Hi all,
I’m new here but this looks like a helpful place. Looking forward to reading through a few more of the threads.
I was hoping maybe someone with experience could offer some advice on layout building. I’d like to some day build a grand basement-spanning layout but, in the meantime, I’m hoping to put together an N-scale layout on the order of 8x10 to 10x12. As all of the rooms in my house are taken up (unless I clear out of my home office) this relegates me to the garage.
I have a large garage with an unused area that could easily accomodate a layout of this size but I’m very worried about environmental issues: heat/cold, humidity, dust…oh yeah…and dog hair. I could potentially just frame in a climate-controlled ‘clean room’ but I guess I’d rather not go to extremes unless necessary. Is there a way to more easily protect my investment?
Any advice about building garage layouts would be much appreciated. Thanks!
M
NB. I picked up, a long time ago, MR’s Small, Smart & Practical Track Plans by Iain Rice (published in 2000, ISBN 0-89024-416-2) and am really liking a couple of the layouts in that book. Though I’ve noodled with a number of my own designs over the years I think I might try to make my first real layout based on something from that book. The Cherry-Picked New England looks like a fun one and fits nicely in my space. Anyone else have this book? Any suggestions on more recent similar products? Cool layout plans?
First of all, if those are your options, either weather-proof and climate control your layout or move it into your office. You’ll hate the alyout if it is subject to all the elements you described.
Second, click on my beginner’s guide in my signature. It takes about 5 minutes to read. From there, also check out “What is staging and why do I need it?” Both will be a big help when designing a layout.
You check into Iain Rice’s book, Mid-sized and Manageable Track Plans. N will fit in 1/4 the space of his larger HO layouts–use them as a guide. I think overall they are more sophisticated for the space you have going.
It’s rare, but I am going to disagree (at least potentially) with Mr. Mouse. Before I’d say to rule out the garage, I’d want to know where said garage is. I think that in a dry area (desert) you can get away with it, even though the temperature swings are huge. I have had portions of my layout built for a couple of years now (track laid, not sceniced) and have only had issues with two or three joints in our helix. Looking back on it, I think even these could have been avoided with a bit different construction methods, but we were learning at the time (still are). That’s not to say that a climate controlled area would not be preferrable, just that a garage may be doable. The key thing to remember (and it is true even with a climate controlled layout, just to a lesser degree) is that everything is going to move. And you can’t stop it. So rather than try to fight it, you have to try to allow for it, and try to control where and how it moves. Not soldering all the joints is a start to allow for any change in the rails (which is probably not much) as well as everything under them. Using more stable materials, like steel studs and foam can help, as well. (I didn’t do this, but I am getting away with it so far). I have found the bigger problem in my garage to be that the conditions get to be beyond what the humans want to put up with. A space heater makes it workable in the winter, in the dead of summer I pretty much have to wait for the evening.
Oh, and while I think Mid-sized and Manageable is a good resource, I though it had a few more of the donut sort of plans than I would like (kind of forced by the constraints it had). I’ll look at it tonight and see if I’m remembering correctly, I came across it this weekend.
To SpaceMouse: Thanks for the advice. Reading your beginner’s guide now. I looked up that book on Amazon and found four ranging from $70-$130! Geez. I’m guessing it’s out of print. Will call around to my local hobby stores to see if they can get hold of a copy for a little less of my scarce treasure Will check my library too…maybe they can swap a copy with another branch.
And, to Vail & SW: Unfortunately I live in the pacific northwest…just across the river from Portland, OR. We’ve got humidity to spare and, though the garage doesn’t get freezing cold or burning hot I think the temperature might be an issue as well. If I built in a part of the third stall I could probably rig up some kind of reasonable temperature/humidity control solution - I am, fortunately, friends with the guys that built our house so maybe they can teach me a thing or too…for a fee no doubt.
Hmmm, Joe Fugate is near Portland, his layout is in his basement/garage, and I don’t think he has air conditioning in there. It seems to work. You might go to his site (google his name) and ask on his forum if he’s don’e anything particular to deal with it. I didn’t know the Rice book was out of print, I just got mine a couple years ago, I though it was pretty new.
Go with the climate controlled clean room in the garage. (or move your office out there[:-^])
If you were modeling a larger gauge it wouldn’t be that much of a problem, but it will be with N.
You don’t have to build a super strong structural room. Just something you can keep warm, clean and dry. Sealing the cement floor will really keep the dust down.
My layouts in an outbuilding with no climate control and I’m getting sick of fighting the elements.
[#welcome] You’ve come to the right place. We have all the answers [:D] - even if they tend to be contradictory [:-^]
I’m with Jeff - it’s a dry heat (he says at 3PM in August as his spiking pliers singe his fingers!)
