a garage layout

[Anonymous]

I've decided to get back into model railroading with my son. My question is i have space in my garage that is horseshoe shaped with the legs being 12 feet and the heel being 14 feet. What are the suggestion as far as should i make this a room or will it be ok left open as a garage? I would have no climate control either way. I live in northern Virginia so i know i'll need some kind of heat for wintertime modeling, the summer i'll just tough it out. I am in the mountains somewhat so it's usually not that bad. Thanks for any advice.

[rayhippard]

Jim, What a coincidence ! My son and I are building a 14' x 18' train room in my garage. We are making it totally enclosed and insulating it ( not that much cost if you do the work ). We bought a new 8000 BTU window air conditioner for $159 and will also heat the room with two electric baseboard heaters hooked up to a wall thermostat ( about $100 ). You will need a separate 100 amp breaker box for the room, but again not much cost if you do the work. You will greatly appreciate the temp. and humidity advantage of doing this as well as it will keep everything clean in the room. You know how dusty and dirty a garage gets. Also suggest you finish inside of room including painting, lighting and backdrops before starting bench work. I've built several layouts and never did this and was always sorry about it, so this time I'll be patient and I know I'll be much happier doing it right. Write back at my e-mail and ask any questions you have. Also I'd like to hear of you and your son's progress. Ray

[Anonymous]

Jim,

I once built a very nice, large layout in an unfinished garage. I ended up regretting not finishing the room so much that I tore it out and did just what Ray is doing. I had dirt and stuff blowing in on the layout, stuff warped and moved around from the temperature changes, moist air from outside made things rust...the list goes on and on.

Assume that the layout will turn out great and take the time to fini***he space as much as you can before building the layout. We built a loft over the room for storage and shelves in the part of the garage that was not enclosed in the room. All parties are happy with the results.

Guy

[Jetrock]

I have a layout in my garage, which is detatched, unfinished and un-air-conditioned. The summer heat where I live keeps me out of the garage but in spring, fall and winter I am in there quite often--winters here are pretty mild. I do plan on adding some insulation and eventually adding a side door (right now the only access is a "barn door" in the front, open to the street) which will allow me to do more work at night (it's a little sketchy puttering on the layout at 2 AM with a door open to the street.) I have a large fan that makes things bearable in the summer but it never gets particularly cool in there except late at night.

It is a good space, though, now that I have cleared room for the layout--my one-bedroom house has some advantages (like being cheap enough to let me afford lots of model railroad stuff) but the space limitations keep my layout in the garage.

An around-the-wall layout is pretty much ideal if you still plan on parking a car in there--my garage doesn't have room for a car when it is empty, but to keep it usable as a workshop my layout will be 1-2' deep against three walls, and is set at a 4' height to allow workbenches and storage shelves to be accessible beneath the layout, and a 6' high shelf/lighting fascia above it--thus I can still have storage space.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all the input from everyone. I am now thinking about making a room in the garage. I make my living as a maintenance tech in a factory so i can do just about any type of work that it will take to do it, but like everyone else my money only goes so far. I have already told my son (9 yrs old) that it will take some time to do this right. i think for the short term i will build a small layout on a platform that we can move around for us to play with as we build our railroad. I asked him the other day while we were train watching close to here what type of railroad he wanted to model and he said definitely a feight line. But he also wants a passenger train and both of these should be steam and diesel. LOL got to love kids. I think i can lean him to the diesel side which is what i prefer, now i just have to explain that you don't see many freight trains stopping at the amtrak station. Anyway back to my original topic, i was thinking i could just stud up some walls in the garage, cover the inside with drywall and finish just the inside of the train room for now to get the ball rolling. Does this seem logical to anyone else but me? thanks again for the input.

[trollw]

That will definitely be a good start but it really doesn't cost that much more to use the roll insulation between the studs and it will really help make it easier to heat and cool. You can sheetrock the outside or not (probably won't matter too much with a generally mild climate - I definitely will since the 100+ degree temperatures in Texas are a killer on air conditioning). But getting the studs, sheetrock and doors are the primary consideration before starting to build the layout.

[rayhippard]

We actually did the reverse and finished the outside of the two " inside " walls with drywall on the bottom 4' and pegboard on the top 4' so we could hang things up and store stuff both temporarily and permanently outside of the train room. This helps to organize you and keeps the train room clear for working inside. Again, even if temps. and humidity are not extreme, the benefits of temp. and humidity control far out weight the slight additional cost and time. Remember, you are building a train room for the long haul ( pun intended ) and even if you don't like your first layout in the room, you can tear down the layout and start over, but the room remains constant so you should make the room as best you can to start. Please keep us updated on your progress. Ray

[Anonymous]

Presuming you are comfortable with wiring, I would also run romex and pull it to outlet and junction boxes on your first pass at framing. It is much easier to do without sheet rock up and you don't have to hook it up yet, it can just be in the walls ready to go. Romex and boxes are relatively inexpensive especially when you consider how much longer it will take you to do it later when you have walls and sheet rock already in place....

Guy

[tutaenui]

A seperate room in the garage is the way to go. You would not believe the dirt that can blow in thru the garage door. Unfortunately that option was not open to me and I am constantly cleaning track. A tip for the workshop, if your wiring regulations permit use a double pole switch for the main lighting, use one pole for the lighting and the other for the workbench power outlets. This greatly reduces the chace of forgetting and leaving a soldering Iron plugged in and on. A friend of mine set fire to his train room with a forgotten Iron.

