It looks like I'm moving to the north Dallas area, and where I live now I have a nice basement to put a HO layout. Where do you guys put a layout when you haven't got a basement? Is there
something that I should be looking for when I go down to look at houses?
Look for a house with a very large barn out in the back. Richard
A climate controlled attic or garage or the ability to climate control it. I have a room in the back of the garage. Mark
Unless you are willing to seal and climate control the entire space a garage is out of the question. Your best bet is probably an added on "game room" say, above the garage or some part of the house.
There are a number of fine layouts in the area located in separate buildings on the same property as the house. Of course this isn't cheap and not always possible because of lack of space, building
codes, etc. Me? I have had to content myself with a small spare bedroom (about 12' by 12'). Of course it's not what I really want but it works.
Jerry C.
I've seen many very nice layouts in spare bedrooms. My own thought (and my wife agrees) is to keep the trains in one room. When we lived in an apartment, the spare bedroom had the trains on a high
enough table that underneath was storage (and lots of it!). _bob
My basement is not fit for a layout so I use a spare bedroom, not large but works for me. Maybe if you can get 2 spare bedrooms, back to back, you could really have some nice space with trains
running through some tunnels built through the connecting wall. This way you could really have 2 completely different scenery scenarios. Roy
Does your wife really need a dining room? Paul
One idea I have seen mentioned in the model railroad press is a trailer (mobile home). One guy had one built to his specs and he sited it in the rear of his lot. He built a high fence and planted
some shrubs to hide it, as I recall. Charles F Seyferlich
I put my n-scale in the coffee table. I can move it to any room of the house. Mike
I have a 3 car garage. I built a nice 18x18 room in two of the bays, installed a wall heater and put a rug on the floor. The walls are all insulated and the room is comfy in the winter and cool in
the summer. Len Bruening
Same old song and dance: the only place I have to run track is around the perimeter of a room about 16" from the ceiling. Have only seen this done in resteraunts, where the tacky factor seems to be ignored. Has anyone got suggestions on ways to construct/hang the "shelf" that supports the roadbed? My initial thought was to make the entire thing "trestle-like" with the intersecting beams, etc, but maybe less tacky to have some sort of skirted shelf painted the wall color to make it less intrusive. Ideas? Thanks!
I've done this (started this) at my house.
First things first, try to make it simple. When I envisioned my mighty 'ceiling' railroad, I over did it a little and subsequently never really finished it.
Although it seems easy enough, and it is, it ends up taking alot longer to cut, glue, sand, assemble, stain, hang, ect...... then I first counted on. I planned for two mainline tracks that would run the entire upstairs of a four bedroom house, intersect at one point so both lines had to share one track overlooking the first floor. Great idea because like you I had no other place to have a layout. It got to be too big. I never finished it. (After two years of leisurely working on it.)
My basic suggestion would be to start out with a 5/8" plywood base. AC plwd if you wish to paint it, or I used oak plwd and stained it. Lay it on the floor and trace your radius', leaving enough room on either side for clearances. (Make a template if you have many curves.) Try to make each curved section out of one or two pieces at the most - you want the strength in the corners because corners are harder to support. Jig saw out the pieces, sand the edges as required. Then get some wood material about 1" - 1 1/2" high X 1/4" - 3/8" thick and glue and nail it to the edge of the plwd. (To cover the unfinished edge and to act as a little fence or wall.)
For the support members I used 1" X 2" oak about 9" long, screwed and glued to another piece of 1" X 2" oak, about 4" tall, at a 90' angle. this second piece of oak is what was screwed to the wall. You can put a little detail on the material with a router if you wish too.
I had a friend who many years ago moved into a large, old fashioned high ceilinged apartment in Washington DC. He had a wife and a household full of furniture so there wasn't room left over for a normal layout. But there was a large bathroom with a plate rail that ran around the room at about 6 foot height. So he laid HO track and ran trains up there! (There really is always room for some sort of a layout where ever you live) Ross