I thought I'd start a thread on things around the layout that aren't directly modeling related, but which serve us well in keeping the layout a good working environment. "Fixtures 'n 'Furniture'" can be a lot of things and I'll illustrate with many of mine. It could be a safety or protective device, for people or trains. Then there are operations-related devices, like car card boxes. Some things are for convenience, like a cubbyhole. Then there are fascia skirts and "understorage." You'll get the idea. Feel free to contribute your own items in this category.
I'll start with the project that inspired this thread, a 12' long plexiglass guard next to my main aisle at Durango. The track has always been close to the edge, so I had always planned to do something like this. The addition of another siding to hold standard gauge cars was badly needed and once I remembered my original plan fro this, I knew it wouldn't be a problem to do.
The key is that the spot is right around elbow height. What I needed was a guard a little higher than my tallest autorack. That way any body parts that go over the top of the guard won't knock cars over. Durango has some grade at one end to contend with. By choosing my height carefully, I was able to have the guard be level, be tall enough to protect excess height cars opver most of it, and left only a short length at a little less than full height as the track rises.
I described what I need on paper and took it to the local plastic shop. The big box stores usually only stock 1/8" and thinner clear plastics, plus the largest stock is often only 4' long. I wanted to take advantage of it being cut from 8' long stock to minimize the distraction of joints to just one. The plastic guys did a beautiful job of putting nice smooth edges on it, putting in a tab for the joint, and drilling the countersunk holes for #10 screws, a tricky job without the right bits to do it.
It cost right at $100 for the plastic and shop time, but well worth it. Drop a couple of $50 MSRP freight cars on the floor and you'll start thinking that $100 is cheap protection. Here are some pics of it, then I've got more "fixtures 'n furniture."
Hard to see, but in this pic the grade rises towards the camera. You can see how little it obstructs the view, but at the same time I like how it gives the sense of a bounded area, rather than a cliff!
Hard to see, but in this pic the grade rises towards the camera.
You can see how little it obstructs the view, but at the same time I like how it gives the sense of a bounded area, rather than a cliff!
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
If you don't need the see-through knockdown protection offered by plexiglass or you budget is extra tight, the new plastic trim moldings offer an alternative. It's flexible enough to follow the curves in your fascia, takes paint easily, and can blend in so well it's hard to tell that your equipment won't just take a Death Dive. You can see it fastened to the fascia with #10 panhead screws, forming a protective barrier. The trick is to get it high enough for protection without blocking the view. The overhanging second deck offers elbow and other intrusion resistance, so it's mostly about derailments along here.
Cubbyholes are the "bonus room" of layout furniture. You usually don't quite know where or how they'll be used, but you find place where it's nothing but air behind the fascia. I take my drywall zipsaw and cut the hole. Some 1/4" ply in the bottom painted black, then black foam core for the sides and back. Pardon my mess, but they tend to be catchalls for Bright Boys, DCC documentation, spare batteries, etc. Here's a big one in the main operating aisle. At the back of this one I have tucked away the drive controller for the NYRS turntable, where I can reach the controls in the rare cases where that's needed beyond the ones on the control panel. All the car card boxes you see here used to be on the fascia. I dropped them underneath, adding precious inches to aisle width here. As you can see, it's a clean sweep now with little to snag unwary crew. Car card boxes can be built quickly with light plywood to however long you need. "Understorage" exploits the vast area under the layout for stashing important stock. I've found the easy to find old TV cart a good place to start. Shelves can be added and they usually have rollers to aid access to the goodies. Not sure what this thing did previously, but all those slots sure came in handy for me once it was repurposed. My best storage is a set of multi drawer roller units I built.
Cubbyholes are the "bonus room" of layout furniture. You usually don't quite know where or how they'll be used, but you find place where it's nothing but air behind the fascia. I take my drywall zipsaw and cut the hole. Some 1/4" ply in the bottom painted black, then black foam core for the sides and back. Pardon my mess, but they tend to be catchalls for Bright Boys, DCC documentation, spare batteries, etc.
Here's a big one in the main operating aisle. At the back of this one I have tucked away the drive controller for the NYRS turntable, where I can reach the controls in the rare cases where that's needed beyond the ones on the control panel. All the car card boxes you see here used to be on the fascia. I dropped them underneath, adding precious inches to aisle width here. As you can see, it's a clean sweep now with little to snag unwary crew. Car card boxes can be built quickly with light plywood to however long you need. "Understorage" exploits the vast area under the layout for stashing important stock. I've found the easy to find old TV cart a good place to start. Shelves can be added and they usually have rollers to aid access to the goodies. Not sure what this thing did previously, but all those slots sure came in handy for me once it was repurposed. My best storage is a set of multi drawer roller units I built.
Here's a big one in the main operating aisle. At the back of this one I have tucked away the drive controller for the NYRS turntable, where I can reach the controls in the rare cases where that's needed beyond the ones on the control panel.
All the car card boxes you see here used to be on the fascia. I dropped them underneath, adding precious inches to aisle width here. As you can see, it's a clean sweep now with little to snag unwary crew.
