Just curious, does anybody else, while out driving at night and seeing lights on in the basements of houses, wonder if there's a train layout down there? Doug
Actually, given the reality of how MRR being not as popular as it used to be, when I see basement lights, I see landlords (slumlords actually) illegally renting out basements to make a few extra bucks a month. Sorry, I grew up in NYC.
With my vision if I'm taking time to speculate on the content of the basement I'm probalby going to walk into their fence or mailbox, (don't ask me how I know). ☻
Kinda' reminds me of that Tom Hanks movie, "The 'Burbs". Those weird neighbors that have odd sounds and lights coming from the basement........ I'd love to have a basement too, where I could build a nice around the wall layout.
Basement-?? What is this basement thing you speak of - ? LOL. Here in SoCal -- they are rarer than hen's teeth. I would love to have a basement. Wolf
Here in Minnesota, it's the opposite. Very few, if any, houses WITHOUT a basement. And Kurt, you HAD to mention an around-the-walls layout. That's really what I want in my basement but, at my age and current physical capabilities, don't know if I could pull it off. Doug
Its 3 steps to get up on my front porch...and its a chore. I would swear basement stairs are well into the hundred count....or at least it would seem like it is...LOL
I've even toyed with the idea of just a 4" board around the wall in Z-scale, just enough for basic landscape and a single track on it. Endless miles of just mountain scenery, trees, a trestle over a river here and there. Nothing fancy!
Or this sort of solution, a neat idea if it prevents a fall and/or allows someone to stay in their home. I've even seen designs that are able to handle a dogleg turn in the stairs. I worry about by mother on stairs, but she takes them slowly and cautiously.
Can you fit a decoder in that thing? Better yet, an ESU Loksound. It would be ridden all day long up and down with all kinds of RR sounds!
When we bought our n ew house the No.1 selling point for me was the basement. But don't tell my wife that. She still thinks it is the 'one floor living' concept. We have a two story house with a basement but everything necessary for daily living for ourselves is on the first floor.
The sad thing is there are more Model Railroaders around us than we will be able to meet. By nature many of us tend to be introverted, still worry about others think we are playing with trains, and some may be concerned about letting it be known that we have a substantial collection that could be stolen. The demise of local brick and mortar hobby shops (due to small privately owned business factors rather than a demise of the Hobby) further hurts finding fellow enthusiasts. Look at the number of shops that carried NSR at the beginning vs. today.... It is hard to try to identify local MRs but it is worth the effort. Fixed layout clubs, NTRAK, TTRAK, FREEMO, round robin private layout builder get-together, operating groups, and (blasphemy!!!) even the local NMRA division offer opportunities for everybody to learn new skills and nudge us to do better modeling (through peer pressure as N ModUtrak puts it). Not all of the socialization possibilities will be of interest to everyone. I have schlepped my share of NTRAK modules to setups and don’t care to do that anymore....but my local NTRAK club has fellow N Scalers that makes it worthwhile to belong. I do have reservations about the long term future of the Hobby as people increasingly seem to lack patience, the ability to plan, build, exhibit intellectual curiosity, or an appreciation for history or any research. But we have a pool of existing or dormant Model Railroaders that could be “activated’. If you live in an urban or suburban area I would bet there is somebody....with the lights on in a spare bedroom, attic/bonus room or basement that loves trains. The trick is to find them! Charlie Vlk
Basements in the Tulsa area are rare, the water table is too high causing flooding. My mom and dad had a storm cellar they had to pump out every once in awhile because it leaked. Joe
Due to present circumstances (staying with my younger brother who has cerebral palsy and has lived here his whole life), I am living in the house in which I grew up. It has a full depth basement (8') so there are two sets of full stairs. There are lifts on both stairs for my brother to use. I use one of them as a dumb waiter to take things down to the deep freeze and bags of salt down to the water softener. When I was young, I practically danced down those stairs (I had trains down there then, too). Now, it is a much slower deliberate process and coming back up has gotten to be a real challenge for the old legs. Doug
I always thought Dean Martin had a pretty cool method of going down one story. Just not sure how he got back up !!!