My Shelf Layout Plan...

1/4 inch white picture board from Hobby lobby,  !! exacto knife friendly,  I cut 2 1/4 inch wide strips,  curve or straight,!

You can see a piece under the Comet, 

remember , train rooms are NOT designed to be next to the baby nursery !!!!!!!!

I have a few sections of Gargraves track and I thought I would see if there was a difference in sound.

WOW!! The Gargraves track, with it's plastic ties, was a LOT quieter than the Lionel track so maybe the Atlas track won't be so loud.

I'll still look into putting something under the track...

What is your email

Doug

This might be an Idea and all of you don't laugh to hard. But I used Artic white bathroom mates from Walmart to replicate snow for a winter scene. In your case you can trim them to fit your needs and they also reduce the noise level    

That's a good idea for making snow!

My e-mail is s10sakota@yahoo.com

You should reconsider the radius of your corner tracks,  The difference in the additional space required is not that large as one would think -- only 4.5-inches for each step up in radii.  I drew up the following 8-foot square layout to illustrate this.

Two other things you should consider.  Make your layout height high enough that other furniture can fit underneath.  That way you are not really taking up that space.  Also, try to use only straight track on your lift-out section at the door.  I feel that it will be easier to built and keep in alignment.  You might want to use an Atlas double-tracked bridge here.

Jan

Thank you Jan! That a great graphic to see the difference in track diameters. I'm going to modify my plan with larger curves and see how it looks.

Here's my current progress-two shelves are up. Once I finish all the benchwork I'll paint the wood. Right now it's just primed.

EDIT: I just replaced all my curves in AnyRail. Now I will use O-54 on the outside and O-45 on the inside. This hardly takes any extra room and will be large enough to run probably anything I will ever own!

These two walls are done for now. I made a curved piece to fill the space. I never use this closet (in fact I never even put the door on!) so I didn't make any hinge on this piece. It is screwed on with some metal tabs on the bottom. So it's removable if I need it, but I'll just leave it screwed on.

I cut the curved part larger than I know it will be once complete. Once I lay the Atlas track down, then I'll draw the exact curve and cut it. For now it's cut oversized.

Mark,

The track closest to the wall - did you hook up a curve at the one end to make sure that whatever engine(s) you use don't overhang the curve too far and hit the wall?

U.W.

Walt-yes I did. There's actually plenty of room! Right now I'm working on the 'main' part of the layout where the large yard will live. This will be three modular sections. The first one is four feet long. A couple of pieces are screwed to the wall. Now I will remove them and finish building that part of the frame.

One thing I haven't exactly figured out yet is how I'm going to suppost the benchwork. I don't want legs coming down to teh floor because then it will be difficult to vacumm the floor. Plus, that also makes the space under the layout wasted. What I'd like to do is maybe use 2x2's and angle them as a brace from the front of the layout and attach them to the wall just above the baseboard.

Here's a panaramic view I took with the iPhone5.

The aluminum pieces you see laying around are all the tail pieces to an airplane I'm building. This will be my third airplane project but I've sort of decided I'm done with airplane building so I'll be selling these soon! 

The turnouts in red circles...if I'm interpreting this correctly they provide a small runaround track. Adds some op interest. My layout design is prototype-based...the real thing has a run around at the end of each branch to rearrange car orders for return-trip switching.  Just a thought.

Hey everyone-I know I'm not doing anything ground-breaking, but I thought I would show you my progress on my switching shelf layout.

My dad drove in from PA to MI to give me an extra set of hands building the shelf work. Here's what we built...

I still have a few bridges to make where the entrance into the basement is and also where the door is to the other half of the basement.

On top of the shelf you see here, I plan on laying down 1/4" plywood, and then on top of that I'll lay down 1/4 photo board that someone else in this thread mentioned. I bought a piece and placed it under the track and it does quiet the sound when I roll a train car on it.

I guess I better get some track ordered!

Oh, I forgot to mention-the white outer edge is a plastic house trim I bought at Home Depot. My next step is to take off each 2 x 2 leg and sand them smooth and paint them white!

Doug,

It's is WAY stronger than it looks! Right now, it's built with smaller screws than I will use permanently (because I bought too small of screws) but even with the smaller screws I can put quite a bit of force down on the edge. The 2 x 2" legs are bolted to the wall and the front of the layout with metal brackets. This baby isn't going anywhere!

You are probably used to seeing the layouts built with 2 x 4" legs. I've always thought that was overkill for a model train but I've seen a lot of those layouts where the modeler has to actually get up onto the layout to complete scenery. At 29" deep, I never have to have the layout support me.

