Southern Pacific Switching Layout

[P5se Camelback]

... Trust me, I am not enjoying myself changing my mind alot , that's why I thought of building a timesaver, that way I could just run trains without having to build a very good layout. I'm sorry I keep changing my mind so much, it's not that I don't appreciate your advice, it's just that I get overconfident in my abilities when I have a layout idea, I look at a track-plan (Or another layout) and think to my self "I can do something like that!" but whenever I actually think about it most things are way beyond my ability. I need an Idiot-proof layout to build and hopefully a timesaver will be just that.

Somewhere on this great forum, I posted a piece about trackwork.

In that post I meant what I said ... and in a nut shell, that was ...

Time spent carefully laying track is time well-spent. I don't remember the exact words that I used, but the sentiment is there!

If you've decided to use "snap-track" ... sectional track ... because you think it will go down quicker and you will get to running trains quicker, you will be a disappointed young man! If you don't take the same amount of time to insure your trackwork is sound, including dealing with many more track joints (opportunities for derailments,) you will be plagued with trains that stutter along and derail constantly and your small quickly-built layout will become a major source of frustration!

Why do I say that? Because I was sixteen once! I built my first "not-temporarily-laid-out-on-the-carpet" layout on a 4x8 sheet of green painted 1/4" plywood sitting on saw horses, using used brass-railed sectional track, put down quickly to get to see trains running. It was the source of constant frustration. It seemed that no matter what I did, I was still faced with constant derailments. I finally gave up and abandoned the hobby of model railroading until after I had finished high school, done four years in the Army and four years in college (art school.)

At that point, older, wiser, willing to listen to the advice of others who had more experience, I resumed my interest in the hobby by hand-laying a 34” section of Code 70 track as part of a series of Model Railroad Clinics that I put on as the manager of a brand new hobby shop as a tool to build business. I had never done it before. I read several articles in Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman, laid a three inch test piece at home and then did the whole thing in front of a group of a dozen or so kids and adults.

Why did I do it that way? Because I believed I could do it … I had self confidence. When it was completed, I used it as a display track inside one of the store’s glass cases to showcase a new piece of brass or some newly released model.

I still have it … thirty-six years later ...




There’s no reason that you can’t do any of the things that you see any of the rest of us do on this forum. Don’t expect to do is as well as we do right away -- we’ve been doing it for a while! But you can do it! And the more you do it, the better you will become at it, whatever it is. Practice makes perfect, as the saying goes.

… think to my self "I can do something like that!" but whenever I actually think about it most things are way beyond my ability. I need an Idiot-proof layout to build and hopefully a timesaver will be just that.

You can do it, but you will never know what your ability level is if you continue to have a defeatist attitude and just think about whether or not you have the ability to do things without actually doing anything! You must leave that behind! You must also commit to a “plan” (no matter what it is, at this point) and BUILD it! You will never progress until you get some experience building a layout. In doing so, you will experience successes, and they will make you feel good. You will also experience failures. Do not let these depress you; rather treat them as learning experiences! Before you just tear it out in anger and frustration, study what happened … WHY that did not turn out to be all that successful? Analyze it. Determine what needs to happen to fix to what is giving you trouble.

Track gauge, evenness, proper gapping … all of these things are critical to good reliable track. Take your time, be careful, check and double check your track. Then run trains on it for a couple days or a couple of weeks (even better) to identify any potential problems. Fix any problems you identify. Run more test trains.

Only when you are totally certain that your track is “bullet-proof” should you even think in passing of ballasting or adding any scenery! That stuff just gets in the way when you need to fix problem trackage.

I write all of this because I truly want to see you succeed. Your flitting around from one idea to another … mountains, industrial, around in circles, laid out in a straight line, around the wall of your room … reading all of this frustrates the “Ache Ee double Hockey Sticks” out of me (and probably several other’s on this forum as well!)

So settle down, focus, and begin building.

… AND TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS!

EDIT: Added "possession time" to photo descriptor