Questions about ceiling shelf layout

[nsconductor]

Getting ready to close on my second house, finally have room for something I've wanted to do for a long time. It has a decent sized finished basement room, 26' x 13'9". I'm thinking on running a shelf around the wall, maybe a foot or so from the ceiling. Plan on going HO scale, maybe install rerailers every 6 feet or so. No scenery because it won't be visible from the floor... Still deciding on a few things. Shelf material, wood or plexi glass? Single or double track? etc.

Anybody here that has done this have any pictures?

 

[ICG/SOU]

An HO layout 1' from the ceiling will be hard to see, period. Can you lower it down?

Most ceiling layouts are at least O scale or larger. I have seen one HO layout in a store in Tennessee, but it's very hard to see anything that runs.

 

[UP2CSX]

I've seen those close to the ceiling around the wall layouts and, in HO, they uniformly look bad. Actually, they uniformly are almost invisble. If I was going to do this, I'd use G scale, which can be readily seen and admired from even seven feet below. I wish I had taken some pictures of the ceiling layout at the V&T Restaurant at the old Ormsby House Hotel and Casino in Carson City. They had a G scale ceiling layout that ran though about five rooms of the restaurant, complete with big trees and some nice mining scenes. Alas, it's gone now.

 

[nsconductor]

Well the ceiling in that basement isn't too high, maybe 8 1'2 ft.

 

[UP2CSX]

Still way too high for anyone to see much of an HO train. Make a temporary shelf at the height you plan to use and set up some track and a short train. If you can still see it, good enough. I think you'll be disappointed though.

 

[Chessie System]

My dad has one 4" from the 8 1/2' ceiling with an o scale tight to the wall and HO on the outside. Ho is about an 1 1/2 center off the edge of the shelf. You can see both trains just fine. Shelf is made out of wood, crown moulding, and misc trim. Ho track is all flex no re-railers I spent many hours making the rail joints prefect, before soildering, track is nailed down and was installed after the shelf was built.

 

[nsconductor]

I was checking some videos on Youtube about this type of set up. Here is an N scale train a guy set up in his son's nursery, you can see it pretty good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0XlHo8bLqs&feature=related

HO is a good bit bigger, so it would work for what I wanted. I think I would go with some rerailers around and make sure the trackwork is smooth. Don't want anything hitting the floor. May just do like the real thing and make it similar to bridge track with the guard rails to at least keep the train on the track even if it derailed. Don't plan on running it at any high speeds anyway.

 

[dgwinup]

I got a bargain on some G scale trains last year so decided to put a shelf layout close to the ceiling in my train room. The shelf is 1x6 pine boards with the corners cut at angles. The wood shelves are held together with a little glue and pocket holes and screws. I used 4" 'L' brackets screwed into the stud to support the shelving.

The "layout" is around the room running just above the doors and windows and about 14" down from the ceiling. Along one wall I used a 12" wide pine board to make a passing siding. Both tracks along the siding wall are insulated from the rest of the layout and powered by a SPDT switch so only one track can be powered at a time. I have two G scale locos, one for passenger and one for freight.

Here are some photos taken during construction.

First, the difficult corner over the door into the room:

The door into the room is angled between the two walls which required some culculated cuts to get everthing to fit.

This is the corner opposite the door into the room:

The siding is along the wall to the left of the corner. The end of siding turnout is located on the corner making for a few more interesting fine cuts to get the shelves to fit properly.

Next photo shows the corner to the left of the entry door:

Nothing special about the shelving, but this is where the tracks were sliced-and-diced to get the rest of the track around the room to fit on the shelves. Must be 4 or 5 pieces of modified track along the wall to the left of this corner!

This was a fun project done especially for the grandkids. They love my N scale layout (only the very top of the layout can be seen in one of the above pictures), but aren't old enough to operate it. The G scale works well for them. They can SEE the trains, but can't TOUCH them, if you know what I mean! (Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge!) And even going flat out, those G scale babies hold the rails! LOL

I've seen that video of an N scale ceiling shelf in the baby's room. Nice work. I've seen some videos of some HO ceiling shelf layouts that looked good, too.

Whatever scale you choose, I think you'll enjoy having that shelf up there. It's relaxing to just sit in the room while some trains run around the walls.

Darrell, quiet...for now