More seriously, my Twice-N scale (1:80, aka HOj) layout resides in a non-climate-controlled Southern Nevada garage. My temperatures will be more extreme than yours, but you will have more problems with humidity. If you can close off and partially climate control your garage space I would recommend dehumidifying it. Thanks to local code, I don’t have that option. Thanks to the low humidity of the Dessicated Desert, I don’t need it.
I am probably this forum’s most vocal advocate of steel stud benchwork, which isn’t affected by humidity - not its only advantage, but the one that’s probably the most significant to someone who has the Columbia River for a next door neighbor. So far, after three years of slow progress, my under-construction and somewhat operational layout hasn’t given me any climate-related problems.
There have been many interesting articles in Model Railroader on shelf layouts. Would you consider building one of these indoors to practice your building techniques? Also, modular clubs are all over the country and that shelf layout could be incorporated into one of those layouts.
As far as track plans, it depends on what you enjoy.
I can tell you that I am glad you asked instead of just jumping into it and making the mistakes some of us regreted.
I built a smaller version of my current layout in the corner of my unfinished(no drywall and open rafters) garage and was dissgruntled over having to clean track constantly. The end result is that I rarely ran the layout nor did I work on it. So I tore it down and started over by setting some limitations and attempting to solve some problems.
I drywalled the two unfinshed sides and I installed a drop ceiling over the layout with track lighting. This controlles most of the dust and the track will stay clean for months. I am sure the facia/vallance helps also.
I built mine in the corner as I may park a car in here some day again. I also built it on homemade L brackets so I can use the space bellow for roll away storage bins.
Next time I will paint all the wood to seal it for protection from humidity. I live in a desert valley in socal and I simply do very little in the summer to the layout. I soldered every gap in my mainline then went back and cut gaps in low stress area like straight sections.
Soon I will reduce the opening in the viewing area so dust will be reduced and the viewers eye will not be drawn to the lights and ceiling. I will also add curtains. By the time I get around to sealing the garage floor I will probably be starting a new layout, but I do think its a good idea.
You have to stand to operate my layout so I will get a rug of some sort to help cusion the floor a bit.
Notice that the people with garage layouts are in warmer climates where they don’t model in the summer heat. Many people don’t model much in the summer anyway because of yard work etc.
The modeling season is therefore winter. What will your garage be like in winter? I know mine is way too cold.
Thanks for all of the great advice guys. My garage isn’t the greatest MR site and I guess I already knew that before I asked. It’s pretty cool in winter (low 50s) and hot in summer (low 90s) and humid year-round. That kind of variance would be pretty bad on track, scenery, etc - not to mention the dust which, even though it’s a finished garage, is incredibly bad. A walled in section would take care of some of it but the cost of doing that well and then climate controlling the space would all be on top of the cost of the layout itself.
I had a chat with my wife last night and, surprisingly, she’s all for me trying to build something in the house instead of the garage (as long as she can have some semis that live on the layout somewhere - go figure). I’ve been checking out my office and our music room to see what ideas I can come up with for an in-house layout that might also be liveable. I’m not in a hurry - this is something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a few years now so it’ll wait a bit longer.
The last time I owned a piece of track mounted to something permanent was back in the mid-80s when I belonged to a local MR club in northern Alabama. We had pretty large modular N and HO layouts set up in a very cool depot building someone had donated to the cause. My experience is really quite limited but I mostly enjoy building scenery and scratchbuilding structures. Lately I’ve been reading up on prototypes and operation, which I never really knew much about before.
For a start I think I’d like to build something small that has some interesting operating possibilities and gives me a chance to do some ‘master model’ level scenery on a small scale. That’s one of the reasons I liked Mr. Rice’s designs - I like his staged presentation and linked diorama concepts. Shelf mounted might turn out to be the best for me right now if I can figure out how to work it.
I’ved lived in northern Illinois, Louisville, Dallas, Texas, and now the Houston, Texas area. The climates are very different in each area (Louisville is moderate but often humid, Chicago can be hot or very cold and humid in the summer, dry in winter, Dallas can be very hot and dry, and Houston is hot, and very humid most of the year. In these circumstances I’ve toyed with garage layouts and came to the conclusion that a separate, climate controlled area is pretty much a necessity no matter where you live.
If you are really into model railroading, and if you can afford it and get “permission”, I highly recommend a separate room in the garage. Even if you end up with “only” an 8x20 room, you can be very happy with that result.
Today, I am very fortunate that I now have an upstairs 11x15 bedroom strictly dedicated to the railroad - thanks to my kids leaving :)!
Heh. Wish I had some kids to kick out - or to move into the garage. We’ve got five bedrooms but they’re all taken: one for us, one for guests, one for music, and two for offices. If we ever do have kids I guess they’re going to have to go into the garage When we bought this place I was really trying to steer us to a house with a basement but none of the ones we looked at had an upstairs that we could really live with so we went with this one - the living area is perfect for us…but it needs a basement. I’ve seriously considered excavating one with my old army messkit in the dead of night when my wife isn’t looking
M
Here are a few ideas for garage layouts. Installing an insulated garage door was the single smartest thing I’ve done in the process of building my layout. This has really moderated the temperature swings.
