Down here, my house is 74 degrees and low humidity all year around. The interior temperature of my house will only drop to about 65 degrees in the coldest days of Winter without the heater on. For 99.8% of the year the house is 74 degrees inside, perfectly regulated by a 3 ton A/C unit in 1,300 square feet.
As such, I have very little concern for changes in temperature or humidity in the layout room.
However, post-hurricane, this could become very different.
I am sure in my final (hopefully) twenty-thirty years or so, there will be a few of these things hit my house again. I have lived here twenty-one years and been hit by four so far.
I will always evacuate for hurricanes in the future.
That means I will not be here when the power goes out, and the house will be empty with no air conditioning or ventilation for 5-10 days in the heat of Summer. Interior temperatures will reach 100 degrees with high humidity for a long time.
My layout legs will be steel, L-girders will be Poplar, Fascia PVC, stringers 2 by 4 pine, risers 1 by 4 or 1 by 2 pine, and subroadbed 3/4" plywood.
Scenery will be plaster over cardboard forms.
How safe is this design from destruction in these conditions?
I think you’ll be okay, although the steel components may develop surface rust over time if not treated/coated, and I would put something under any steel legs to keep them off the floor…just in case.
I would want my rolling stock and locomotives low-ish to keep out of the hottest part of the room, closer to the ceiling or windows. But, not so low that they may fall victim to any minor flooding or sewer backups.
Make sure the plywood subroadbed is painted or otherwise sealed on both sides. People blame warped track like the prototype experiences on rail expansion, but in model scales the problem is much more likely to be expansion of subroadbed with humidity.
A big advantage of foam is that it won’t be affected by humidity.
The steel legs are made by Edsal Industrial Products and are factory painted gray. We have workbenches in our shop with these legs 20+ years old with no rust.
I fasten 2 by 4s under the legs to keep them off of the floor. This is more to protect the floor more than anything else.
I already have all the legs for the layout puchased and ready to go!
The locomotives and rolling stock will come with us in the ev
Hi there. Track will likely expand if you did not leave any gaps. On my first layout, the track expanded during a particularly hot period and warped to the point where some of my metal steam locos were shorting from the cowcatcher (that touched the warped track). We don’t have A/C here (there are some advantages to living in Eastern Canada!). It all went back in place when the weather came back to normal. I left some gaps on my current layout in case that happens again.
My biggest worry is water. We have a sum pump in the basement and if the power goes out in severe rain conditions, I would need to connect a generator to pump the water out… Otherwise, the deluge would cause major damage.
I do not solder joints between flex track. Each piece of flex gets its own feeder. Sectional track gets soldered in sections of no more than three pieces, 27 inches long maximum. Each of these sections get their own feeders. Turnouts are not soldered and each gets three feeders.
This allows a lot of room for movement and expansion.
I hope it sounds like enough.
All hidden track will be Kato Unitrack, and none will be soldered or glued down.
While no plan is ever completely foolproof, from what I know about how heat and humidity can affect things (from living in Colorado where the weather can and does change very rapidly and radically), and seeing the countermeasures you’re taking, I’d say you’re making some very wise decisions on this build.
The last evacuation (Hurricane Irma) it took ten Axiom Train Cases. The next evacuation will require 15 as the Fleet Of Nonsense has grown.
We have two totes of memories, the trains, the kids art projects, and then some clothes. It all fits easily in the Impala with a cooler, food, and 20 gallons of extra gasoline hanging on the back.
But I gave up on these, because you lay things on their sides. The ones from Spring Mills stand the cars on their wheels and stopped things like the handrails on my locos getting bent.
The ones I have, I use for less delicate cars like Athearn and Accurail open hoppers. Locos and better detailed cars only go in the Spring Mills boxes.
You might think - but each Spring Mills box is rated for 30 cars, vs 20 for Axian. And they have the same multi-stack carry bag. My club stuff takes a little over 3 of the 5 boxes that fit int he carry case - I think if all 5 boxes were filled with properly weighted cars, it would be rather heavy.