Car card boxes can be built quickly with light plywood to however long you need. "Understorage" exploits the vast area under the layout for stashing important stock. I've found the easy to find old TV cart a good place to start. Shelves can be added and they usually have rollers to aid access to the goodies. Not sure what this thing did previously, but all those slots sure came in handy for me once it was repurposed. My best storage is a set of multi drawer roller units I built.
Car card boxes can be built quickly with light plywood to however long you need.
"Understorage" exploits the vast area under the layout for stashing important stock. I've found the easy to find old TV cart a good place to start. Shelves can be added and they usually have rollers to aid access to the goodies. Not sure what this thing did previously, but all those slots sure came in handy for me once it was repurposed. My best storage is a set of multi drawer roller units I built.
"Understorage" exploits the vast area under the layout for stashing important stock. I've found the easy to find old TV cart a good place to start. Shelves can be added and they usually have rollers to aid access to the goodies.
Not sure what this thing did previously, but all those slots sure came in handy for me once it was repurposed. My best storage is a set of multi drawer roller units I built.
Not sure what this thing did previously, but all those slots sure came in handy for me once it was repurposed.
My best storage is a set of multi drawer roller units I built.
I am new to the HO scene. Building a 14' x 18' layout in my basement. I have nothing to contribute to this thread, yet, but just want to say I find it very interesting and look forward to see what others have to contribute. Thanks for starting this topic.
wdcrvr
Mike,
I'm with wdcrvr, thanks for the topic and photos. I'm no where near building facia or storage, but your facia recesses and rolling stock storage drawers look to be very handy. I take it that your control panels are also recessed?
I find edge of layout barriers somewhat unsightly, but having experienced the pain of hours of detailed work destroyed in an instant when a car hits the floor (in my case a concrete floor) has me thinking that such barriers might be a worthy trade-off.
Thanks again, regards, Peter
Peter and wdcvr,
Thanks for your comments!
Peter,
I know what you mean about unsightly protection. So it pays to do some thinking about this as a layout is planned and built. I've got lots of track that's rather edgy, but I rely on scenic treatments to prevent the worst from happening. The two locations that received the guards were OK before I added another track, but once that was done, I had to do something. The painted flexible plastic trim is particularly low key and unlikely to distract the eye.
I was trying not to go there, the control panels that is. Redoing the panel cosmetics is one of my upcoming projects. Yes, mostly recessed, but here's another fixture that comes in handy, small guards on a few of the switch toggles that stick out. In this case, it's the power switch for my Chama staging loop.
I've also used similar blocks to protect the corner of a structure that's close to the edge.
Anyway, as far as the panels, some are like the one just above, which is a Radio Shack project box epoxied or screwed down at an angle. Others are a piece of 1/4" plywood, recessed with a box of 1x2 lath around the toggles. They're a little hard to see right below the plexiglass on either side of the cubbyhole. It's a little hard to see, but the graphics currently consist of really classy black Sharpie track plan and Brother labels.
Speaking of guards of various types, here's another one. It protects the gasline to my furnace, which you can see dropping down from the floor joists above on the left side, turns and run horizontally where it can't be seen, then elbows into the furnace on the right side. I needed some shelves near my staging and test track, so added them. It's close to the layout where someone might push up or fall against the gas line. The wooden guard prevents that possibility.
I am going off the topic into which this thread has evolved, but going back to "furniture." I won't win any awards for neatness, but I am trying to cram my train stuff and library and stuff and layout and stuff in one room.
I already had homemade bookcases going 60% of the way around the room, 3 and 4 feet high, and I am building lightweight framed-foam-top layout sections to go on TOP of the homemade "furniture." Layout height is 58 inches.
This is a photo 3 years old or so showing sections on top of bookcases.
The "bookcases" are in two layers. Books and boxed years of Model Railroader, Santa Fe Modeler etc are the heaviest and they are in bookcases back against the wall. Lighter stuff such as boxes of N scale cars, modeling materials etc. are in rollaround bookcases and carts that sit in front of the actual BOOK cases, and roll out of the way when I need a book. Here is my rollaround car storage bookcase.
When I have intensive wiring to do on a section, it is hard to reach over the inner layer of cases. Putting a section on a solid table in the middle of the room would help. But I don't have much "middle" of the room left. So I have built a lightweight rollaround table. I can pull off a section, work on it at a lower level, turn it over on its side. oops. I was going to display a picture but I have not uploaded it to a hosting site. Sorry.
Not layout furniture in my layout room, but a piece of "furniture" (?) out in my shop. An "easel" for painting 8-foot-long sections of background.
Well, that is most of my layout "furniture," except what goes on the interior of scale structures.
cedarwoodronWhat color(s) would be best for the inside of the molding- sky blue? a continuation of an existing ground surface color?
Cedarwoodron,
I decided to go with something that blended in with the adjoining ground, which the fascia color also matches well with. The paint I used here is one of my new favorites, Krylon Satin Italian Olive. It's a little lighter than olive drab. I also am using it to paint bumpy chenille trees.
