After my previous thread, I was getting excited about building a donut-type layout after some work on the house is completed. However, the plan for the rest of the house has changed, and now the room that was going to be used as a guest room is instead going to be an art studio. This means that the 7.5’ x 7’ alcove that was going to be used for the railroad has to be available occasionally for a guest on an airbed.
Because the trains would be out 95% of the time, I’m wondering whether it is feasible to build a 4.5’ x 7’ HO scale island-type layout that tips up and out of the way occasionally. My thought was to use a training table base that allows the surface to tip on it’s side as the base: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TOIKTCS.
Structures will have to be permanently attached to the surface, and trains will have to be removed and stored elsewhere during the short times the table is tipped. These tables are generally rated for 200 to 250 lbs., which I think should be okay?
Will this work, or is this a terrible idea?
In MR's special issue "How to Build Small Model Railroads" it shows a fold up layout which goes into a cabinet against the wall. It is more complex than you appear to be thinking, but it would be a place to start.
I have also seen somewhere else in my mr reading a design for a layout that folded into a wall that, as I recall, would be more like what you are suggesting. Try going to Resources, in the fine gray printing at the top of this page, then Magazine Index, may find you something. Also, Googling "fold up layouts" "fold-away benchwork" or "wall cabinet layouts" might get you some ideas.
Good luck,
Richard
The old Popular Mechanics magazine as well as Boys Life (scouting) magazine used to feature how to build "Murphy bed train tables" now and then, as did the "men's section" of the Sunday newspaper - back in a more sexist era. And Kalmbach used to offer a neat booklet Introduction to Scale Model Railroading that showed a cut away of a house with all the places a layout of some sort could be built (to address the "I have no room" argument head-on), and it included fold down (or up) layouts. So yeah it can be done and has been done. But remember all that loose stuff as to be stored somewhere, and a folding layout might put some unhappy limits on scenery and permanent structures.
What I would think of instead is taking a page from some of the MR and MRVP project layouts and put the layout on easy to roll casters. If guests are rare then perhaps it is possible to "invade" other areas of the room with the layout on an extremely temporary basis until the guest leaves (at the Nelsons, we find that careful portion control at meals can make almost any guest want to leave promptly). As Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "fish and visitors smell in three days."
The MRVP layouts feature good tutorials on these casters.
Dave Nelson
would not have to be a fold out there was a artical about a suspended layout , that might be an idea to try.
here's an idea from Britain where they don't have much space. One or more chest of drawers can store modules when the space is needed for something else.
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
In my bedroom I built a shelf layout that has zero footprint. The shelves go around three walls and one day will go around the entire room. The shelves vary in width from 6 inches to 18 inches depending on the furniture that they are above. The furniture includes a queen size bed, two end tables, a chest of drawers, a dresser, and a 46 inch TV on a small table. The narrowest section is over the bed. Maybe you could consider building a shelf style layout. If you do you should have no problem putting an air mattress on the floor when guests are visiting.
Thank you all for the replies. It sounds like it's worth trying the tip table idea, that it can work to have everything glued down and be able to tip.
I can't have it fold into the wall due to the angled ceiling. I did consider having it pivot up against the angled ceiling but figure that's even harder to design and build than just using a table base that is designed to tip the table top. Plus the table base has casters so if I need it a foot this way or that it can do that.
I do like the shelf layout cancept, but really would like to have continuous running as an option for this layout. I think it'll be pretty rare that we are so tight on space that we're actually going to subject someone to an aerobed. Probably once or twice a year. The trouble is that if I don't allow for that, I fear that I won't get any layout at all!