Electrical requirements

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I am building a house and will have a dedicated room in the basement to build layouts. I would like advice regarding wiring this rrom during construction.

2

I’d recommend three general requirements:

  1. Lots of outlets, at a height that won’t be blocked by any of your benchwork.

  2. Some switched outlets for layout power supplies, so you can easily turn everything off when you leave the room.

  3. Lots of capacity for lighting circuits. Whatever type of lighting you choose, model railroads usually a good bit more wattage than typical room lighting.

Best wishes,

Andy

Andy Sperandeo
MODEL RAILROADER Magazine

3

I’d like to add a few points to Andy’s good advice.

You’ll likely need more than one circuit from your electrical distribution panel. As Andy said, you’ll want lots of lighting and you can easily reach the limits for one branch circuit before you have everything in. Besides, the electrical codes (rules) limit the number of outlets and lamps that can be installed on one branch circuit.

I assume you are familiar with electrical wiring before you do this, otherwise hire a licensed electrician.

You’ll need to take out a permit from your city or town for the wiring and have it inspected afterwards. Most insurance companies won’t cover you if a fire starts in electrical wiring that was installed without a permit and inspection.

You might want to consider a high-amperage sub-circuit to your layout room with a small sub-distribution panel in the room if it’s a large layout with lots of plugs and lighting and includes a workbench.

If you’re doing the job yourself, I’d recommend borrowing a copy of the electrical code book from your library and reading it before starting the project. I had been taught how to wire houses and had done some under the supervision of a licensed electrician, but when I moved and finished the basement in our new house by myself, I read the code book and found that there were a lot of things I thought I knew but didn’t.

Last word–install more capacity than you think you need. Just like storage space, whatever you have will be filled up before you’re done.

Good luck. Bob

4

My advice is similar to those already mentioned . . .

Put in two light circuits; one for room lighting and another for layout lighting. You may later want to connect the layout lighting to a fast clock which is very cool when it is done right.

I would have two sets of outlets in the room with a switch to cut the power to each set when you leave the room. One set could be isolated and filtered to protect sensitive electronics in the future and having two wall outlet circuits allows more power as mentioned before.

I would also recommend some outlets in the ceiling because that may be the most direct access to some parts of the layout after the scenery is substantially complete.

I look forward to the day I have a full basement. Good Luck and enjoy. - Ed

5

If you are drywalling the basement, you can always surface mount the outlets on the walls in conduit and mount it below the layout. Be sure to have 4 ciruits 2 for one side of the room and 2 on the other. Put the boxes every 10 to 12 feet apart. The boxes would then have 2 separate circuits, one for the layout and one for tools.

Lighting can be set up the same way. You would end up with 4 switches and the lights can be arranged to cover the room in quarters, so you do not have to have all of the lights on when only working in one small area.

BOB H Clarion, PA