ty

Interesting to see what others do, I wish I had your room and ambition. (I admit to some envy ..)

Train Building

It is a long story.  The trains got moved out of the house when half of my 4 children and 2 grand children moved in due to circumstances.  The large room that I had in the house reverted back to being a bedroom and office and the layout had no home.  However, we were also remodeling the last part of the kitchen in 2011 so I got approval from my chief of staff (aka wife) to go ahead with a separate building for the trains.  The building is a custom sized Tuff Shed on a concrete foundation.  My son and I insulated and sheet rocked the building plus I had an electrician do the rough-in electrical work and an HVAC contractor install the mini-split system.  Everything was done on a budget. The train portion of the building (inside dimensions) is 15'4" W x 24'11" L (give or take).  There is also a tool storage area that is the same width and 10' L.  That section is insulated but is not heated/cooled.

This never would have happened without having a wife that understands and appreciates the model railroading hobby.

Train Building

Similar sort of story here, long story short, I placed a 6m x 3m (20ft x 10ft)  kit garage on a 20ft flat deck container base. The idea being that if we (ever) shifted the building can be picked up and shifted as well. Although over width for our roads, (New Zealand) and with the guttering removed it is able to be transported with the usual wide load signs and flags etc, but does not require a Pilot crew. (at considerable extra cost). I built every thing myself including the fitting of electrical gear and had an registered electrician finally plug it in, test and certify. By no means as big as your room but I'm happy.

Then, as circumstance has it, family started moving back in then we found it was time to upsize. Another long story short, the container was eventually picked up and transported across town to its new resting place. Now I can carry on where I left off.

My CEO is also very understanding and supportive of my little venture.

PS, I'm still in the planning stages and bench work is yet to be started but I'm on the case. I into NZR in Sn(3.5)

Being loaded at the old place....

And plonked in the new place.

Daryl.

I like your idea Daryl!!

Hi Daryl

I'm also in NZ and facing the problem of moving soon. My current shed will most likely stay behind when we move late this year. I have been toying with a 40' container as a Railroad room for a long time but have finally decided that I could best cope with a 20' unit. I was happy to work with the 7'8" width restriction and never thought of going that bit wider. For Sn3.5 you will need the extra width for curvature, especially if you run a K Class. (My brother-in-law used to run NZR stock on his layout with 36" plus radius and everything ran beautifully except the Ka which would not take the S curve. His Ja would run only on the outer radius passing loops)

I would be interested in seeing more of how you constructed your space. (I'm located in Auckland) BTW, if you are heading to AMRA this weekend look out for me.

Regards

Robert

Looks like the  classic 

That looks to be a massive layout you have got there

Looks like the  classic  skyline garage  there

Robert. Do you know if any vendors are going to AMRA?  Sorry to highjack  thread

Hi Hobbes (yes, sorry to Hijack thread)

Hi Hobbes

Yes, there will be some vendors at AMRA - I'll start a new thread now regarding AMRA and give this one back.

Thanks

Train Building

Looks like I'm not the only one that had family move back in and the layout had to find a new home.  This is the building that I have for my layout.

Sacrifices are made....

We bought our first home in 2001. It was a front to back split and the basement was half of the space we had in our condo. When I asked where I was going to put my train layout, I saw the expression on her face, so I compromised and built a smaller one. Fast forward to 2005, and I read the article about how you can build your home around your train layout. Taking that idea, I asked if I can build a full basement behind the current one. CDO (chief decision officer aka the wife) agreed. However, her girlfriend told her if you do that, what is that room worth when you go to sell the place (just a huge safety shelter). That being said, she told her to add another room off the back of our house, which we did. I now have a 20'x20' room with a two level layout in HO scale..never looked back!!

Homes for Model Railroads

We don't usually have basements here in Texas so a room (large if possible) in the house or an outbuilding is the way to go.  This past Tuesday, I visited two HO layouts west of San Antonio, one was housed on the second floor of a large metal building.  The layout has a middle entry staircase and fills a 50 x 50 area with three levels. It is Larry Smith's layout which can be seen on YouTube,

The other layout was in a rather large room attached to the garage.  It looks like it was originally built as a mother-in-law suite.  I believe it was about 25 x 25 and on a single level.  This is one of the pictures of the inside of the room. The owner is on the far left in the blue shirt and Larry is in the green shirt on the right.

It was a fun day to see other layouts and where they have homes.