When I started this blog, my wife and I had just moved from Seattle back to Meadville, my hometown and the town where we met attending Allegheny College in the 1970s. Part of the rationale for moving from the west coast was to be closer to my wife's family. One consequence of living through the COVID-19 pandemic this past year has been realizing that we are still too far from her family. With minimal stops, it is a six-hour drive each way across Pennsylvania to visit them in Western New Jersey. While flying from the west coast was more complicated, it still remains a multiple day excursion to visit with them.
In recently chatting on email with one of my model railroading friends, I noted that I seem stuck between first planning phases of moving to be closer and making progress on the current 4th Subdivision layout in our house here in Meadville, without much progress on either.
Without further analysis of my struggles with inertia, let me discuss what I have been learning about moving with a model railroad. Two resources have been very helpful in focusing on the railroad in planning the move. Brooks Stover's article in the August 2020 NMRA Magazine, "Downsizing Does Not Mean Settling," gives advice on packing for a move, as does one written by William Lyders, "Moving: Dismantling A Layout Then Getting It Up and Operating Quickly" found in the NMRA Members Only Section: https://www.nmra.org/sites/default/files/sr202004-movingalayout.pdf.
For packing model railroad materials, building an inventory is an associated task important for the move as well as future insurance or estate purposes. Stover suggests that various small containers including zip lock bags help organize the small bits. He also suggests labeling the boxes on top and on front.
Here are the first couple of boxes. I included a box number, brief description, and whether the contents are already on the "box list" and "inventory" on the labels. I also left room on each label for more information as we get closer to the move. Once we know where we are moving, I will include information about a more specific location where the box should end up at our new house. The box list is a general list of all boxes as we pack, including the rest of the household items. The inventory is specific to the model railroad.
I started building the inventory list from an existing template in Excel for household insurance inventory documentation. I included tabs for item or description, make or model, serial or model number, and estimated current replacement value. Box #1 includes unbuilt structure kits, and I was amazed to see the replacement value of just that one box creep up to over $450.00. While I do not have model railroad insurance at this point, building the inventory as I pack will be the first step of that process.
Just last week, during the weekly modeling Zoom meeting associated with my NMRA division, I put together the box/trays from A-Line that I bought years ago. My thinking is that finished rolling stock will go in that carrier. I will be able to remove the rolling stock from the layout and safely store them. Scenery materials will be next, as I remove trees from the railroad, I can also pack all the other scenery supplies I have collected over the years. I also will be packing the rest of my unbuilt rolling stock and structure kits before I start dismantling the railroad or packing my work area. I am sure that my wife would love to see me dispose of all my railroad magazines rather than lug them to a new house, but I am not sure I am ready for that step. I still prefer re-reading the dead tree versions to the electronic versions available in archives. We will see how this situation resolves itself!
Lyders' article, referenced above, talks about tearing down the model railroad one month before closing. I will be scheduling it sooner than that. Otherwise, his advice seems very applicable. He suggests cutting the existing railroad into movable sections. As my original U-shaped benchwork consists of separate benchwork sections bolted together, that should be relatively easy with only trackwork and some first layers of scenery to be actually cut. Otherwise it is more of an unbolting and disconnecting the wiring process. Lyders notes that scenery takes a beating in a move, but I had not gotten far with scenery beyond some first layers. He also suggests cutting track back from the edge, to help prevent the track snagging and tearing larger sections loose. While I plan on reusing the segments, I am not sure they will go back
together exactly as they were, so cutting the track back from the edges seems prudent. Again following his precedent, where I have electronic components mounted together on plywood, I will keep the keep the circuit boards and other electronics mounted on the plywood panels and pack the panels.
While I have made the decision that further progress on the 4th Subdivision does not make sense with the impending move, I may still finish a few projects that are currently in midstream before dismantling my work bench. My doodlebug and a steam locomotive are both partially apart with the intention of installing improved sound decoders. I may want to finish those installations while I have the support of fellow Division 12 members with more decoder knowledge to provide moral support. Disentangling myself from all the roles I have taken on with Division 12 is a whole other issue, not really relevant to this blog.
At this point, my intension is to be sure to have appropriate model railroad space at our new home, wherever that may end up being. I also intend to keep a similar scheme for the new railroad, so this blog will continue to be where I document and share the planning, construction, and operation of a small (or medium sized) model railroad.
