Having a very limited layout area, my layout is tucked into a corner of my home-office. Right now it’s a 4’ x 8’ mounted to a frame of 1" x 4"s - which sits on top of an old desk.
The problem is that I cannot easily get to the back corner and find that one of those extended grabbers, with the suction cups, works best for grabbing any derailed cars. Any track work in that corner - for the moment - is out of the question.
So - I’m thinking of pulling the desk out and putting 4" x 4" posts in the corners and adding the necessary benchwork supports. Then I was thinking of putting locking, rubber-wheeled casters under each 4x4 post.
My hope is that when I need to work on the layout, I can wheel it out from the corner. Then when I’m finished working on it - I can push it back, lock the wheels and I’m READY TO RUN!
Maybe I should enclose the benchwork for a storage area too.
It’s a great idea! I did this with a 6x4 N scale layout years ago. Being able to roll it around was awesome. It actually rolled under my HO layout when not in use. Go for it!
We have a 5x8 two level layout in the livingroom that most of the year my grandson uses for his Thomas & Friends, but it also serves as Christmas Central and any other special events during the year. It is based on an “L” girder construction method with 2x3’s for the legs. Since this is in the livingroom, on carpet, I attached the large circular carpet glides/furniture sliders, whatever the heck they are called, to a similar sized plywood circle then glued this to the table legs. Helps to reduce any damage to the carpet and pad as well as making it easy to move when need be. [^]
Heavy duty furniture casters will also work well, just make sure the structure is cross braced to support motions (aka in both directions). Get full 360 swivel and only lock the front or easy access ones when you don’t want the table to be mobile. Only really issue with these is “leveling”. If your floor is level and/or your table work is “right” this isn’t an issue.
Large diameter urethane wheels or “ball” casters work well:
Hi! I have done this with “HO” and have considered it for “O”. For me, the biggest obstacle was the overall weight of the larger scale. I agree, that the cross bracing is extremely important and, again for me, it is added weight.
I’m not sure what you have in mind about “enclosed storage” but it does sound interesting.
Please let us know how you are doing and post some photos if you can. Best of luck with the project.
Four-by-fours strike me as overkill. Two-by-fours should be plenty stiff.
But, in any case, if you attach the legs to the frame, you will be lucky to get a rigid connection. I often recommend instead my trick of PVC pipe attached directly to the table top. I put a bolt through the pipe near the top and through an eye bolt. The tail of the eye-bolt goes through the plywood table top, with a washer and nut on top, making an absolutely rigid joint.
My table is 45 inches high, and I use 1 1/2-inch schedule-40 pipe, which has an actual outside diameter of about 2 inches. This would be too limber if my layout weren’t attached to the walls. Even though yours may be lower, you might want to use somewhat heavier pipe.
If you can avoid diagonal bracing with this trick, you will be able to roll the layout over furniture, like the old desk, and make better use of the space under the layout.
The 4x4s come from a college-dorm lofted bed - so I thought I’d recycle them. The casters I purchased have a 4x4 mounting plate on them. These will attach to the 4x4s legs.
I agree that these are overkill, but in an effort to utilize the space under the layout - I thought I’d “box” it in from the layout down to the lower cross-member support of the benchwork. Basically I’m building a 4’ x 8’ x 3’ rolling box with a train layout on top! Easier said than done … I’m thinking.
Anyhow - I will need to take into account that my floor is not 100% level too. I suppose I need to design a way to level the layout … or I’d have to shim the wheels. Hmmm?
My former layout was 6x10 and it was on wheels and I had it for 7yrs. It didn’t have to get “rolled” too ofter;however, whenever I needed to roll it it was no proble. My current layout is 9x17 and is also on wheels. So far so good. The floor not being level is an issue regardless of wheels or no wheels. The floor not being level is just something you deal with if it comes up. Shimming is no biggie. My layout is im my shop which is 20x23. Good luck with it.
You can still attach levelers to the legs and these can be used as “locks” when the layout doesn’t need to be moved. The 19" computer racks we use have this feature and allow us to trundle around fairly massive assemblies yet lock them down when we don’t.
The floor not being level is a bigger issue on a mobile layout because of the stresses and strains when moving over/trough areas on the floor that rise of dipp too much. This is more of an annoyance on a wood floor where rise/dips are minor. In a basement with a poured concrete floor you can get serious elevation swings (+/- several inches) and not have noticed them until you do something like try to move a 4’x8’ table around a floor drain.
My 6.5’x 9.5’ layout fits into a corner as well. The legs are 2x4’s and the wheels are 1 ½ hard plastic. My floor is smooth hardwood floors. The layout moves very easily and smoothly. Only on occasion does a figure or anything fall over when being moved around.
Chuck’s got it. Even better are the retractable wheels that you step on to engage. You can use the threaded levelers, but those take forever to screw in/out.
Just for another option, I have used appliance rollers for my layout. They can handle 3,000 pounds, cost about $10 per pair. I already had a pair when I started building my layout. I use four of them (one under each leg). Pictures below.