In any case, if it's close to the ground, better to use something that complements it than the contrasting sky color. I actually have to look twice now to see the guard in place it blends in so well.
leighant,
I love the layout in the barn!
That space under the layout may seem lost in some way, but you can sure temporarily "lose" a lot of stuff underneath.
Here's my "table." It's actually my soon-to-be-inaugurated dispatcher's desk, due to the prodding of ops-crazed friends It's collapsible, with some dropleaf table hardware underneath that locks it in position or drops it.
I think I may have subliminally made it tiny in hopes of confining such skullduggery from taking over from all the fun...
I also unintentionally included another piece of layout furniture in this pic. There's my small step stool on the floor behind the dispatcher's chair. I actually didn't make it for the layout, but as a way to help my wife climb in the back of our LandCruiser when we're camping. When we're not on the road, it lives in the basement and is very handy. If I was to make one specifically for the layout, I'll make it to the pattern of an old RR passenger boarding stool.
I also have another step stool that's about 2" higher, but is 3' long. I use it a lot when working on the layout. Both are made of 3/4" plywood.
Here's a pic of the dispatcher's "desk" when folded.
I also have a "workbench" of sorts that's handy to the staging area. It has a test track with HO and HOn3 served by a NCE PowerCab. Underneath are some drawers that came from IKEA originally, which hold some of my extra or special HOn3 rolling stock and various open loads when they're off the layout.
Lost in the glare of the light is a shelf along the back of the staging tracks is a shelf that holds the paperwork/car cards for the trains in staging. I also have more car card boxes that hold the waybills for loads sent onto the layout for delivery. That way I can pull a car from the storage drawers, insert a waybill into the car card, and use it to make up trains on the staging tracks.
Another place where the paperwork sits in prep for ops is here: I designate the various locations where trains originate or are held ready to go from staging onto the layout. This helps keep the crews and me aware of where trains are ready to go, which is labeled on the shelves. I won't go into my car card system right now, except I use the standard car cards and waybills. Then I attach the train designator (the red is for passenger trains, the yellow cards for freight) to the pack of cards using a bulldog clip, available at any office supply store, at it's bottom. On each shelf are strips of the flexible magnetic tape. The steel bulldog clip goes at the bottom of the card pack, then the magnetic tape holds it in place and upright. On top of the shelves sits a rack from my handheld controllers. Meanwhile, back in the layout room and based on a tip I read a few years back in Model Railroader, I use black landscape cloth for the fascia skirts. I attach it with clothespins hot glued to the back of the bottom of the fascia. So the materials are "dirt cheap" and easy to fabricate making it easy to have a decent looking skirt without any sewing. In a couple of places, I have CCTV monitors. I build a shelf to hold the monitor, then cut out a viewport.
Another place where the paperwork sits in prep for ops is here:
I designate the various locations where trains originate or are held ready to go from staging onto the layout. This helps keep the crews and me aware of where trains are ready to go, which is labeled on the shelves. I won't go into my car card system right now, except I use the standard car cards and waybills. Then I attach the train designator (the red is for passenger trains, the yellow cards for freight) to the pack of cards using a bulldog clip, available at any office supply store, at it's bottom. On each shelf are strips of the flexible magnetic tape. The steel bulldog clip goes at the bottom of the card pack, then the magnetic tape holds it in place and upright.
On top of the shelves sits a rack from my handheld controllers.
Meanwhile, back in the layout room and based on a tip I read a few years back in Model Railroader, I use black landscape cloth for the fascia skirts. I attach it with clothespins hot glued to the back of the bottom of the fascia. So the materials are "dirt cheap" and easy to fabricate making it easy to have a decent looking skirt without any sewing. In a couple of places, I have CCTV monitors. I build a shelf to hold the monitor, then cut out a viewport.
Another thread is discussing backdrops right now. Here we'll discuss a related topic. view dividers. They may or may not have backdrops on them, but sometimes they're just sky-colored. You've seen the coved corner with the bridge crossing the Rio de las Animas already. As part of the center pennisula, I have another freestanding example of a coved corner.
Front as you enter the layout room
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Here's where it terminates
And here's the inside of it It was constructed using 2x2 uprights, with 1/8" masonite. A coving like this also comes in handy as a wire run for DCC busses, control circuits, etc from under the layout up to the ceiling.
And here's the inside of it
It was constructed using 2x2 uprights, with 1/8" masonite. A coving like this also comes in handy as a wire run for DCC busses, control circuits, etc from under the layout up to the ceiling.
Ops session here on Sat, so needed a new step for operators working at Crater lake Junction. I'm over six feet, so it's eye level for me, but others could use a boost.
It's two 4' long pieces of 2x12, supported by four 2x4 runners to tie them together. Like most of my projects, it's held together by square head drive exterior screws, so very strong.
It's two 4' long pieces of 2x12, supported by four 2x4 runners to tie them together.
Like most of my projects, it's held together by square head drive exterior screws, so very strong.