Since I live in a tri-level, there is a ceiling in my garage already. If not, that would have been my first step.
Could you partially share an office with the misses? I would finish off the garage. 50’s to 90’s is not that big of a swing in temperature to control. You could battle most of that with insulation. Though I havn’t seen your garage, I wouldn’t think it would take too much to seal it up. Frame up a wall with a door, insulate said wall as well as the outside garage walls. Dry wall or it’s equivilent in your area is cheap and easy to install. You wouldn’t need to do a professional job of mudding and taping, you may not need to do either at all. Seal the floor and you’re good to go.
Now that I’ve typed all of this, I suppose it could add up pretty quickly if you don’t do it yourself. You’d have to make sure that you have enough electrical outlets as well as lighting.
Just some thoughts. If you have an extra few hundred dollars laying around, you could have a decent size layout now without mucking up your office space.
For garage layout you could put a light wall in to separate a train room from the remainder of the garage.I insulated my garage dorr with 1" pink foam. I also put in a gas fired overhead heater to maintain temps. Vancouver is pretty mild without too much temp extreme. One of the reasons I’m pushing the garage is to avoid the construction messes you’ll make in the house. There’s a lot of tracking of sawdust,and pink foam shavings that you may want to avoid in the house. Also whatever tool you need in the house will be in the garage and vice versa. Having said that my layout is in the house not for environment but because I need my garage for my wood working hobbies also. That may not be a problem for you.
I too like Ian Rices track plans ,but it looks to me like you need to be careful in following the plan too closely where switch placement and curve radii are involved.
I have just finished renovating my two car Arizona garage. Air conditioning was number one priority. I looked into a roof mounted heat pump that would furnish cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. Yes it does get below freezing in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. When I saw 8,000 btu window air conditioners on sale I bought three of them, because 2 wouldn’t quite hack it 115 degree days.
I had the western facing block wall furred out, insulated and drywalled with 3 windows cut into it about 6 feet above the floor. This allowed room for storage cabinets below. I had foam batts installed in the garage door. These can be bought ready made at HD. I had a row of 5 4 foot two lamp recessed lighting fixtures installed. After texturing and painting the ceiling and wall two coats I had two coats of epoxy garrage floor coating laid done.
The result, a gorgeous workshop and train room. I haven’t decided whether to leave the car out in the hot Arizona sun, or leave room for it along the wall.
In retrospect, by the time I got done paying for cutting three windows in a reinforced cement block wall to install the window units, I might have been better off with the roof mounted heat pump, which would also provide heating in the coming winter months.
Wow. That sounds like pretty extensive modification. I’ll have a chat with some of my homebuilder friends about what it’d take to build in half of one of the three stalls and get it properly climate controlled. Our climate’s nothing like the desert - where many of the garage layout folks seem to be. It’s ot as hot nor as cold, so maybe humidity will be my biggest issue (well, and ventilation in a sealed 12’x12’x8’ box - gasp).
I do really appreciate all of the advice.
BTW, off my own topic, I notice a couple of modelers on here with layouts based on Japanese prototypes. Was wondering if anyone knows anything about Chinese rail? I know nothing but I’m a bit of a China fan otherwise (picked up the language and learned ‘a little’ about the culture in the Army). I imagine modeling China would take quite a bit of kitbashing/scratchbuilding but, oh, the scenery. Just curious…probably not seriously considering it.
Japanese and Chinese rail facilities are two totally different kettles of fish. Except for the Shinkansen, Japanese heavy rail is 42" gauge, while the Chinese ran on 56.5" ‘standard’ gauge. Chinese runs were longer, equipment was larger in every dimension and facilities were laid out to different engineering standards by people with very different agendas.
One item of Chinese equipment from the WWII era that has stuck in my mind is a 2-6-4T (I think) steamer that had been styled by Raymond Loewy - it looked rather like a distorted GG1.
Thanks for the info tomikawaTT. I assumed they were pretty different but don’t know a thing about either country’s rail systems. I bet you need a LOT more room for running anything that looks even remotely like a Chinese proto system.
I’m going to do some research for the far future…but I sure could imagine a long long shelf layout with the Great Wall along a ridge in the background. I have visited China only once and took some great panoramic shots of the wall, Beijing, Shanghai, etc.
Rode the rails (modern passenger) a little bit but not enough to see much in the way of freight facilities and all. Most of my ride photos didn’t turn out well due to the very reflective windows. Heh. Anti-spy coating most likely even though wierd commune skyscrapers in the middle of fields have little to do with national security as far as I can see.
M
Will check my library too…maybe they can swap a copy with another branch.
