New England in Thailand

[daniel_leavitt2000]

While my basement project restarts soon, Joy and I are also going to be looking at houses in Thailand. This will be a vacation/retirement home, but Joy's mom will be taking care of the place while we are in America.

The houses we are looking at are all single level, new constructions in the Phuket Island area. I expect we will get something about 1400 square feet.

So, what does this have to do with trains? Well a new house will need a shelf layout! I am thinking 15CM deep and 1M wide. Yep, it needs to be metric as all the furniture and shelving is over there.

I would like to do some inner city modeling based in the 1940's. I have the following motive power:
B&M BL2 (usually a branch line engine)
B&M F3 (Mixed use)
B&M 2-8-0 (Mixed use freight)
B&M 2-6-0 (Usually used in passenger trains)
B&M 4-4-0 (Commuter engine)
MEC 0-6-0 (local switcher)

Oh, and the materials for the layout have to fit inside two large pieces of luggage.

What do you guys suggest?

[Dave Schneider]

SPF-50, an umbrella, a lounge chair, train books, and as much gin as can be carried in two large pieces of luggage. Maybe toss in a snorkel and some fins.  Seriously...

Best wishes, Dave

[S Class]

What do you guys suggest?

Renting it out to some aussies 

[Bsklarski]

Retirement home? Yikes. Still going to spend all that time and money on the huge layout now only to rip it out when you retire?

[peteski]

Retirement home? Yikes. Still going to spend all that time and money on the huge layout now only to rip it out when you retire?

From seeing Daniel in-person (at the Winterfest) I would say that his retirement is still few decades away.  Plenty of time to build and enjoy a large layout.   

[pjm20]

You want to go to the place where they just had a coup? Hell, the last coup took out the former PM's brother!    Atleast for me, Thailand is nice to look at in pictures and that is about it.

[Philip H]

You want to go to the place where they just had a coup? Hell, the last coup took out the former PM's brother!    Atleast for me, Thailand is nice to look at in pictures and that is about it.

Considering that his wife is, I believe, Thai - yes I think he will want to go there in retirement.

Daniel,
If you are looking for track plans I'd spend some time on British and European fora. They have small space maximum possibility down to a science.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I have 32 years to finish the Boston Line, and since the retirement house will be paid off and I should have a pension, there is no reason why I cant keep both houses and move back and forth with the seasons.

Thailand's government... it is very hard to explain. Think of it like this. The country deadlocks politically between the two parties who are further apart from each other than Dems vs Republicans here. Because the court is also politically charged and often deadlocks itself, the king will order the military to calm things down and call new elections.

Prior to the coup, things were getting a bit violent in Bangkok. It has settled now.

I could go into the details of the politics... the fact that the Shinawatra family sold off huge parts of the infrastructure to private, foreign cronies for personal gain... starting a government backed pyramid scheme to corner the world's rice market (and failing  spectacularly). Oh lets not forget the theft of a government owned passenger jet full of unmarked bills. Yeah, not great people.

The coup was justified, and my friends who live there are happy to see them go.

Phil, do you have any links?

[Philip H]

Check out the German FreeMO N group. Also I think Carl arendt's old site mentions layouts that you can google.

[Bsklarski]

If you are wanting to stay with the American New England theme, there are soooo many small branches and such in NE that you can get away with a 0-6-0, ect. Even expand to 2 or 3 engines.

[Dave Schneider]

Daniel,

What are you trying to get out of this layout space? Operations? Sharing your interests with your Thai family? Something to putter with?

Given the small space that is available, you almost have to do something like a switching puzzle. Is that what you want? Have you considered something like a diorama of a specific scene or scenes? It seems like there are many obstacles to constructing an operating layout (materials, humidity, corrosion from the sea air). Not trying to be negative, just tossing out some things to consider.

Best wishes, Dave

[Ike the BN Freak]

If Thailand is anything like from guys I worked with said, and like Malaysia, its stupid cheap to live there.

Went TDY to Malaysia, as an E-3 with less than 2 years in service, and made more than the average family working 2 jobs.  If I was single, I've thought about it, possibly going to Singapore and working for Boeing and the F-15SG program.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I am mostly looking for a switching puzzle and something to tinker with. I also want to explore steam era railroad operations which is something I am not familiar with.

[Chris333]

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=32315.0

Done

[35tac]

I have been to Thailand a couple of times, do you see any issues for controlling the humidity impact on your potential layout?
Thanks
Wayne