Are basements becoming a thing of the past?

I live in Central New York I have a basement and an Attic. Of corse my home is about 100 years old or so the basement is built of field stones like most older homes are in New York. Mine leakes and the ceiling is about 7ft tall. My attic forget it to hot in the summer to cold in the winter. I house my layout in a temp controled room in a section of my Pole Barn which keeps an avrage temp of 70 degrees all year round.

Basements, now this is just an opinion and no engineering facts or scientific evidence, but I think basements are a carry-over from the old days when houses were heated by those old big coal and wood burnig furnaces and basements were built house them. The extra space was a plus as you had room for other things ----- like a model railroad. If home builders were all model railroaders, every house would have a basement.

Over here in England, no house has a basement at all. None I've ever seen, anyway - only the garage is any good for railways / table tennis tables / etc.

They are sadly but I do have a basement that allows me to have a Model Railroad.

John

Interesting topic, which begs solutions, but none given. Before I offer one, I read with interest the comment about "don't move to Australia": I noticed that in Australia I never saw a home with asphalt shingles on the roof, but on ly either tile or corrugated metal roofs- a woman on the Indian-Pacific train told me the metal roofs are noisy, leaky, and a constant maintainance problem (by the way the corrugated metal they use isn't the flat sheets with ribs, but rather is the continuously wavy corrugated metal, similar to the middle layer in corrugated cardboard - not at all eye appealing).
Back to the subject:
Even though I have a basement, I elected to build an n-scale layout in my bedroom. It's a shelf layout that goes all the way around the room AT DOOR TOP LEVEL. In the roughly 11' x 11' room, I used four sheets of plywood and cut out (sort of) "L" shapes (short legs of the "L's" mate up with the long legs of the "L's" to circle the room. All four pieces are removable for doing major work (foam based scenery keeps them light), and I have a 20 inch high "scafold" for doing minor work. I use Kato 'adjustable' length track pieces to make the track connections at the joints. You can "cheat" a lot with this kind of layout, because the viewer can't look at the scenery from above or behind.
Your options for layout form are limited here. This probably won't work for an operating switching yard type layout. Mine has a "main line" that defines the inside edge of the layout (this roomsize layout allows for 30" radius turns). Three of the four pieces have a second branch line (lope) (that's located between the mainline and the walls) , which has to be elevated 2+ inches to be visible when standing on the floor. The plywood piece with the single track is where the town is. The other three sides (with two tracks) are country side etc..
Best of all, the layout doesn't take up any floor space as would a true bench top layout. And it's so cool to lay in bed with the lights out and watch the train, with its own headlights, taillights, and interior lights, circle the room.

Scoring Guy,

That's an interesting solution to the problem. If you don't mind me asking a few questions:

When you say door high I'm assuming that your layout is at least 5 feet off the floor?

How is the layout supported from the wall?

Is the layout scenicked at all?

Since the bottom of the layout is visible how did you handle the wiring, and is the layout wired for single-cab, multi-cab, or DCC?

How do you operate it?

It's an interesting option, one that I don't have in my residence, but an interesting one nonetheless. My layout is in my bedroom as well, but is built on a conventional tabletop for portability. Click on the 'www' button at the bottom of the post for my layout website.

Good luck with it. Remember, in model railroading there is no right or wrong way to do anything.

