My dream layout....a really big dream

[bc6]

So after watching all those youtube videos of japanese train clubs and those places that let you run your trains for a fee Ive been thinking.

 

1) How much you would have to invest to get one started.

2) How much would you charge per member/non-member

3) How much space would you need.

4) What kind of amminities would you have. (bathroom, vending machines, Widescreen TVs)

5) What kind of track would you use. (Flex, Tomix, Kato, Snap Track, Pecoetc)

6) Would you have slot car racing as well.

[bill937ca]

So after watching all those youtube videos of japanese train clubs and those places that let you run your trains for a fee Ive been thinking.

 

1) How much you would have to invest to get one started.

2) How much would you charge per member/non-member

3) How much space would you need.

4) What kind of amminities would you have. (bathroom, vending machines, Widescreen TVs)

5) What kind of track would you use. (Flex, Tomix, Kato, Snap Track, Pecoetc)

6) Would you have slot car racing as well.

 

I looked at this last fall.  One of the Tokyo layouts (and not one of the larger operations) charges $8 an hour with a two hour minimum.  There are four lines there.  If you take all four lines it is $25 an hour with a two hour minimum. (Those rates were converted from Yen to Cdn $).

 

The rates in Japan are higher during Japanese holidays (New Years, Golden Week and Obon) and probably during the two week school breaks at New Years and mid March.  There also is a six week summer school break.  These dates are important because this is when many special events like railway shows occur in Japan.

 

There are few large home layouts in Japan, so there is little competition.  I understand stores with layouts often give away the time with purchases or to regular customers.

 

Many of the Japanese layouts use both Tomix and Kato, but there are some that only use Tomix because of Tomix's camera car which is designed for Japanese current and may not work outside Japan.  Usually the image is projected onto a large screen monitor to give a "driving experience". The big controllers like the Tomix 5512 are popular and very pricey.  The TCS Power and Sound Unit is very common in Japanese rental layouts, but how different is that from DCC?  All the documentation is Japanese and the controls are labeled in Kanji. We will adapt and enjoy this.  Would the general public? Or would they become frustrated with something foreign.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/TCS-Power-Sound-Unit-N-S2-CL-Tomix-5521_W0QQitemZ200389712550QQcmdZViewItemQQptZModel_RR_Trains?hash=item2ea8285aa6&_trksid=p4634.c0.m14.l1262

 

You can charge extra for renting out trains.  

 

How large you go depends on how much you want to spend.  Most of the rental layouts are in hobby or train stores on an upper floor.  Especially in Tokyo many of the stores may be found on upper floors anyway. Most will be near a railway junction.

 

How much you spend depends on what you can afford.  If you can rent a hall you could set up a short term layout built on temporary table like the Japanese do.  Will this work here? I don't know.  My thought is a display layout would be the way to start.  If people approach you about operating the trains then you could rent out operating time and perhaps get a permanent home.

 

You probably will be required to have a bathroom by the local government unless you are in a building with common restrooms.

[bill937ca]

Here is a list of Japanese rental layouts.  This is updated quite regularly and has links to web sites.

 

http://mm05.fc2web.com/art/begin/rental.html

[bc6]

Those are some great suggestions such as renting out trains. Ive eyed that Tomix controller you linked on several occasions believe it or not lol.I dont think in reality there would be a lot of interest in such a layout in the states unfortunately but boy is it good to dream.

 

Ive seen those camera trains you mentioned on youtube, I thought about putting together something like that, Ive got a wireless spycam set up  thats been collecting dust.

 

I always wondered how those huge layouts were financed now I know. Im going to keep on playing lotto and hope I hit it big so I can bankroll a project like that.

[cteno4]

There is even a company in japan that has portable layouts that you can hire to come to your kids bday party or other events and let them run the trains. they have one of the tomix camera trains with the full tomix throttle set up in front of the video so you can run the train from a 'train cab' as well. i think it was like $1000 a pop for one of these for the day.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[bc6]

Wow, now thats pretty cool jeff.

[cteno4]

ill see if i can dig up the web site, i think bill actually sent it to me, he is the king of the internet!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

ill see if i can dig up the web site, i think bill actually sent it to me, he is the king of the internet!

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

Here it is.

 

http://www.ressya-hiroba.com/index.html

[cteno4]

knew bill would have his finger on it!

 

thanks!

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

Here is a list of Japanese rental layouts.  This is updated quite regularly and has links to web sites.

 

http://mm05.fc2web.com/art/begin/rental.html

 

It must be a sign of the times, that list now has a relatively long list of rental layouts that have closed.  I had given some thought to this type of operation in the past but concluded it would be probably be very risky financially.

 

Many continue to operate in Japanese hobby shops.  This seems to fit in with the Japanese style of retailing.

 

Akihabara at Popondetta.

 

[Bernard]

It does remind me of the rental slot car tracks I went to as a kid. There was one that opened near me about 4 years ago and didn't last 5 months. Do you think people's interest in video games has taken away from the hobby even in Japan?

[qwertyaardvark]

my apologies for the long post ahead of time ^^;;

 

So after watching all those youtube videos of japanese train clubs and those places that let you run your trains for a fee Ive been thinking.

 

1) How much you would have to invest to get one started.

2) How much would you charge per member/non-member

3) How much space would you need.