[Anonymous]

If you can add a cut off room I would do it.

My layout is in a detached garage here in Florida. I will soon be adding a window A/C but its pretty rough during the summer a fan helps. Dust & dirt are a problem but not as bad as I had thought. Working on it at night during the summer is interesting because the lights draw every bug & its brother into and on top of the layout buzzing around like dive bombers.

Another major problem are the darn biting bugs if you leave the doors open, in Florida thats a big problem. So after covering yourself in bug repllenant watch out as that deet junk will melt plastic. Be sure your fingers are clean of Deet. A good powerful fan blowing at mach I pointed directly at your face helps keep the bugs from biting ya up to bad as their little wings are to weak to fight the power of the mach-I size fan.
There are always things in the garage that cause problems like lawn mowers, cars & associated petro chemicals for car as well as garden, here the washer & dryer are located in the garage.
As mentioned the bugs are a big problem, from spiders building webs under or on rolling stock to all sorts of crawling things on the layout. A big problem is with frogs, toads, & lizards which cause havoc if I forget & leave the lights on overnight. The small animals are attracted to the food source (lights) and knock apart everything. Even worse is that they will leave dropping right on the rails that once dried are hard to remove, better have a plow on that lead loco.
Many mornings I come out to discover that godzilla & Megathon have crashed through my layout knocking both trains and powerlines over, plus leaving the above mentioned calling cards.
Recently I have started putting locomotives back into there cases when done operating them due to the possibility of dust getting into them.

A lot of havoc but its a good place compared to inside room for a layout, with time and funds it can work for you. By the way if I recall it gets pretty darn warm in the foothills or Blue Ridge in Northern VA in July or August.

Where summer is bad here, maybe worse than in NOVA I bet winter can be a har***ime for working on the layout up your way.

Take Care,
Mike
St. Petersburg Florida

[Anonymous]

We don't have basements in southern California, so many people have layouts in garages. My last layout was in a garage. I will never do that agian unless I first enclose and finish off the garage. That is especially true if you are running DCC, as one of my friends discovered. When I was at the NMRA convention in Seattle, I went on a layout tour featuring an N scale layout in a finished garage. The enclosing of the garage and lighting, outlest, AC, etc. really made the layout a great model railroad.

[Anonymous]

I am building my second garage layout in the Arizona desert. One of the most important considerations for me was to seal the cement floor with a good coat of epoxy floor paint. Concrete floors continually shed fine dust as you walk and drive on them. The expoxy coating stops the dust and is much easier to sweep up or mop. Your layout will operate a lot better and your spouse will appreciate less dust being tracked into the house, as well. You can pay up to $1000 to have it done, or you can do it yourself for under $100 for a three car garage. Home Depot or Lowe's have everything you need.

Because the temperature here rountinely tops 100 degrees four or five months of the year, I am having an electrician friend install a 12,000 btu air conditioner. The walls are insulated already, so all we need to do is apply foam sheets of insulation to the inside of the garage doors.

The only other considerations were to make sure I had plenty of electrical outlets where I needed them, plus track lighting above the stall where the layout is going in.

We have very few nocturnal flying insects around here, so I don't have to worry much about them other than an occasional moth. Bigger concerns are the geckos and other crawly critters that wander past. I've also had several curious quail and cactus wrens drop by. They just stare at me and continue on after a few moments. A nice diversion.

John Timm

[CBQ_Guy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by toolbox_guy_va

i think for the short term i will build a small layout on a platform that we can move around for us to play with as we build our railroad.

Here's an idea I had I want to try and run by you. Keep in mind it's only an idea and I haven't tried it, but you may be interested.

How about, for example, you go ahead and build your platform (I'm thinking a basic, cross member frame with plywood or foam on top, or both). Make four legs using, say, two 1x3's glued and screwed together to form an L-shape, what we call an "L-Girder" in the hobby. Attach this to the OUTSIDE corners of the layout, and let them rise up a foot or two above the table so that when you're not using the layout, you can put a lightweight tarp or visqueen over it all like a tent, to keep dust and other crap off the layout. Dust is the biggest enemy of a layout for a couple reasons, especially in a garage environment. If you can keep it off the layout in the first place, I guarantee you and your boy will enjoy a much less irritating model train experience.

Have Fun!!!

[Leon Silverman]

Here are a few caveats regarding preparing a garage for a layout: Use windows that are at least 30 inches wide across the outside frame so that you can install a window AC unit that measures 24 inches across. I purchased 28 inch wide windows from store stock. These had an effective width opening of just under 23 inches. This dimension effectively limited me to a maximum AC BTU capacity of 8000. You might want additional capacity if your garage is sun baked in a hot climate and only run it when you are actually in the garage (Mine is 13 by 22 ft.).
Secondly, Avoid, if you can, an electronic (with remote) thermotstat on the AC if you want to be able to start or stop the AC from another room. I have a fully detached garage and have to start the unit from inside the garage. Restoring the power to the AC will not restart it. It has to be restarted from the panel or with the remote facing the front of the air conditioner. The AC unit faces away from my House.

South Jersey.