Joe P

To Answer jmp883's questions:
"Door High" means just a shade over 6'. The room has a window, a closet (with folding
doors that stick out when opened), and a door (which swings in), plus I don't want to
bump it with my head. The top of the window trim was the lowest of the three openings,
so that was the level chosen. Notches have to be cut in the plywood pieces over the door
and closet trim.
How supported?: All the wall space around the room, between these three openings was
filled in with "quarter round" screwed to the wall at the studs. I shopped around to find
the best quality (3/4" birch) plywood I could find (Hint, stand it on end, if it doesn't stand
absolutely straight up and down, i.e., no bend along the entire 8', DON'T buy it) - that
insured that the plywood would lay flat on its own. Since gravity is my enemy here,
keeping everything light was my goal - thus, for the most part, I rely on the tensile
strength of the plywood to support itself. The largest plywood piece (the town area) is
triangular, i.e. make a radius at opposite corners of the plywood, connect the two arcs
with a tangent line that forms the "inside" edge of the railbed thru town. Since this still
is a large piece I applied some additional support on the upper side, parallel to the
railbed. That meant there would be a hump in the middle of town, so toward the corner,
"behind" the hump, I cut an irregular hole, and installed a piece of plexiglass of the same
shape, to be a pond - which you can look up through to see the back side of the hump and
the scenery in the corner. Therefore, the four plywood pieces are held in place by
gravity, and exact fit at the joints keeps them in place laterally.
The other three plywood pieces range in depth, from the wall, between 2 inches and ten
inches, except of course in the corners where the turns are radiused. Where as the
triangular "town" piece was a single track, the other three pieces have two tracks, but not
side by side. The "mainline" track (which defines the inside edge of the layout all the
way around the room, is fairly "modern" i.e. straight stretches, except for a 90 degree turn
(more or less) at every corner of the room. The second "historic" line I tried to make as
crooked as possible, within the limited space between the mainline and the wall. There
are only two Kato # 6 turnouts (28 1/4" radius) at either end of the "town" - those turnouts
layflat and the operating mechanism is self contained. What little wiring is needed (at
this time) is easily hidden on the upper surface of the layout, which you can't see. The
historic rail line needs to be elevated over most of its length - I cut the railbed out of 1/4
plywood laying over a piece of 2" foam, thus cutting both at the same time with a jig saw.
The 1/4' plywood (about 1" wide) railbeds are glued in place to the 3/4' plywood using
various length verticle plywood scraps that are the same width as the railbed, looking like
a long crooked bridge when done. The foam pieces then fit perfectly in place on either
side of that rail bed, and you can start forming them to be the scenery. Additional foam
based scenery, above the level of the historic line, is held in place by gravity and is
removable-that allows you to raise and remove the 4 plywood sections if so needed.
Note also, along one wall, above a bookshelf, there's sort of a notch in that plywood
piece, with a 3' foot long "drop down" level of scenery, which is a water way, that the
mainline bridges and the historic line skirts.
Is there scenery? Yes, but as I said because your view of the layout is limited to standing
on the floor and looking up, you can "cheat" , i.e., everything doesn't have to be
"finished" on all sides, only the sides you can see. The "sky" is painted right on the wall
of the room. Since the layout is by necessity hillside, at three corners, the hill scenery
reaches all the way to the ceiling, thus no curved sky background is needed at the
corners. On the town triangle piece, buildings on the hillside reach the ceiling in the
corner.
Operationally it's a very simple layout. You can either run one train consist on the
"mainline" with the other train consist parked on the "historic" line, or (by just switching
the two turnouts, it's visa versa. Is that single cab? No DCC yet.
I'm a passenger train guy, so track and train winding their way through the country side,
rather than a freight switching yard, is my interest. Thus this approach works for me.
Right now it's about 80% complete, then it's add a couple more turnouts, "tunnel"
through the walls and extend

Can you send in some digital pictures of what you have done so far.

Chris

NONE OF THE ABOVE,
I am from the north east (NY) and i have a ho layout in my back yard.
After 13 years with a large scale layout in my yard,maintance became a chore. Being i love the outdoors i set up a 4x8 ,three oval track plan. It
has a 12" plexiglass wall, and two removeable 4'x4' covers for the bad weather. Then i added another 4x8, and now i added a double loop 12"
wide x 28 ft. long along the fence. I have this going since february of this year,i leave the power supply,rolling stock,and locos under cover. After this snow storm none of the tracks warped,or distorted. I have had many layouts in my garage,and then basements,but i never spent as much time as i do with my outdoor layout.Its really happy railroading for me.
joe

In Atlantic Canada, the overwhelming majority of new homes have a basement. Because of the climate, a slab must have "frost walls" - a ring of footings extending below the frost line to prevent heaving. This means that a slab doesn't save much over a full basement. Furthermore, owned homes tend to be heated by forced air or hot water, and a full basement provides maximum space for HVAC and other utilities.

My century home has a shallow stone-walled cellar, plus an addition with concrete floor and concrete block walls. I've started moving the water pump and heater from the old area to the new, where my workshop is also going this spring. Eventually I'll move the furnace there too, then excavate the stone portion and pour concrete, providing me with a large layout room.