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Long story short: for a two-level layout, do I need framing under both the upper and base levels, or just under the base level? Whether or not I need framing under the upper level will determine if I have designed the levels too close together. Thanks in advance.



First, thank you all for listening to and answering my numerous questions. I appreciate your patience and letting me tap into the wealth of knowledge available here. Thank you!

I have more-or-less settled on a track design I like. It is not quite done, but at this point I am mostly thinking about laying out industrial switching tracks, scenery ideas, and connecting odd pieces of track. It has multiple locations/scenes across two-levels, bridged by a single grade with reverse loops. The layout will also have storage track under the upper level portions as well. A photo of the tentative plan in SCARM is attached below (excludes storage track):

CJ 2-level layout - Copy10x25 Semi-Final

With the layout design nearly done, I've begun transitioning to benchwork design. Based on feedback in another thread, I already have ideas for what I will use for benchwork - I am leaning towards 1/2" or 3/4" plywood and 2x3s, and I will be framing the plywood with 2x3s on 16" centers (pic of how I plan to frame is in attachments). Both are readily available at reasonable prices at my local hardware store. But as I design the benchwork, I've hit a hard snag which may spell doom for this particular design.

When I first started out, I only thought about framing the underside of the lower level. But I had a realization: a good portion of this weight would be on the upper level, not just the lower, so I assume it needs framing of its own. This is where the idea might get killed. In the two above pictures, the layout has 12" separation. However, I think the 12" difference will create scenic divides that are too steep. I would much prefer to have an 8" separation, plywood-to-plywood. But with framing under the upper level, I have less than 4.5" of space between the top of the rail and bottom of the 2x3. This is already excluding any foam or homasote I am interested in adding (though it does include rossbed). I don't think this is enough space for equipment to run under the layout without risk of scraping something (container stacks would automatically be out of the question).

Having no substantial woodworking experience to speak of, is framing of both levels actually needed? Or would I be able to get away with just vertical supports interspersed throughout? My gut says framing is needed, but I am holding out hope that I'm wrong.

Thanks in advance!

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  • 10x25 Semi-Final 3D Render
  • 10x25 Semi-Final Plan w/ Buildings
  • Framing Idea: 2x3s on 16" centers under 3/4" plywood
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If you go with 3/4" plywood and several 2x3 (4?) vertical supports, I think you will be fine.  Just think about warping over time, so I do suggest several, several vertical supports.  Strength will not be an issue at all with 3/4" plywood.  You can also help avoid warping with some strips along the out edges of the plywood, though that would make your scenery more of a challenge.

Before you buy any wood or cut a single board, I strongly suggest that you search for information about the "L-girder" benchwork system that was developed by Linn Westcott - it's been a standard for building layouts for a half century.  Strong, lightweight, and easy to modify.

For the upper level, you can use the "cookie cutter" method using 1/2" or 3/4" plywood - I would opt to use 1/2" with more supports vs. 3/4" with fewer supports.  For larger sections, a frame of 1x2 with 3/8 or 1/2" plywood can be used.

For the lower section, a grid of 1x4 with 3/8" to 1/2" plywood, CDX, or OSB is sufficient.  2x2 is sufficient for legs if properly braced.

You will soon see a barrage of passionate responses about using 3/4" and/or baltic birch plywood and 2x4 framing.  (Or search the forum for "plywood".)  Remember that you're not building a house or battleship - the vast majority of layouts are overbuilt.  Good enough is good enough.

Buy good quality straight pine and let it acclimate to your train room for a few weeks - return any warped or twisted boards.  The choice of decking depends on how you plan to cover it - if you're painting it, you'll want to use nicer plywood; not so much if covering it with scenery.

Last edited by Mallard4468
@Burl posted:

If you go with 3/4" plywood and several 2x3 (4?) vertical supports, I think you will be fine.  Just think about warping over time, so I do suggest several, several vertical supports.  Strength will not be an issue at all with 3/4" plywood.  You can also help avoid warping with some strips along the out edges of the plywood, though that would make your scenery more of a challenge.

