need help

[Anonymous]

I am trying to setup a train from my bothers new house ... it is HO scale and he wants to put it around the top of his media room... I think it is to small for this ... my next ideal was to build a table for it but he has to two kids and we need to find a way to protect it .... does anyone have a ideal on how to do this ... I cant seem to find a place that builds display cases that large...
PLEASE HELP my brother is driving me crazy over this ...
Thanks
Gayla

[jhoff310]

depending on the size of the layout you want to build for him there is always the option of suspending it from the ceiling. Put together a connection of pulleys cables etc... and suspend it from some nice oak ceiling timbers. I had to do that years ago at my grandma's house so my cousins would'nt ruin my dads old Flyer. Worked like a dream I could lower and raise it when warranted.
Jeff

[Eriediamond]

In my honest opinion here you are going to do one thing here and not do another. First you picked one of the best ways to discourage the kids from an exciting hobby. Secondly your not teaching the kids to have respect for things. Why not involve the kids with it??? I must be getting old as "bonding" with the kids seems to be out now days. Just an old geeser's opinion and trying to be honest here. Also welcome to the forum. Ken

[IRONROOSTER]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Eriediamond

In my honest opinion here you are going to do one thing here and not do another. First you picked one of the best ways to discourage the kids from an exciting hobby. Secondly your not teaching the kids to have respect for things. Why not involve the kids with it??? I must be getting old as "bonding" with the kids seems to be out now days. Just an old geeser's opinion and trying to be honest here. Also welcome to the forum. Ken

I agree, do it with the kids. If they are that young, do Lionel until they get a little older.
Enjoy
Paul

[Anonymous]

well thanks for the useless advice ... for one thing we trust my bothers kids it their friends we do not trust .... I plan on involving my niece and newphew in the process of building the train ... but I was just asking if anyone knew of a company that acually build display cases that big ...

[Anonymous]

How about building a tabletop layout and placing lexan or plexiglass screens around the edge about 16 to 24" higher that the tabletop? If done properly, they could be fairly easily removed, you could keep curious fingers from reaching the models. At 16 inches, you could cut a 4x8' piece into three pieces 16" x 8' long. You could then cut one of those in half making two 16" x 4' pieces. These pieces would be sufficient to surround a 4x8' layout with a 16" barrier. I haven't priced this stuff, though, so it might not be economically feasible.

Good Luck!

[twhite]

Just curious--how big is the room? Were you planning on an 'around the wall' layout? And how old are the kids and the friends? Reason I'm asking this, is that if they're pretty small--grammar school age--you can always elevate the layout around the wall. A lot of layouts these days are 40" or more above the floor, which helps a lot when you have rowdy children hanging around. I don't know of display cases that are ready built for the size I think you need, you'd probably have to have them custom built. What you might want to do--assuming this is an 'around the wall' layout, is build the framework about 45" or so off the floor, then protect the layout with a fascia of plexiglass--screwed into the frame so you can remove it for layout work. I know I've seen N and Z scale trains enclosed in plexiglass--a couple of coffee-table layouts, but I don't know whether it would work or not for HO.
Tom

[Jetrock]

Putting a layout around the ceiling of the room is pretty much the worst place you can put it--if you actually want to operate the layout you'll need a ladder, and you won't really be able to see it. And since HO is pretty small, all you'll really be able to do is a simple loop around the room.

In terms of display cases--how large of a case do you want to build?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ggroom456

well thanks for the useless advice ... ...

Your original post did not SPECIFY that you were looking for information on display cases. Don't ask an unclear, non specific question and then say something insulting in response when it is YOU who did not make it clear what you were asking. A little courtesy can go a long way.

[Anonymous]

twhite ,,, thanks for the advice .. the game room size I am not for sure of will have to check with my brother but I can tell you it is big enought to put a pool table, fooze ball table , drafting table and big screen tv in it .. it is a very large house... the age of the kids will range from 6 years old to 13 years old ... I agree with every one else the train is to small to put around the top of his media room which is 13 x 20 ... convienceing my brother of this is really hard ... he got the dallas cowboy train and the marveraks train .. cant remember the name of the company off hand lol ...this is a really big challenge for me since I have never build a train track setup before any good books or web site for advice would be much appreciated or a place in dallas texas that would be good for me to go ....sorry I was not clear before. it just seems I am hitting nothing but road blocks on this project and my brother is really depending on me to do this... it is really driving me crazy ....

Thanks again for any help you can give me ...

[simon1966]

An HO scale train looped around the room would be almost impossible to see. I would assume that any track would have to be above door and window openings and would therefore be 7 plus feet up. The shelf for this would have to be very narrow, maybe a couple of inches at the most and the track would have to be right on the edge to see the train. To prove this to your brother, why not attatch a short narrow shelf to the top of a door frame and put a loco and cars on it, just to demonstrate how un-impresive HO would be in this context. Most round the room tracks done in this way are with the larger scales.

Does he just want a train that goes round and round with no kid interaction, or do you need or want something a little more than that? If his main desire is to have a display of the team related trains, then a display case may be a better route.

[Leon Silverman]

To make a layout Catzilla proof, I screwed it pairs of 3" wood screws along the perimeter of my layout. These screw pairs were placed 1/4" apart and provided supports for strips of plexiglass that followed the track perimeter. This prevented the trains from hitting the floor if they were knocked over but could easily be removed if I had to do maintenance on the track itself.

[Anonymous]

well thanks for all the advice ,,, but my brother will not listen he is putting the train around the top of a room. I can not talk him out of it... he is not going to like it but you know how men are lol .... but on a good note the other train he has is going to be a design to go around his christmas tree which I Dont have to worry about for 11 months lol ... I have measured the shelve to allow for a derailment. so maybe the train want fall to the ground I know the hight is going to be around 7 or 8 feet high ... thanks again for all the good advice I will let yall know how it goes in about two to three week .. that will be the move in date I think...