4) What kind of amminities would you have. (bathroom, vending machines, Widescreen TVs)

5) What kind of track would you use. (Flex, Tomix, Kato, Snap Track, Pecoetc)

6) Would you have slot car racing as well.

 

So, if Plan "Awesome" succeeds, I will retire by age 30 (despite just graduating with an MS this May) and get on the rest of my life focusing on making an N-scale Empire. So with the stage set, and money is not necessarily an object, but is spent with some reasonable sanity, my financial plan is to make sure its paid off and I have enough money to pay off fees/taxes/bills till i die. It indeed would be store when it opens up, but if things go south, I can still go about making my Tokyo station with some room to even model a true-to-life scaled portion of the Yamanote Line, et al (subways included) or model whatever chunk of Japan enchants me at the moment.

 

Given the outline above:

 

1) my guess is that I'll need somewhere between 500,000 to 1 million USD for this project as upstart, plus whatever annual costs like property taxes, bills, etc. (If I'm bored enough, I'll calculate it later). To put the layout cost into perspective, based on the statistics of the Bailey Yard in Omaha, I calculated (for fun, around last thanksgiving) for tracks, rolling stock, and locomotives (no landscaping, no buildings) to be around 250,000 USD.

 

2) this is where i would be torn, but I definitely would charge non-members/non-customers higher than regulars or ppl who just purchased from my hobby store. my guess would be 12$/hour for non-customer/non-member, and 5-8$ otherwise; no minimum rent times. Other revenue would also come to renting/leasing out space to other model railroad clubs, all scales, so they can work on, showcase, and sell time on their own layout at the same prices I charge, and getting some commission (1$/hr?) for such activity.

 

3) space will have minimal, if any, columns and would encompass around 6000-10,000 sq ft total, space split evenly between each floor. the bottom floor will be the hobby shop area catering mainly to N and HO scale items (most likely American) and a large section devoted to N-scale Japanese rolling stock. hobby shop and will open around 10 AM; access to my layout allowed for all customers, and restricted access to leased space except for clubs and their members. Hobby shop will close at around 7pm, and after that only club and people renting out space can enter to access their layouts till around... 10-11pm. They will be able to purchase materials if needed, so long as I am there. Open 7 days a week with likely varying hours.

 

4) restrooms will be there by law. flat screen TV's with cable/satellite for those staying in the upper floors working on their respective layout, allow rental of camera cars to ride around their layout. Food is probably limited to out-of-the-bag stuff, tho considering Japanese microwaveable meals in vending machines u can find at Manga shops in Japan. Plenty of drinks, hot or cold, also from vending machines. Will hope a restaurant opens near me. May also consider making train-themed bar of sorts downstairs. Desks/tables, lighting, venting, and electrical needs will be provided for those renting space to make/work on their layouts. I would also plan to have some "small" CNC machines, manual lathe/mill and other machine shop tools and plastic injection molders to make some stuff for myself and custom made orders to other customers.

 

layout area: tv's for when driving the camera cars around the layout, comfy soft chairs, place to put their food and drinks (away from the expensive full-sized Tomix/Kato controllers), if possible make a line DC or DCC on a whim (lines will be isolated so no DC mix with DCC tracks, etc) = block electrification?, free use of locomotive/rolling stock cleaning loop that will be setup near the track, a mini-yard capable of holding 4 16-car shinkansens will sit right next to the controller so multiple trains can be run w/o standing up. rental of my own sets to ppl I trust. I may consider more ideas later.

 

5) Track will most likely be Peco flex track and switches. Special structures like viaducts with concrete slab track, girder bridges, truss bridges, etc will come from Tomix/Kato.

 

6) heh, not wanting to sound mean or anything, but I never was interested in slot car racing.

 

/daydream

 

to be honest, if i had ungodly amounts of money, I would spend it on a shortline express commuter rail between Town Center in Sugar Land, to the Fanin station on METROrail's Red Line (aligned to the UP tracks along Alt 90), and be quite contempt with running a miniature, but real, railroad. rest assured, I would definitely buy Japanese rolling stock. for fun, I would run a diesel-converted 4-car shinkansen every once in a while

 

so that's my two cents... :)

[Mudkip Orange]

to be honest, if i had ungodly amounts of money, I would spend it on a shortline express commuter rail between Town Center in Sugar Land, to the Fanin station on METROrail's Red Line (aligned to the UP tracks along Alt 90), and be quite contempt with running a miniature, but real, railroad. rest assured, I would definitely buy Japanese rolling stock. for fun, I would run a diesel-converted 4-car shinkansen every once in a while

Yeah, except the "word on the street" is that METRO is already going to do this once the majority of the Metro Solutions Phase I lines open.

 

Basically there is absolutely zero chance of running commuter trains on the existing UP tracks along US90A, it's one of the biggest bottlenecks on the UP system and the only alternate route (the old M-K-T) got cannibalized for IH-10 expansion. So at this point it's looking like it'll be "express LRT," probably using Siemens Avantos cascaded from the current main street line as the entire LRT fleet gets replaced with the US's first 100% low-floor vehicles, from CAF.

 

The only hitch is, Sugar Land doesn't pay taxes to METRO, they're not in the service area, so the line will almost surely stop at the Missouri City / Stafford line. That would be where your mini-mini Shinkansen could come in handy (I am thinking something like the Hermann Park trains, except five times as fast).