That should be easily doable. I also thought about maybe adding some 1x3/1x4 boards underneath (wide side against the plywood) to help with support. Adding boards along the perimeter shouldn't be an issue for a good chunk of the upper level either. I was planning on putting scenery escarpments with greenery and a few trees, or retainer walls along most of the lower portion of the layout, which would cover the side boards. (if stretched to 12", I think retainer walls wouldn't look natural to my eye, and escarpments would be turned into cliff faces).

Thank you!

@Mallard4468 posted:

Before you buy any wood or cut a single board, I strongly suggest that you search for information about the "L-girder" benchwork system that was developed by Linn Westcott - it's been a standard for building layouts for a half century.  Strong, lightweight, and easy to modify.

After googling L-girder and reading about different types of benchwork, the design I want best fits the box-type. Although I just bought this house and hope to be here for years, I know I can't stay forever, so I would like to make it easy to disassemble for the inevitable move. I will save my ideas for how I am planning to build this benchwork in an easy-to-disassemble fashion for another thread, but I think the box-type design will ultimately make this easiest. But that being said, is L-girder easily moved as well? The idea is not set in stone and I am open to better ideas.

Mallard 4468's advice is good. With lumber prices skyrocketing post-Covid, it is good to find benchwork options that depend on engineering rather than materials for their strength. After building a supposedly portable layout of 1/2" Baltic birch and 1x3 bracing, I found that the 50" x 60" table was far too heavy to be portable as intended. I now use 1/4" plywood and 1x2 bracing (I glue all my bracing with carpenter's glue).

Having built a largish modular layout (although in HO) with standardized "dominos" I found that when we moved my modeling interests had evolved sufficiently that I didn't want to try to save any of the layout--and so we left an entire 24' x 18' layout for the new owner. A later L-shaped switching layout (MR Sept 2004), built on L-girders with plywood only under the track itself, simply went to the dump when the time came to move.

Contemplating your trackplan, I would give serious thought to extruded foam panels on a thin but deep L-girder system, with no intent of moving it when it came time to downsizing. You WILL need access hatches inside your loops, and those are easier when they are blocks of foam. The only reason you need 2x3 bracing or plywood thicker than 3/8" is if you will be forced to climb onto the layout to perform maintenance. For foam construction, see dagryffyn hobby's Youtube channel.

I'm reminded of Alfred E. Neuman's famous line, "Learn from the mistakes of other, 'cause you'll never live long enough to make 'em all yourself." I'm old enough now that I've made most of the mistakes, and I will never overbuild a layout again.

@0-Gauge CJ posted:

That should be easily doable. I also thought about maybe adding some 1x3/1x4 boards underneath (wide side against the plywood) to help with support. Adding boards along the perimeter shouldn't be an issue for a good chunk of the upper level either. I was planning on putting scenery escarpments with greenery and a few trees, or retainer walls along most of the lower portion of the layout, which would cover the side boards. (if stretched to 12", I think retainer walls wouldn't look natural to my eye, and escarpments would be turned into cliff faces).

Thank you!

After googling L-girder and reading about different types of benchwork, the design I want best fits the box-type. Although I just bought this house and hope to be here for years, I know I can't stay forever, so I would like to make it easy to disassemble for the inevitable move. I will save my ideas for how I am planning to build this benchwork in an easy-to-disassemble fashion for another thread, but I think the box-type design will ultimately make this easiest. But that being said, is L-girder easily moved as well? The idea is not set in stone and I am open to better ideas.

L-girder is not easily moved.  However, it is easily disassembled, and the components can generally be reused to build a different configuration.  I've done this several times.  It sounds like this might be your first large layout - congratulations!  However, understand and accept the fact that no matter how carefully you plan and how well you build, you WILL make mistakes or at least find things that you wish you had done differently.  It's part of growing in the hobby.

@RDM provided some excellent perspective in his post above, and made a good point about access panels.  His method of using 1/4" plywood with 1x2 bracing with glue yields a very strong and stable framework.  That's actually a standard method in Britain where most layouts are portable (due to smaller homes) and many people haul them from one exhibition to another.

