Pros & Cons for RailRax vs. Snyder Shelving System, Buffalo, NY

[michiganutfan]

I am setting up a new train room and plan to install the extruded aluminum-type shelving 20' X 7' or so. I've never seen or used Railrax or the Snyder product (advertised in CTT) and am looking for tips, things to consider, experience with one vendor vs. the other, pitfalls to avoid, ideal spacing between shelves for O trains, etc. Any advice offered will be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance for your time and advice.

[dougdagrump]

I have never seen them in person. For mine I just used a shelving system that you can get at most any home improvement store. It consists of the slottef rails that you attach to the walls with screws into the studs and the shelf brackets lock into the slots. The good part of using these they can be readily adjusted to accomodate the addition of more rolling stock and locos, not only vertically but by adding wider brackets you can add wider shelves. The shelves are just 1x stock with 027 long straights attached and homemade bumpers, more like a frog than a bumper. [^]

[lionelsoni]

I recently posted on the topic about keeping trains in boxes that I have 283.5 feet of K-Line O27 track mounted with corner braces to two walls, as a cheaper alternative to manufactured shelves. The brace fits under the curled edge of the a tie and is screwed to the track using a fender washer that spans the gap between two of the rails and bears on the rail flanges. I covered the wall area with 1/2-inch plywood first to get a surface to screw the braces to that is better than gypsum board.

I varied the vertical spacing of my "shelves" so that I have a few with plenty of clearance, for superliners and high cubes, and a few that are suitable only for gondolas and flat cars, while most handle other typical cars. A bracket every foot seems to be plenty to hold even locomotives.

[rlplionel]

I used both the RailRax and Snyder shelves in my train room. They used to be the same company (RailRax west coast, Snyder east). RailRax is a shinier aluminum color shelving while Snyder's is duller in appearance. Structurally, they are the same. It would just depend on what look you want.



Robert
http://home.surewest.net/rlplionel/Robert.htm

[Bob Keller]

I've got several RailRax in my basement and they're great. I've got locomotives arranged A-B-A and A-A and that fills up the length I ordered. Two or three screws will hold them up forever.

[Anonymous]

I just installed twelve Snyder shelves 7'-6" long(72"+18") and have twelve 6' long on the facing wall across the room. Got to get those trains out of box captivity so I can run them.

On the center wall I also have some Snyder shelves for Southern and ET&W NC Garden RR equipment (Aristacraft and Bachman). However,I abandoned my mountain Garden RR project in the mid '90s due to rough terrain and hostile climate.

TheSnyder type of shelf works well for me. In a previous home I used pine 1x4s mounted on 16" on center ell brackets with wheel slots [ripped on my table saw] in the pine 1x4s. These also worked out okay at the time.

[tschmidt]

I have 12 sections of the Snyder shelves in my room. I have 6' and 12' sections. They go up easily and look great. The mounting instructions that come with the shelves are easy to follow. Just find the studs in the wall and drill the holes. The best part is you don't see the sheves, just the trains. The distance between the shelves is what ever you want it to be. I would recommend the rail stops for the end of the shelves. You can get away with using only 1 or 2 at each end of the shelf.

Tom