First time here and interested in building a dual track HO gauge, rr about 6-12" from the ceiling in my living room. Does anyone have any suggestions or can lead me to some links? I prefer to have the rr built on a table but having two michieveous cats, I somehow need to prevent them getting into my rr stuff. My first choice was “N” gauge but in order to see the trains running, the layout has to be at a larger scale such as “HO”. I will settle for the ceiling just so I can have a fairly nice layout. Thank you very much for your suggestions.
If your cats are declawed and/or you have no wood mouldings and/or curtains, the ceiling layout will work. Or, you can put the layout at a lower level and before you get anything much done cover it with mousetraps and the cats will learn to stay off in VERY short order.
My old dentist had a similar arrangement in his office. It was made using nice wood (Oak I believe) and was on brackets that held it away from the wall slightly but extended to the edge of the shelf for support. His was O gauge. In thinking about it, I don’t know how easy it would be to from the ground looking up at an HO or especially N gauge layout. I find those gauges easier to view at eye level (even if you are bending over) or looking down on them. My dentist’s arrangement looked very nice. He also had a glass display case to put cars that weren’t being used on the layout.
I built something like this for my sons bedroom. It is HO track. On30 trains can run on it and they are large enough for him to see from the floor yet I can run all of my HO as well. It was manufactured on the ground and then put up in 4 sections. So far it has been very reliable with no derailments.
Here is a link to pictures and a very short video. Please keep in mind that this link is almost a year old and that he now loves his trains.
Regardless of the height you place your layout, the only fullproof cat-resistant layout would have to have plexiglass shields around the edges of the roadbed. I have a breakfront that is at least seven feet high. One of my cats was able to get to the top of this furniture by leaping off the back of a dinining room chair which was no higher than five feet. Cats are relatively lights with very strong hind legs. This makes them excellent jumpers.
You should run the trains as close to the edge as possible in order to see them. If you combine the angle of view & the height of the train you can see what I mean. Most " almost ceiling height" tracks are usually large scale for this reason.
Adding to the original question…can anyone offer advice regarding preventing a train from taking the “Newtonian Route” to the floor? I currently have track around 2 sides of the room at about 7’ from the floor. Of course, the trains up there are only for display right now, but I’m planning on completing the loop once I buy the house. I’ll want the track to be as close to the edge as possible, so that my models can be seen, and the models I have up there are my mostest favorite (coincidentally, the ones that I also have the most time and money invested in). My biggest concern is that humidity and temperature changes may nudge a section of track out of alignment causing a derailment that will bring down the entire train.
Interesting thread, thanks to all who have posted comments!
Caboose Hobbies and Mizell’s Trains in Denver both have G Scale trains running around the ceiling. Caboose has 3 or 4 of them running independently. I like them very much and watch them when I am in the store.
I visited a hobby shop in eastern Indianapolis that had a couple of HO tracks running around the room about a foot or so below the very high ceiling. They were running a long passenger train with either a pacific or a northern with QSI sound. Because the tracks were so close to the edge, they had 6 inch or so plexiglass sheilds in place. IMHO, the Sheilds were higher than necessary (1.5" is adequate) and these same sheilds greatly affected the quality of the sound. Or, they had a problem with the locomotive sound system. The train on the inside track was hard to see and I thought it was a waste of time.
Until about 2 weeks ago, I had intended to run my G scale around my office with a ‘tunnel’ into the next room, even at one time considered a dual mainline the desired state. Those plans are now abandoned as I have decided the efforts would detract from my ‘real’ layout.
Regarding the cats, well, I really like the mousetrap idea, and personally would have NO issue with using a ‘pet’ electrical fence draped around the layout. I used that approach to keep my German Shepherd out of the wife’s flower bed. She only tangled with it once or twice and in over 10 years, it was not a problem.
A ceiling railroad is better than no railroad. By the way ready made shelving is available through the LHS or the Web and some pretty nice bridges exist in G that would look nice over doorways etc.
Interestingly, many modelers ‘fall in love’ with scenery. A ceiling height layout would pose some unique issues for those who want to build scenery.