@RDM posted:

After building a supposedly portable layout of 1/2" Baltic birch and 1x3 bracing, I found that the 50" x 60" table was far too heavy to be portable as intended. I now use 1/4" plywood and 1x2 bracing (I glue all my bracing with carpenter's glue).

This is very good to know and makes me glad I asked! I would hate to find out the lack of portability only after I bought, cut, and assembled things!

@Mallard4468 posted:

L-girder is not easily moved.  However, it is easily disassembled, and the components can generally be reused to build a different configuration.  I've done this several times.  It sounds like this might be your first large layout - congratulations!  However, understand and accept the fact that no matter how carefully you plan and how well you build, you WILL make mistakes or at least find things that you wish you had done differently.  It's part of growing in the hobby.

@RDM provided some excellent perspective in his post above, and made a good point about access panels.  His method of using 1/4" plywood with 1x2 bracing with glue yields a very strong and stable framework.  That's actually a standard method in Britain where most layouts are portable (due to smaller homes) and many people haul them from one exhibition to another.

Thank you, it is indeed my first! (not counting the "Carpet Central" I had before moving!). I do understand that mistakes are inevitable and a natural part of the learning process, but I would like to mitigate or eliminate those as much as I can through planning ahead.

Going back to your first reply, Mallard, can you share some additional insight on the cookie-cutter method? I looked around for some info and I saw a reference to it in a HO video when they were discussing a grade. The sense I got was that they cut out the wood table where the grade started up until where the grade was complete, at which point a brand new piece of wood became the base for the upper level. Beyond that I did not get a clear idea of what cookie-cutter refers to.

If my guess about cookie cutting is actually correct, then I may do be open to some cookie cutting, but I don't want to do it for the whole layout. A driving motivation for having a two-level layout is storage track hiding under the upper level. The lower storage level will allow for very primitive railroad operations  without taking things off the track. Is it still possible to keep an 8" space between levels with L-girder benchwork? I am going to commit to researching L-girder track and give serious thought to designing it either way, but I would like to know ahead of time if I am going to need to factor in a layout design change.

@0-Gauge CJ posted:

...

Going back to your first reply, Mallard, can you share some additional insight on the cookie-cutter method? I looked around for some info and I saw a reference to it in a HO video when they were discussing a grade. The sense I got was that they cut out the wood table where the grade started up until where the grade was complete, at which point a brand new piece of wood became the base for the upper level. Beyond that I did not get a clear idea of what cookie-cutter refers to.

If my guess about cookie cutting is actually correct, then I may do be open to some cookie cutting, but I don't want to do it for the whole layout. A driving motivation for having a two-level layout is storage track hiding under the upper level. The lower storage level will allow for very primitive railroad operations  without taking things off the track. Is it still possible to keep an 8" space between levels with L-girder benchwork? I am going to commit to researching L-girder track and give serious thought to designing it either way, but I would like to know ahead of time if I am going to need to factor in a layout design change.

Your guess about cookie-cutter sounds like it's essentially correct.  You can build the lower base from L-girder and then make your upper platform with 1x2 and a 1/4" plywood top. (Building the upper section with L-girder would rob you of clearance for your staging area, and it would be way stronger than needed.)  Raise it up with a few short 1x2 or 2x4 supports, and use plywood subroadbed for the grades from one level to another.

In case it helps, here are a couple of pics of my benchwork.  The leg sets are made from 2x2 (2x4 ripped in half); the gussets are glued and screwed - the glue keeps it from racking.  The decking is 3/8 or 1/2 plywood (can't remember).  No sags, no problems.

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I used 2" X 4" (white fir, WF) framing lumber.  A 5 ft. deck, the purchased 2" X 4" were 10' length, cut two pieces.  Most, home grade framing is spruce, which tends to warp/twist.  Any A/C plywood works for a deck, A grade side up.  I used MDO board, probably more expensive than needed.

