Upper deck, too?
If you’ve researched your local codes, then you should be fine. In some areas where my clients have built, there can’t be anything, even above or below, for a certain distance out from the box.
I might have tried for a simpler layout arrangement in the area of the box if I was planning to make the benchwork removable.
Good luck with your layout.
As a Wisconsin licensed Home Inspector, I would have a problem with the access to the box. You have to be able to remove the cover of the panel, and comfortably and safely reach everything.
I don’t know the codes where you live. I guess if you had a licensed elctrician look at it, and he didn’t think it was a problem, you can get away with it.
That little sliver of a layout section in front, is that a removable staging track? or the removable section you referred to for electric panel access?
Mike.
Mike, you’re correct. That’s a removable staging track. It’ll be stacked in a corner when there’s no trains on it or it’s not in use.
As far as reaching the box, I can reach it, open it, flip all the breakers etc. without exerting myself. My wife can too, and she’s about 8” shorter than me. We tested with a mocked up piece of plywood at deck height.
I was concerned about the clearance too, and the electrician told me that if this was a new build, things would be a lot stricter. But the lift out is what saves it, because then it‘s technically not an obstruction, since it can be moved away. He likened it to houses where the box is mounted in the closet. It’s okay because you open the door and there’s the box. Same concept, I suppose.
As an aside, the inspector was actually here last year when my mom inherited the place, and there were two tables in front of the box and he didn’t say anything. Even opened the box and looked at the breakers. And did the same in my workshop which has the box in a similar position above a workbench.
But he did say if the house were actually to be sold, the box itself would have to be moved if a new ordnance they’re looking at is adopted this year.
*Supplemental note - Despite the above, I’m going to go back and look at other options anyway, and get a second opinion. With my luck, an inspector would see it differently than the electrician. Even if the breaker panel has to be moved due to code changes when I buy the house, the box will still be there and be converted to a splice box, which will also need to remain accessible. The only other option would be to rewire the house, and that’s just not happening.
Another note on the electric panel, I hold a master electricians license and the way the national code is written an area of 30 in wide 36 in deep and 6 ½ feet high from the floor is supposed to designated as electrical space with nothing else in it to allow for safe working clearances, but your friends right with a lift out section that would give you the working clearance and make it “legal” if you ever need to go and work in the panel, so I don’t think anyone would give you a hard time about it ecpecialy if the inspector likes trains
All that said, my layout has 4 tracks that run in front of the panel which is in closet [:)]
STEVE
Steve -
Thanks for the input. I’m also thinking of Byron’s advice about simplifying the track plan on the lift out. I won’t be moving the section by the workshop much, but the one to the box needs to be more accessible. Can’t fault the logic on that. I think I can rearrange some of the engine yard trackage, narrow the shelf, and get an easier access via the lift-out. The only other option would be to hack off ten feet of layout length. Which means to do what I want, I’d have to go N-scale, which I can’t because my partner in crime on this is older and has diabetic neuropathy, so N is too small for him.
WARNING: THIS IS A ZOMBIE THREAD…
But it’s purpose is more of a continuation.
So, almost six months on, and I’ve done a lot of new drawings and figuring. I had thought I was done, but then I realized I’d gotten some very good advice and just become boresighted and pigheaded about my designs.
In light of the previously mentioned breaker box problem, which another electrician familiar with codes emphatically said NOT to block with an upper deck, removable or not, I’ve decided to focus on making this layout single-deck. However, I’m going to build it such that I could add a helix to a second deck later, which would operate as a turn job, coming near but not crossing the breaker box.
So this is where it stands now.
I pushed the engine yard back into what used to be a reversing loop. Instead of the loops I had in previous designs, I now have an around-the-room design with optional continuous running facilitated by a removable bridge that runs to a repositioned, removable staging yard. The train would run from the staging yard, past the engine facility and station, through town, and then turn at the gravel quarry, returning to staging tender-first, unless I decide to just run trains, in which case it will go through the tunnel back to the staging yard, and do it all again. I’ve decided my power will be Moguls, with perhaps a Ten-Wheeler or Connie for variety.
If I do eventually add an upper deck, I’d move the quarry, and have the switch lead to the helix instead. The process would be more complex than I describe, but that plan is still very nebulous.
This design will allow for plenty of switching, which I love, as