Hey y’all. I’m having a 120’x 75’x 18’ pole barn built for the trains and the truck shop. That barn would be the only place to build the layout of my dreams but the only concern is how do I control the dust and humidity and keep the temperature within 3 degrees of 72* year round? Thanks for any help.
Unless you live somewhere like Southern California where you get that temperature control for free, you should plan to insulate the heck out of the building.
I would isolate the train part from the truck part. First of all, it will help to control the dust and dirt, and second, you probably don’t need to spend so much keeping the trucks at 72 degrees. Where I am, I heat the train room in the winter and cool it in the summer.
How high will the “real” inside be? 18 foot ceilings are going to increase the volume you need to heat and cool without giving you much in return.
Finally, how big will the layout be? I’m a lone wolf, and I’ve kept track of how long it’s taken me to build my layout. The first section, a 5x12 foot table, took 5 years. That’s everything - benchwork, trackwork, wiring, scenery, kits, decoder installation and so on. That works out to a month per square foot, and I spent a lot of time, on average, per day. The second phase of my layout went along with a similar build-up rate.
120 by 75 feet, at my build-up rate, would take 750 years. Now, I’m sure that you aren’t going to use the whole building for trains, or even that you’d use more than 50% of the train space for the layout, but consider how much layout you can really build.
I would probably have a loft above the layout making the ceiling about 10’. The layout itself is about a 45’ x 95’. I would have a crew from my local club come and help me build. What products what I use to control dust and heat?
Control dust? You need to isolate the layout room from dust production activities.
Control heat? I believe it’s called an air conditioner.
45’x95’ = You cray cray. 
Is this a do-it-yourself project, or do you have a professional contractor doing the work for you? It seems to me that a contractor could answer your questions a lot better than we could. I’m sure that there are many zoning issues and permitting issues that will affect what you want. A good contractor should be able to answer them. If not, you need a different contractor.
Mister Beasley certainly hit most or all of the high spots.
You need to make a sealed room. And it has to be insulated. That means you’re likely to have sheet rock internal walls and ceiling. I presume the floor will be concrete. You should seal it or it will make dust from walking on it.
When the layout is under construction, dust will, of course be generated. But after, you’ll want to control it. Since the layout room will have conditioned (heated and cooled) air, its filter will be doing that. Get a good one. Arrange to have the fan going whether or not there’s heat or cooling–to keep filtering the air.
You’ll also have to do the electrical while the walls and ceiling are open. Be wary of putting lights directly above the layout, as you’ll have to get to them from time to time. You won’t need much power.
That’s about it. Pretty straightforward. Don’t make mistakes.
I’ve been an electrical contractor for about 35 years.
Ed
I would reduce the footprint and make the building 2 stories, downstairs for trucks, upstairs for trains. This will cut materials costs and make it easier to heat and cool. That way, you only need to heat and cool the upstairs.
Add a big roof exhaust fan at the top. This will keep the whole place cooler in the summer when it’s not hot enough for AC. Add a ceiling fan (or 3) upstairs, too. In winter, this will circulate the air and save on heating costs.
You should include a lavatory, or perhaps even a full bath with shower. If you have to go outside to the house for this, you will regret it when the weather gets bad. I suggested the shower because it will enhance the resale value of the property. Few people want a big garage with a train room, but a big garage with an in-law (or unemployed prodigal son) apartment would have more value.
Be aware, though, that adding running water comes with its own issues, particularly if you live somewhere where frozen pipes are an issue.
Unemployed prodigal son apartment? Hmmmm. If there’s a chance of that happening while you’re there, maybe it’s not such a good idea.
Ed is right on with this. Take it from my experience, don’t skimp on the room. I bought a house last spring and blitzed a 17x40 layout to 90% completion in an attatched building. When winter hit, I realized that an open ceiling and 2 inches of foam on the walls wasnt enough for -20 weather. I have had to tear out the whole thing and am in the process of renovating the whole building so I can start the layout over again.
Stud out the walls, put in your electric, insulate as much as you can and plan your lights and heating/cooling before you start building.
As others have already mentioned, having at least a half bath would be hugely convenient. I started my detached garage/workshop/train room design with no bathroom, but I soon added a half bath to the design, and then a shower since we were going to have to add sewer and hot water for the half bath anyway. I also made sure the train room and model workshop were well insulated to reduce the air conditioning cost for the 7 month summer here in central Florida. My garage/workshop build.
