This may be a little silly question but I wanted your guys input, or in case anyone had any experience doing the same as I did.
I am building a layout but I want to build it on the floor. I’ll put a pink styrofoam on wooden board and the whole layout will be just 3 inches above the floor. I like to lie down on the carpet when operating the trains rather than sitting or standing.
Since this is probably rare and I never did it before I was wondering if there are any hidden issues I may need to worry about
Its in the basement and the width will be only 2 feet.
I have a cat and he doesn’t like going around trains at all [:)]
Dust - yep I agree that’s not a good thing.
I don’t see why a layout 3" above the floor would be more suceptible to dust than one 48" above the floor unless you have lots of dirty carpet. My layout when I was a kid was slighty less than a 4 x 8 on rollers so that it could go under my bed for storage. It sure got dirty and there was a real limit on height, but other than that, it served me well for a couple of years. I would build it so that in the future you could easily elevate it if you were to have back issues and not want to be on the floor. A couple of cheap kitchen base cabinets would be a quick way to put bench work with storage under it in the future.
As long as it’s not in a place where you could trip over it in the dark - I think it would work fine. You do waste all the airspace above it though - one nice thing about conventional model railway benchwork, you can store all sorts of stuff under it. But being on the floor itself shouldn’t be a problem. (When I was a kid, my Lego railroad ran under my bed, my desk, my dresser and my bookshelves, serving nearly every corner of my bedroom. Even the dust bunnies didn’t stop it…)
Thanks for all the advice guys! I’ll have DCC system so wiring shouldn’t be a problem. And I’ll still have 2 inches bellow the styrofoam board to do any wiring. I am 25 and there aren’t many friends my age that like model railroading, so I won’t be showing it to anyone I guess [:)]
This was done in the early days of the hobby. Watson House had an extensive attic layout that was about a foot off the floor. It was covered in some of MR’s early publications. You might consider covering it to stop the dust problem.
Ernie C
You could buy or manufacture some folding legs to rotate into place for ease of construction and maintenance. Otherwise, they are up under the layout, and you are on the floor just as you wish. Means removing rolling stock and locos when setting it up on legs, but you’d probably do that during storage anyway. Would you stand it on edge and lean it against a wall, or what? That would reduce dust, to an extent.
My only concerns would be the dust bunnies and pets. Everything else should be the same for layouts in general.
One other thing I am wondering. What thikness of styrofoam (the pink one) should I use. Here in Canada it goes $16 for 1.5" and $21 for 2". And I’ll need about 15 sheets!
I tend to think 1.5" is enough (I’ll have 2 wooden boards supporting the sheet all through its length) Any ideas?
I depends on your topography. If you are building perfectly flat, something that does not occur in nature, then 3/4" or 1 inch would be enough. The more hills, mountains, canyons, lakes, rivers, gullys, storm drains, etc., the more you’re going to want depth of foam to play with.
IN addition to loosing space for installing and maintaining electrical wiring, you loose the ability for under track switch machines. So either you will have track mounted switches or manual ones.
the difference between 1.5" and 2" x $5 = $75 , which is an insignifigant amount compared to what you’ll spend on the rest of the layout (track , engines , etc) especially over the time you’ll spend working on and enjoying the layout . i think it depends more on the type of scenery you want to do , since you won’t be able to do anything more than 1.5" or 2" below the track height . so the thickness of the foam should be defined by the depth of your valleys and riverbeds , rather than the few bucks you’ll be spending on the extra thick foam
IF it’s well supported and you have no plans for below grade scenery , even 1" foam would work fine , and i think that’s about $12 per sheet isn’t it ?
I’d still be concerned about the wiring, even with DCC. To maintain good power distribution on a layout that size, you will need to run power wires all under the track, and then feeders up to the rails every few feet. You will need to provide power to your switch machines (assuming they’re not all manual.) Then you will probably want to light some of your structures, and maybe wire in some signals, too. This really isn’t something you can do without getting under the layout. If you put together multiple boards, then you won’t be able to lift the layout up to work under it, either. Remember, a layout is never “done.” You will always be adding new stuff. You will always need to wire under the board.
If you are operating while sitting on the floor, you won’t want manual turnout controls, either. When the turnout you want to throw is 10 feet away, you’ll have to stand up and walk over to it, bend down to throw it, and then walk back. If you’d planned on manual turnouts, re-think the budget. It’s cheaper to buy wood and put the layout up on legs than it is to raise a herd of Turtles.
My first layout was the old O-guage Lionels, back when I was a little boy and televisions were black-and-white. It was 2 4x8’s, resting on 2x4 beams on the floor. To wire anything, I had to lift one edge of the layout, prop it up and crawl under. Not a bad job for a 10-year-old, but as I grew taller it got worse all the time. (That’s when I was growing taller. Now I grow wider.) When I went to HO guage, the first thing I did was build the legs to get the layout off the floor. And yes, we did have a cat.
I like selector’s idea about folding legs. If you attach a ledge about a foot wide and attach your layout to it with hinges, you could fold it down and open up the legs. Believe me, when I started on my layout, and my back and legs were still in decent shape, I set my base layout height at 44". Now that I’m recovering from 2 herniated disks in my back and legs, and have had a 3 level neck fusion, I’m glad that I made it high enough to comfortably work under it. There was even an item in Model Railroader using a mechanic’s creeper to make a raised one for working under the layout in comfort.
Dimastep - A permanent, essentially floor-level layout design, is one just asking for trouble. Once built and set in place, any wiring problems that arise will be a nightmare to address. Likewise, any track/wiring modifications or additions will be nearly impossible.
If the layout is situated just a few inches off the floor in an area where reasonable to heavy family traffic occurs, the layout (especially a DCC example) is likely to suffer seriously from excessive dust and dirt, which normally rises only a few inches above the carpet surface during normal walking).
You don’t see floor-level layouts (except temporarily at Christmastime) for the simple reason that they are not viable!
