IIII'm baaaack....and befuddled

Why not build your layout lower to the ground and then do all your work from a nice comfy roll-around chair? If you had a friend to help you with some of the initial building, and of course retrieving your trains and supplies from the storage shed, and maybe a little wiring, you could probably do the rest yourself sitting down. If the floor is carpeted, you can either get chair runners, probably not the best possible solution, or else lay down some plywood on the floor and your chair will roll along nicely. If providing “motive power” to the chair is a problem, you could likely get one of those powered “rascal” type chairs and modify it (or have it modified) with a nice easy-chair seat.

Back again.

Your space limitations are nearly as limiting as your physical ones. Hope the latter improve for you.

Would you be able to have a suspended layout. A large hollow core door and foam would be a lightweight layout, if there is a way to raise and lower it and have something life fold up sawhorses for legs?

Another option would be hinged from the end.and lower down. That could have fold up legs on one end that you could lock into place when lowered.

Just a couple of more thoughts.

Either could be on a hollow core door and if you put, even a low viewblock, down the center your trains would go somewhere.

Good luck,

I was definitely planning on lower than typical…probably around 36".

Right now, the chair issue is one that is up in the air. I have a nice (expensive) office type chair in the room, but it is on gliders and not wheels, and does not move well…and I don’t have space for a 2nd chair. I hope to be able to get one of the scooters, but right now that is in insurance limbo, and from what I understand may be months before I get a ruling on that.

Part of why I am focusing on needing the layout to be very portable is that if things stay as they are now, I’ll probably have to move/stow the layout just to get in/out of the room, and I’ll likely have to be able to rotate the layout to work on it rather than me moving around the layout.

If you are talking suspended from the ceiling, that is a route I’ll not travel again. I tried that many years ago and ran into too many problems. Plus I think the Secretary of the Interior (wife) would have a hissy fit…LOL

Right now, end hinged on some kind of rolling cart, with folding legs on the other end seems to be the leading candidate. I really liked the idea of one end hinged off the wall, and making it look like a cabinet when folded up, but I’m about 8" short of usable wall space.

I’m putting off deciding on using a cut down HCD or a scratch built frame until I’ve settled on a support/storage cart.

And who knows. Not on wood, you get better, ad build the scenery out from it, use it as “staging” so to speak.