By Eric White | March 17, 2024
In 1951, Linn Westcott wrote a story about his ideas for a million-dollar model railroad. It was a thought experiment that looked at everything from the layout space to how he’d control the trains. You can read about it here.
A recently republished interview with Linn on Trains.com got some of us thinking about what we would do today with what Linn thought of as a practically unlimited budget to build a million-dollar model railroad.
Now, $1 million in 1951 could certainly buy more than it could now. I checked the website, which told me you’d need almost $12 million today to buy what you could in 1951, but what’s a couple million between friends? The idea behind Linn’s article was, if money were no object, what kind of layout could you build?
Steven Otte and I admitted to eyeing vacant supermarket buildings as ideal homes for a mega-layout. A quick search of real estate offerings showed that even an empty supermarket isn’t cheap. However, a modern “pole barn” type of building could be had for quite a bit less, and you wouldn’t have to share space with any questionable neighbors. The building could either be a square or long rectangle.
A place for trains
From Linn’s article, where he shared his ideas for a million-dollar model railroad, it seems he was taking into consideration the structure that would contain the mega layout. He mentions lighting effects, space for two workshops (woodworking and model making), and a lounge area for guests.
A pole barn on a concrete slab would require some sort of resilient flooring for comfort, and in most climates, would also need insulation, heating, and air conditioning. If you were to include workshop space in the layout building, which would make sense, then you’d want lots of natural light for the workshop. The layout space doesn’t need exterior light, but skylights might be nice.
Most of the light would come from artificial sources, and the various types of light-emitting diode (LED) fixtures available today should solve all of our problems without adding unnecessary heat. Computer control would allow for the effects of sunrise, sunset, and even the sun passing across the sky, with motorized spotlights shining from the proper direction based on the time of day.
While Linn imagined pumps to move water around, I’ve never felt that water “scales” well. For an HO scale layout, real water flows too fast and looks too shallow to appear realistic. Sound effects would probably do a better job of simulating movement on water, along with special lighting effects.
Depending on your goals for your million-dollar layout, the building could either be a large square, or a long rectangle. If you prefer mountain railroading, the square might work better. Prairie railroading would do well in a long rectangle to depict the long tangents trains take across the Midwest and Plains states.
What about the trains?
With the building out of the way, what goes inside is the next thing. In Linn’s ideas for a million-dollar model railroad, he imagined a balcony for the engineers to sit where they could overlook the whole layout to run their trains. That was the state of the art in 1951. The current concept of control favors being able to walk alongside your trains using Digital Command Control and sound decoders.
One of the areas often compromised in the typical layout is aisle space. Having wide aisles makes it much more comfortable to walk along, especially if you have to share the space with other operators. If you had unlimited funds, you could make the aisles as wide as you liked. I’d set my minimum at 4 feet and have many areas wider.
A mountain railroad could curve through the square footprint in the spiral peninsula design favored by professional layout designers. A prairie layout could run down the center of its space, allowing industries to be placed prototypically on either side of the main line. Intersecting railroads could be accommodated by wider areas of the building, with trenches built down under the benchwork with steps at either end to eliminate duckunders. If you’re really going big, you could replace the stairs with Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant ramps or wheelchair lifts.
With all of our money, signals and Centralized Traffic Control would be a possibility. If you prefer timetable and train order operations, then the needed phone system could feature vintage handsets to give operators a more immersive experience.
Can it be too big?
But is a huge layout the best way to approach the idea of unlimited funds? I reached out to professional layout designer and builder Lance Mindheim, who shared his Bishop Street Branch project in the January, February, March and April 2023 issues of Model Railroader.
“After thinking about it, where I come to is this: if you’re mostly a one-man band (which most of us are), you quickly hit a max in terms of layout size where having all of the money in the world won’t advance your cause,” Lance said. That’s because the true limiting factor is time. If you have folks to help you, even if you pay them, there’s still going to be that time factor.
As Lance and I traded emails, it occurred to me that such a layout already exists — the La Mesa Model Railroad Club’s Tehachapi Loop layout at the San Diego Model Railroad Museum. It’s huge — 25 scale miles of track (35 if you include staging) that takes more than an hour to run from end to end. It’s in a space that’s about 100 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 25 feet high. Areas of it aren’t just double-decked, it’s built on two floors of the building. Well, actually, a mezzanine was constructed over the lowest parts of the layout.
The club averages about 140 members. They’ve been at this project since the early 1980s and it still isn’t complete. There’s that time factor.
You don’t need a million to have fun
So what do we take from all of this? Can you build a mega layout? Lance points out that huge commercial projects exist, such as Miniatur Wünderland in Hamburg, Germany, or the Northlandz layout in Flemington, N.J., but while both are great spectacles, neither is what most of us think of as model railroads. Even with a huge crew, getting a high quality layout is going to be difficult.
If you want to see the results of your investment, “The only way to make any reasonable degree of progress is to take more of a representational approach to the models,” said Lance. And while you can spend on the latest and greatest locomotives and rolling stock, there’s a limit to how much of that you’ll need, even for a fairly large layout.
But don’t despair.
“There is a very positive message in all of this. All of the money in the world won’t get you an exceptional model railroad. It can’t. Since money doesn’t drive excellence, an amazing layout is within reach of anybody with a middle class income,” said Lance.
There’s no need to wait for the lottery to pay off, or for a huge, unexpected inheritance to show up. You probably have most of what you need to build an excellent layout.
Time to get back to the basement and back to work!
