Permanent or Portable?

[zwilnik]

When I built my first layout, Ive's Yard, I intended it to be mostly portable (it had to work from my desk and I knew I'd be moving fairly soon after I started it). A couple of moves later though, it's a little battered and the joins I built in to allow me to split up the boards were always a week spot for conductivity and de-railing. Plus with only being at the last place for 3 months it's been in its packing crate all that time.

So now I've decided the new layout's going to be bigger and be in a spare room (see the Happy thread ) I'm wondering if I should be spending time to make it so the layout can be carefully taken apart and boxed the next time I move (hopefully at least 12 months away) or if I should just go for it and build the layout to work and look great and just dismantle it when I move, recycling the bits in the next layout. I'm all for temporary art, so I'm not attached to the idea of having the layout forever.

[Newportnobby]

As I replied in the Happy thread, how about a modular layout so you can add/remove boards dependent on the space available?

[painbrook]

If you think you will be possibly moving in the future your best bet is portable, more work whilst building your layout but less grief in the long run. Mine was never going to move but it might be going out the window soon , the joys. Cheers john.

[tim-pelican]

You can be too cautious, though - we were going to be in the previous house for "a bit", and it came out as ten years by the time we moved.  If you've got a good reason why it's likely to be 12 months (or probably even 2 or 3 years for me), I'd think about portability.  If you have a spare room to use (mmm... spare room...) and a good crack at it, I'd say go for whatever you want to build.

[zwilnik]

Good points all.

One point that's swaying me towards not making the layout totally modular and portable is the extra time and design considerations needed for it taking time/features away from actually just building the layout and getting it running in a reasonably short time in my spare time.

I'm inclined to make it a 'permanent' but with obvious points where I can just chop through the scenery and track to box it up for a move (and then rebuild as part of a new layout post-move)