Have fun with your nails and screws.    But then I'm known to have a foggy head from time to time.  Mike CT.

In my view, very little is needed to support the trains themselves. Honestly, they don't weigh that much. The framing is there because the lower level of the layout needs to support, first its own weight, and that of the upper level, and then the forces of being bumped, leaned against, and perhaps even knelt on to reach something way in the back. So -- if you are sure that you will not be putting your own weight on the upper-level section of your layout, then it needs no framing, just a few posts to hold up the plywood subroadbed.

How few? I confess that our layout was just slapped together, mostly out of scrap wood, but our benchwork has given no trouble, and parts of it have been in place for close to 20 years now. Our subroadbed is 1/2" OSB. On straight runs, there are places where the posts are 24" apart. You may not wish to live quite so dangerously, but that gives you an idea of what some people get away with.

BTW, "cookie cutter," as I understand it, means that the surface of the lowest level of the layout is a flat sheet of plywood. Wherever there will be elevated track, you lay down the track, trace around it (leaving as much extra width as you want) and then cut along the line with a jigsaw. This gives you an upper level that was cut out of the lower level. Elevate the upper level with some posts that are a little wider than the cutout (to span the gap you made in the lower level). Or else, run the posts down through the cutout you created, and fasten them to crossmembers in the layout framing.

Last edited by nickaix

Cookie cutter serves a few purposes. It’s design is to basically eliminate the flat table top look. You cut the plywood a bit wider than the roadbed. The roadbed is supported by risers with cleats. This allows elevation changes in the track. Seeing the track is higher than the benchwork it allows the modeler to vary the terrain. HO guys tend to use it because the scenic elements is important to the design of the layout. Where there is no track. You fill the open space with plaster cloth or foam.

  It’s not used as much in the O Gauge world. Most refer to benchwork as tables. The goal for many is to get as much track as they can in a given space and it’s just easier to go this route with a flat layout. Nothing wrong with this approach if you want to run multiple trains in a given space.

Another alternative is spline roadbed. Can save you some money if you have access to a table saw and woodworking equipment as no wood is wasted.

Mallard4468 gave you the best advice. Buy the Book.

I have a 6' by 16' table with 6 legs, 4"x4" built over 20 years ago. 2"x6" between the legs with smaller bracing for the plywood top. The top is 3/4" plywood. I can stand on it without any problems. I can screw into it to hold things in place.

I have built two layers on top of the table without issues. I run standard gauge on the bottom and O gauge on the upper 2 levels. 1/2'" plywood won't cut it for standard gauge. Plywood sags as the engines run over it. Experienced by other members of the group (D3R). When I built the table, I did not know I would get into Standard Gauge.

Upper levels are O gauge only and use 1/2" plywood without framework and supporting posts about every 12 inches. No problems in 10 years.

1/4" plywood is not good for a two level. 1/2" is marginal with upper level. 3/4" is good for upper level support. It will also support your weight. You might be able to save enough on framing to pay for the 3/4" vs 1/2" plywood.IM001373IM001371IM001372IM001371

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Something else to consider it whether or not you'll need to get on top of the layout, e.g. if it's against a wall and you need to reach in corners.  My old tables were built with 2x4s (mainly because I had them available from a walls I took down in the basement) and I could certainly get on top of it.  I don't think I would climb on if it was supported with 2x2 legs.  My next layout I dont' plan on having to get on top so I'll use lighter construction.

Don

The two ingredients for my layout benchwork built in 1987 were 1x4's and 1/2 inch plywood. L Girder construction makes it easy to do grades and hidden storage yards. The legs of the layout are constructed of two 1x4's at right angle to each other. Look on Amazon for a book by Linn Westcott called Model Railroad Benchwork. The lumber and plywood are secured with dry wall screws. No glue and no homasote. I used Gargraves flex track, Ross Custom switches and Tortoise under table mount switch machines. The track was mounted on Midwest Cork roadbed. The table will easily hold my 180 lb. weight. No need in my opinion for 2x4's or 3/4 inch plywood. 36 years later still performing flawlessly.

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