It was hard to tell from the picture how thick the support bracing was. Knowing that you had it well secured to the wall it wasn't going anywhere. I think in my case when  I finaly do my bonus room. I will use a 2x2 with a 1x4 across the top forming a T brace allowing for the attachment of molding and providing the same strength as a 2x4 without it looking bulky. Maybe overkill but I rather play it safe since my wall is made from wood and drywall not cinderblock .     

Doug 

Looks like you're off to a good start, my first thought when I saw the corner with the closet is that would make a good spot for a short siding and some industrial buildings.

Doug

Someone posted a question in another forum here about moving their layout from house to house. That got me really thinking about my similair plan to design my layout so that it can be moved.

After reading his post, it hit me! It's kind of dumb for me to make my layout so portable. Why?

This is my first layout. I doubt very much my skills are perfected enough to make a fantastic layout worth moving. I also doubt that the basement in my next house is going to have the exact same dimensions as my current basement! Once I move in to a new house, I doubt very much I'm going to want to install my novice layout.

I know me and I know that with a new house, I will want a new layout. Plus, I think building my current layout will be good practice for learning skills like wiring, operation, building scenery, weathering, etc...

So I guess my thought now is this: I'm using Atlas track and I'm planning on using realistic ballast. How easy is it to lift the track once it's immersed in glued down ballast? In other words, can I "rip it up"?

If you use the white glue and water to lay the ballest down you can wet the ballets again to get the glue to release to pull up the track.  

suzukovich - I've been spending most of my time this month in Dallas working so I'm not getting much done on the layout. Currently I'm working on getting the legs of the benchwork sanded, primed, and painted. Two out of five are done. Once I finish the legs, then I will buy the wood for the top.

Jdevleerjr - good to know that the ballast can be removed and the track lifted up! That's what I will do when I move. The nice thing about this layout is that the area that will be "landscaped" is very small. So it will be a perfect area to learn and I won't feel bad about tossing it out when it comes time to move. 

Here's an update on the Pine Valley Railroad layout!

All of the benchwork legs are now painted. I also painted the corner wood piece and installed it back in the corner. You probably can't see it in the photos, but I cut 1/4" foam board to size and layed it on top of the two white shelves. It does make the trains somewhat quieter.

On the larger part of the layout, I cut some more foam board and layed it on top of the frame. I still have to buy and cut the 1/4" plywood for the top surface. I just figured that while I was cutting the white board, I might as well cut the pieces for the larger area.

Then I placed the 5 rows of track on top of the foam just to see what it would look like. Of course it won't look exactly like this because there will be switches mixed in. But for now, it looks cool!

Here's some photos...

First of all, the room looks great.  Please keep us posted with pictures of your progress.  I am working on a similar shelf layout and would love to see how your project is going.  I noticed an unfinished support column in the middle of the room.  One way to deal with this is by having your carpet installer glue matching carpet to the pole.  I did this in my train room and I think it worked out well.

Finally, do you have wood or metal studs in the walls, AND can you share a closeup of the small shelf brackets you used on the more narrow shelves?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Pete-I won't return home until next Friday but I'll take a close up pic of the shelf brackets. They are just 5" x 6" regular shelf brackets from Home Depot.

When I bought this house in '05, the basement was finished with paneling for walls. I ripped off the paneling thinking I would replace it with drywall. When I took the paneling off, I found that the walls were made from 2x2's. So I ripped all of that out too. Then I rebuilt all of the walls with 2x4's and then drywall.

I put up new baseboard and carpet, and never did anything with the ugly support pole because I never really used the basement for anything. Out of sight, out of mind. But now that I have a train layout down there, and can now have some Christmas parties around the new train layout, I will need to do something with that pole.

A friends basement has the same pole and he has a nice octigon shaped wooden structure around the pole with a small built in shelf. It's perfect, but I can't find it anywhere. He got it from some hardware store that is now out of business. Home Depot doesn't have anything I like to cover the pole.

Here's a little update on my basement shelf layout. I haven't been working on it too much with the nice summer weather here, but I'm making progress slowly. I've been buying some track little by little.

Today I finished the bridge that goes across the door.

Here is the bridge in the down position...

Looking the other way...

Up position...

When the door is fully closed, the doo knob does not interfere at all with the bridge. I kinda got lucky there! 

To secure the bridge, I simply lift it up and insert the QRP (quick release pin).

Hi s10sakota,  Tell us about your aircraft.

Marty, I doubt the train guys want to hear about airplanes! All that info is at http://www.ransclan.com

Major progress!! I bought the rest of the track I needed and I now have the 1/4" foamboard cut and placed under the track.

Here's some pics from yesterday. I still have to make the large "bridge" in the one corner where the steps come into the basement. But for now, I'm ready to start wiring.