Glass top, glass sided coffee table N scale layout? You could build it yourself if you are handy. I've always wanted to build one...
if ONLY.... we already have the Trundle bed... It's solid oak.... Mamma won't let me make major changes to that...
I thought about making a layout that would fit OVER the mattress in the trundle box. Thus, when someone wants to spend the night, we have to move the layout, but that would be rare... the whole trundle would roll out and SHAZAAM! Instant Train set....
Another alternative is not to hide the layout, but rather to hide the bed.
You could have a bed that pulls out from under a layout.
LION had build a bed 6' off of the floor, of course this was a one room apartment, and so I had a living room under the bed, but a kid would LOVE to have a bed above the layout. And because mom cannot reach the bed to make it for him, he will have to do it himself which is a selling point no mom can resist.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Murphy beds... LOL.... It's ironic because my wife and I are looking for that exact thing to increase guest space.
I have an option for Under the Bed as my son has a trundle setup. The bed is nice oak and the trundle has a nice wooden facia. I could slide it under the trundle. the other option is suspend from the ceiling in the garage. If I do that option, I plan on having some rigid sides to keep if from flexing. That will probably make it heavy meaning only Daddy can bring it down.
Folding legs was an option I didn't consider... should have though... Now the question is going to be how tall the whole setup will end up being. I"m thinking more and more that HO is going to the order for the day as the height won't be as drastic as for an O gauge.....
Wow... Lots of good info...
"Hidable" layouts used to be a mainstay of the old Popular Mechanics magazine on my youth, and similar "handyman" projects in the Sunday newspaper. "Boys Life" for boy scouts used to feature them too -- something a boy could do with his dad, back when dad was expected to be rather handy with tools and if the boy was in junior high school he too would be taking shop classes.
Two popular ones were the "rolls under the bed" layout, and the "folds down from the wall like a Murphy bed" concept. You see so few Murphy beds these days (very common in efficiency apartments of an earlier era) that perhaps the idea does not come readily to mind, but there would be a lot less precision involved in a fold down layout than one which is suspended horizontal to the floor by pulleys and counterweights.
Dave Nelson
A few years back, I built a 6' by 6' HO scale layout that I suspended from the ceiling of my son's bedroom. I used a 120V winch I bought from Harbor Freight Tools to raise and lower the layout. I used 1/2" plywood to build the open grid benchwork and 3/8" plywood for the cookie cutter deck. Because the furniture around the perimeter of the room severely limited access around the outside of the layout, and because the layout had to clear a ceiling fan in the middle of the ceiling, I designed the layout like a square donut with the controls in the center opening. This meant that you either had to crawl under the layout to get into and out of the layout center or carefully lower the layout while you stood in the middle of the room. I used removable legs to support the layout when lowered. Don't expect to perform any exacting work on the layout if it is simply hanging without solid leg support as it will swing all over the place with very little work force applied.
The suspension system in general, and the specific means of keeping the layout level, will need to be carefully engineered. My system positioned the powered winch near the floor on one side of the bedroom. The winch cable was attached to the middle of a load spreading bar made from a 3' length of aluminum flat stock. A pair of vinyl coated 1/8" steel cables was attached to each end of the load spreading bar, through small pullies attached to the ceiling joists, then down to each corner of the layout. I originally tried to attach each pair of cables to the corners on the same side of the layout. However, I found that the layout would not stay level. I finally discovered that attaching each pair of suspension cables so that they supported diagonally opposite corners of the layout kept the layout solidly level without further problems.
Unfortunately, this layout proved too compact for optimum operation and too much of a pain to work on in the constricted space. If I were to build another suspended layout, I would build something long and narrow to insure adequate operating and scenery construction access from at least the two long sides. Folding legs that remain attached to the benchwork would have been more user friendly, too. On the plus side, under layout wiring was a breeze! Just raise or lower the layout to a comfortable working height and have at it. A suspended layout also offers the advantage of not having to remove everything prior to storing the layout as required for a tilting or fold-up layout. This layout was up about 5 years and nothing ever fell off of it while raised to the ceiling. Not too bad when you consider that this was in earthquake country (Southern California). I had no fear of it ever falling down either as I tested it by hanging all 210 lbs of myself from it. In the end, I gave the layout to a friend who's son was just getting into trains. It is no longer suspended.
Hornblower
There was a discussion on these forums a couple of years ago on how to build a layout that could be hoisted to the ceiling of a garage. Several systems were suggested, including drawings.
Here's one such discussion --
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/p/198201/2165331.aspx#2165331
and there may be others that you can find by using the search function.
Crusty:
Layouts that can be hoisted out of the way have been done before. They employed everything from simple rope and pulley arrangements to complex powered rigs. The biggest problem seems to be in making sure that once the layout is up it stays up and when lowering it doesn't come crashing down. I'm sure that with a little ingenuity and the help of members of this forum you can come up with a suitable solution.
Joe
I have a 2.5 y/o and a 5.5 y/o that LOVE the Polar express set my mother sent for Christmas. It's always used with supervision and my 2.5 y/o is a very good engineer.. never to fast... takes it easy (but not on the horn... OH my aching head)
Their mamma is insisting that this train be ONLY a holiday thing but they love it so much it kills me to put it up. I have an 1800 ft. house, no basement. I had about 18 feet of Fastrack in my son's room and the train was doing great, but then he can't use is room. I've been considering going to an HO size system that I can slide under his bed's Trundle frame. He could use this while the O gauge is in the attic until Winter again... but... that means putting together another train set when we already have one.
I've thought about building a set that I could lower down from the ceiling of the garage and them play with it that way. I could probably go 8'x15', but... has anyone done anything like that? Space is an issue.. .I have no extra rooms to put it in.
Thanks
Crusty