All of this stuff about adding bathroms and so on is okay, but around here you start doing that and the assessor says that it becomes a living space and raises your taxes accordingly.
A Pole Barn? Really!?!
This is North Dakota, and Pole Barns are no longer allowed for new construction.
Are you going to have a concrete floor?
LION would look at the price of a steel building.
ROAR
I agree completely with having the contractor insulate, heating and cooling systems, electrical etc.
I would also suggest that if your bench work plan is fixed, that you consider appropiately placed interior walls and professional built bench work.
The walls confine sound to a limited area.
Building a small amount of bench work is a learning experience. Building yours is a time consuming job.
It would also be motivating to get part of the layout to the point where you can run trains.
Dave
Not sure why you are thinking of keeping your temperature so controlled, trains don’t mind some fluctuations.
I’d certainly consider keeping my ceiling height at no more than 8’, if not a little lower. Gets expensive heating or cooling all that space.
Have fun,
Richard
If you have the funds, recommend you look into an insulated slab with radiant floor heating. It will give you about as dust free heat as possible. For cooling you could look into some of the newer wall hung room coolers with individual fans. Would recommend a spray foam insulation system on your “barn” walls and roof. Agree with others recommendation for restroom facility but that could go in the garage portion of the building. Sounds like a dream facility regardless of the details.
Instead of trying to insualte this large building, how about a building inside a building? Insulated stud walls, 8 foot ceilings tops, insulated roof. Wouldn’t need anything fancy on the outside, and since there is the pole building to shield it from wind, it shouldn’t be too hard to control the heat in this building inside a building. 8 foot ceiling is high enough not to feel closed in, but reduces the unusable area that needs to be heated (or cooled).
–Randy
I’m not sure where radiant heat floor technology stands right now, but if it’s a floor to be used by trucks it might not be such a good idea. That’s a lot of active weight that might damage the heating elements, and they are not easy to fix, whatever they are.
I do agree about the addition of a shower turning it into “living space” from a tax assessment point of view. Still, I would have the pipes installed and capped, and take pictures before you cover the walls. Let the next owners deal with the assessor if they decide to install the shower.
Looking further down the line, when you lay out the floor plan and wiring, allow space for a refrigerator and microwave for your “crew lounge.”
tRaCK76
As many have mentioned you really need a temperature controled environment. In addition to this the floor a the very least should be painted ( add a little bit of sand to keep it from being slick ) or tile or carpeted and if at all possible have an eletronic air cleaner and a humidifier installed on the HVAC system.
YGW
3 degees is tighter than needed for a model railroad room. That’s more like the tolerance on the Precision Measurement Equipment Lab (PMEL) in the air force. Was it me, I’d be happy so long as I was comfortable working in the place. That’s like maybe 66F to 80F. How far north are you? I’m in NH and I don’t bother with air conditioning.
As far as dust, you need to sheet rock in the trainroom and tape the joints. Paint or tile the concrete floor. Forced hot water heat is a lot more dust free than forced hot air. A train room doesn’t really need windows, the layout looks better with controled interior lighting. Part of dust control is a good vacuum cleaner, and floors kept clear enough to run a push broom around the place.
Before the sheet rock, put in plenty of electrical outlets. A duplex fixture every 6 feet is not too many. Put all the wall outlets on a switch by the door so you can flip off all the power when you quit railroading and know that you don’t have a forgotten soldering iron working on starting a fire. Put in plenty of ceiling lights, for working on the railroad you want good lighting. Put the lights on a separate circuit from the wall outlets, so that a short circuit that pops a breaker doesn’t put the lights out at the same time.
Think about painting the layout backdrop on the walls before you do the bench work. Just a simple coat of sky blue paint on the walls helps a lot, especially when taking photographs.
You have mentioned the bottom floor of this building is going to be a “truck shop”. Are you doing repairs? What type of trucks-LD or OTR? Lifting trucks and repairing trucks requires a reinforced slab, lifts, drainage, exhaust ventilation, etc. Lots of equipment cables hoses and such will be run in the ceiling area so it is unclear how large a loft you would end up with. Running water and HVAC are the least of it.
I will probably put a loft in half the barn. The truck shop is for my LD Ram 3500’s, mostly for lifting and tinkering around (changing injectors, turbos, fuel sumps, ect.) although I may store my friends W900 in the winter.