Petermac's Railway

Great bit of kit bashing Peter. A great way to fill an awkward space.

I like that building but four floors of interior detailng... You made the right decision, Peter.

It's a big building Peter, must have taken you ages.

Agree about the windows, they look great as they are.

 





Ed

Good Heavens - is it nearly a year since I added anything to my layout thread ……………………..

There won't be much more added in the future - we're moving house (yet again after only 7 years) so Maxmill must be dismantled.

SHMBO has decided that this place is too big and is becoming too difficult to cope with so we're downsizing whilst we're still "young enough" to cope with a move and all that entails plus any possible refurbishments to do in whatever we buy next.  Without being morbid, we probably don't have much more than 10 years left and the years seem to fly by at a rate of knots.  In railway modelling terms, I seem to have achieved very little in the 6 years since Maxmill 2 started and half of it was already built so I'll have to get a move on with Maxmill 3 !!!

Good luck with the move Peter, I don't envy you one bit !

All the best in your quest to downsize.
Just make sure you upsize the train room.

Hello Peter and of course Liz,

The bride and I completely understand your situation, as evidenced by our upcomming house move. We are in a similar situation as our buildings and gardens are becomming tiring to maintaun as we get older, even with regular gardening help, so we are moving elsewhere in the village to a similar sized house, but no gites or anciallry buildings. Phew! Completion will be in July and we have some work to do with it, but the huge vehicle assessible basment provides adequate space for the railway . . . phew again ! Fortunately, the new pad is 150 years younger the the current one.

This will realistically be our last move and I'm actually looking forward to some home refurbishment, then enjoying doing what does us good!

All possible good fortune to you both,

Bill

Like John said - make sure your upsize the train room. Is it possible to move and re-erect your current layout or do you have to start all ver again. I have moved Wombat Creek twice. We were living in rentals, so I knew the layout had to be designed to be sectioned and moved.

Thanks for the good luck wishes guys - both needed and appreciated !!

I commented on your thread Bill before reading your post here so you've now answered my questions - almost a mirror image of our plans although we haven't bought anything else yet.  A suitably large train room is an absolute must - I want to revert to the sort of layout I had with Maxmill 1 - long mainline trains so, whilst I'm pleased I didn't sell what I had, I'm a bit peed off having depleted my pension on smaller tank engines more suited to the current (now ex) layout.

To answer you Claus, no it's not possible, or desirable to move the current layout.  I could, if desired, hire a crane and take it all with me as it's in a portable office unit (a Portakabin type unit to Europeans) but in fact, I don't want to.

One learns new things with every layout one builds and my main lesson with Maxmill 2 is that it's too close to the ground !!  It couldn't be any higher because of the unit windows but it is too low.  I find it extremely difficult working under the baseboards to say nothing of time consuming !  Difficult because my muscles have become extremely disobedient over the years and time consuming because, whilst it takes just a few seconds to make a connection, it takes 10 minutes to get down there and at least 20 more to get upright again !!  Once down there, I usually realise I've left a screwdriver on the bench top !!

Hope all goes well for you both and that Maxmill 3 can start sooner rather than later. I have decided not to build a small layout here in Spain but keep the Laser cutter and 3D printer here. I can't cope with layout building tools etc in two places, the piece or tool you want always seems to be in the other place,

Well Peter, so far I have resisted moving & if I did, I think the railways would be a thing of the past.  I am fortunate in that my children help out with gardening & the like.
I do have a lot of mates with layouts that I operate on each month - outside of my two a month, I do at least 5 other per month plus club duties being the Sparky in building a new large 0 scale beast   plus help out on two other layouts in wiring.
Sol

I'd love to have some "mates" to play trains with but railway modelling doesn't seem popular in this part of France Sol - in fact, I don't think modelling of any kind is popular so, if I want to model, it's on my lonesome ……..

We used to have 4 model shops within a 70 mile radius of us - that includes Bordeaux - all except 1 have closed and the 1 remaining one (in Bordeaux) does very little if anything on railways.

Having said that, as I model UK outline, most of my stuff has to come from there anyway and since Brexit, delivery costs have gone through the roof.

Fortunately, I have plenty of rolling stock and enough locos to keep me happy for a year or so.  Everything else is available, in one form or another, fairly locally.

You could always sell the lot and start again in N gauge Peter !
(Did I just say that out loud ??? )
😂

There's as much chance of that happening Matt as there is of you coming up with a decent jigsaw …………………

Petermac said

There's as much chance of that happening Matt as there is of you coming up with a decent jigsaw …………………

From “Post #292,241”, 15th June 2025, 7:31 pm

OOOOOOOoooooo.  OUCH !!! 🤣🤣🤣