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When I was young, I had a 4x8 layout in the garage, and my dad built a rope-and-pulley rigging so that the whole thing could be drawn up to the ceiling. Do you think you can find the help you need to do something like this? Then you could lower it over your bed for use. <br /> <br />The trouble with 4x8 is that it is too deep to reach all the way across, and so you have to have an aisle on each side. A shelf-type layout runs around the walls, concentrating the "wasted" space of access aisles in the center. It might be possible to weave a shelf layout around your space, tucking it behind or over furniture as needed (i.e. maybe it's just a 6" wide single-track mainline behind the bed, then widens out to a town scene elsewhere), but this would require complex benchwork, as you say. <br /> <br />Another option, one I would encourage, is to go modular. Find a local club that has their own module standards, and just build one to match theirs. They may even build the benchwork for you. Then, you can operate long trains when the club gets together, and focus on smaller projects in the "off" time. You might want to create 180-degree turns on adjoining modules, which could be left as bare plywood, so that you can set it up on your own. Using a 2'x4' module size, you could carve that 4x8 into four modules, two straight and two with curves, and you would just focus on one at a time, with the others in storage. Thus, you only have a small 2x4 to place in the room.
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