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i assume a more realistic layout will consider the buildings and scenery (hills) it will have, placing and spacing track to leave sufficient room for the them to avoid crowding. so i am considering what easy to obtain structures i would initially, but then possibly plan on replacing with scratch-built ones later. what i'm worried about is leaving enough for the initial structure but finding out that a more realistic one would require more space.
if you've had this problem, what would have done differently? what can i do (learn) now to avoid this problem?
I try to make the buildings fit the track work, sort of like the real thing. There are times when I went the other way but was careful not to make it look that way.
Like Larry pointed out, I don't glue or ballast track until I've tried running or rearranging first.
My dad and I tried to come up with an idea when we stated building ours as far as what buildings where and such though we've changed it a bunch now and have to build buildings to fit the track plan we have.
Another thing, I hardly ever start a layout w/out having most of my buildings already built. Even if you do a scratchbuilt project you probably already know what you need in structures to model what you want. I've carried over buildings from former layouts because I knew what I was going to do in the way of structures & U can always add some later. I have a large layout, but, I always manage to find a place for a building that comes out later in kit form. I think a few more people on this forum does the same thing. Sometimes a layout gets cluttered w/a lot of unwanted buildings that we had on hand to just get started. If you pretty much know your plan of attack then build what you need before laying track & build the layout around your structures. Like I said, "don't glue your track" because someplace down the line it's easy to move that rail to make room for that ""Structure".
Today, I threw away 4 real old buildings to make room for another skyscraper. These buildings had been used on 4 diff. layouts over a 20 yr. period.
When I was planning my current layout, I worked on the yatck plan first.
It is easy to modify a building. Adjusting track is harder.
Don't worry about gluing track, that is how I do it, there have been two sections I needed to adjust, but it was simple since I used white glue and it is water soluable. Wet the track and cork and slip a [utty knife between them and the track comes off nicely.
Besides, gluing is easier on your fingers and faster to do. I always had problems with the pliers and track spike method.
