With a great deal of thought & comiserating, I'm rippin' the layout up & starting anew. I was so excited & inspired to see the Beer Line sectional layout at the start of this year in Model Railroader that it was a revelation in new ideas.
When I think about all the time & effort that was stuck into the layout so far it is depressing to think about tearing things apart. Yet, equally depressing for me is the thought that if in the future should we decide to move to a different house I don't want to face the thought of yet another 1/2 finished layout just being ripped apart & all the effort to be for naught. So, the new design will be a sectional w/ around the wall shelves as well. The sections will be movable. One of the most important things for me is to get some real distance for the passenger trains to travel. I wanted a sense that you were really going somewhere. The scenes that I have currently created are too deep & suck up a lot of space.
I have 1 section completed, that is the framework/benchwork. The sections will be 8' long x 32" wide. Each section will have a scene on each side so that will make the depth of the scene about 15".
Now for the scary part... I'm also going to make these sections double decked. The top section will be 24" wide x 8' long. Did I mention the sections are on wheels as well? Well they are. Not that they will be moved a lot but if they do, it should be easy to. The shelf sections will be roughly 12-18" deep. To be able to use the upper deck section I will need to have a helix. I think I will be purchasing one of those rather than torturing myself trying to build one myself. I'm also going to try to photograph the entire project. So, stay tuned & lets so how this works out.
Here are some photos; http://picasaweb.google.com/jgotts1/NewSectionalLayout
When I think about all the time & effort that was stuck into the layout so far it is depressing to think about tearing things apart. Yet, equally depressing for me is the thought that if in the future should we decide to move to a different house I don't want to face the thought of yet another 1/2 finished layout just being ripped apart & all the effort to be for naught. So, the new design will be a sectional w/ around the wall shelves as well. The sections will be movable. One of the most important things for me is to get some real distance for the passenger trains to travel. I wanted a sense that you were really going somewhere. The scenes that I have currently created are too deep & suck up a lot of space.
I have 1 section completed, that is the framework/benchwork. The sections will be 8' long x 32" wide. Each section will have a scene on each side so that will make the depth of the scene about 15".
Now for the scary part... I'm also going to make these sections double decked. The top section will be 24" wide x 8' long. Did I mention the sections are on wheels as well? Well they are. Not that they will be moved a lot but if they do, it should be easy to. The shelf sections will be roughly 12-18" deep. To be able to use the upper deck section I will need to have a helix. I think I will be purchasing one of those rather than torturing myself trying to build one myself. I'm also going to try to photograph the entire project. So, stay tuned & lets so how this works out.
Here are some photos; http://picasaweb.google.com/jgotts1/NewSectionalLayout
