In this post I want to talk about design considerations that are influenced by time and money.
Design considerations as influenced by - time
You can dream about wanting a big layout all you want but if you don't have time to build it do you have the money to buy it from a professional builder? Right now I have the time and the space but not the money or the energy. Energy will hopefully improve a lot in the coming year but if it does then I will also get back to work and hopefully full time again. That means a lot less time for activities like model railroading considering that full time means 36-40 hours PLUS travel time. The last time I worked it was 40 hours a week plus 20-30 hours of travel time to wherever my job took me that day. It also took me to a burnout as I had been ignoring a persistent problem. I don't know if I would have ended up in the same place if I hadn't ignored that problem for so long.
Another way of looking at time is that over time things change including the things that interest you. Back in 2008 I enthousiastically dove into the world of Fremo americaN, modular railroading in N scale following North American prototypes. By 2010 I had build a number of modules but for some reason or another they failed. Including on technical grounds due to problems while transporting them to the 2010 Fremo Autumn meeting in Zuidbroek here in the Netherlands. My skills were not equal to acorns on a bicycle path and small blocks used as pavement for sidewalks. Maybe if I had been given time I could have repaired it and that could have made a positive contribution to my life which was going down the drain very fast at that point in time as it turned out. Now my interests have changed to the point that I no longer want to build modules whose theme is invented but I do want to build modules that follow a specific prototype.
Design considerations as influenced by - money
Do you, or rather I, have the money to chase the dream of building a home layout? It ties up a lot of money, some of it (like my chosen mode of benchwork) up front. Much more so than modules do. And independent of the fact if you build, in the end, only one level or multiple levels. Right now money is still scarce. It will get better in a few months but I must still limit myself. Can I maintain momentum? This has proven to be difficult in the past.
Do you, or rather I, have the money to chase the dream of building a home layout? It ties up a lot of money, some of it (like my chosen mode of benchwork) up front. Much more so than modules do. And independent of the fact if you build, in the end, only one level or multiple levels. Right now money is still scarce. It will get better in a few months but I must still limit myself. Can I maintain momentum? This has proven to be difficult in the past.
Then again, the more money you have the more things you tend to buy. Even things that don't fit into the choosen theme. More levels do tend to lead to more locomotives and cars and you need to send them someplace which then needs to be bigger too. Which was the reason in the first place to finally get going with modules.
In the restraint the master is revealed.
I don't necessarily want a large layout, just one that satisfies my needs and that can be completed in a reasonable amount of time, energy and not too much money. Restrictions with regard to theme can definitely help here yet every time I get a grip on this I also get back to dreaming. Something I'm very good at...
And round and round we spin, with feet of lead and wings of tin...
I don't necessarily want a large layout, just one that satisfies my needs and that can be completed in a reasonable amount of time, energy and not too much money. Restrictions with regard to theme can definitely help here yet every time I get a grip on this I also get back to dreaming. Something I'm very good at...
And round and round we spin, with feet of lead and wings of tin...
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