she told somebody "you wouldn't believe my day... this idiot shows up with a tape measure..."
I'll see your funny story, and raise it, though not model train related.

Many years ago, I was in an accident in which my back was broken. I can perform most tasks, but sometimes I find I can't lie down without being in a lot of pain. Our couch was ready to fall apart, so off sofa hunting we went. I finally found one at a home furniture store that had two recliners, as well as being long enough I could lie down on it if I had to. The salesperson thought I was nuts, and said so, in so many words, when one of the things I did was lie down across a couch to see if it was suitable.
 



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