Yes indeed randgust. It is very handy to have a wood shop availble. Sometimes I start on a project for my model trains and end up a month later completely doing other wood projects, so it can also be distracting as well. LOL Anyway I don’t know if you remember this when I first got started, but it did have a fold up cover. The cover came off when I got my own room and I guess I could make some deeper lids to cover the buildings as well as the track.
What I came up with as a dust cover on the old HCD layout was similar but a lot easier to deal with. I made a light frame of pine - about 1x1 (remember the wood shop! ripped it up) that was about 10" above the layout to clear all the obstructions. It was like ladders on the sides of the layout. It literally 'plugged in' with dowel pins on the fascia. Then, individual crossmembers (also 1x1's) fit across the top - only needed four of those, also fit on dowels. Then I made a cover out of a plastic sheet cut to fit over the top surface only, and then covered that with a cotton sheet that went down over the sides of everything. The plastic + cotton sheet was thumbtacked to the end crossmembers on both ends. To remove it, you simply tossed one end of the sheet over the top, and 'rolled it up' across the edge of the ladders and lifted the sheet covers, removed the two remaining crossmembers, and popped the ladders off the sides. I could do it in in under a minute. Lightweight, and periodically I'd take the sheet off and wash it. Worked great for almost nine years I had that layout up. Really kept it clean. Anything HCD sized would work well with that. I might have an old picture of it someplace if I dug around. During the last two years I had a dog in the house (came with the wife) it really did the job of keeping pet hair off as well. I've made 1/4" plywood carry boxes for my portable modules, those will work up to about 2x4 as dust covers and then they start to get really heavy.
It turns out that my breakfast room is a tad over 8’ wide and I’m thinking about just using one module and putting the other 2 modules in storage. I still have the fold up cover for it and I only need to screw it on and remove all the buildings over 3” high. I don’t have any current photos and have already started removing everything from the room, but I found some old photos of it before I expanded. The photo below is one showing the module with the lid closed and below that is showing the lid fully open. We’ve had a week of high winds this week and I don’t think I’m going to have it outside unless I build an enclosed room under my patio cover because it is just unbelievable what has blown in here in the desert. Here is a video that I made 6 years ago before I started changing it and adding buildings. Its not great, but at least I can run a couple of trains.
Move back home? When I moved out I never thought of going back home, only to help my parents do something, cut the grass, paint, or? Kids now a days rely to much on there parents. Have her move to a apartment!
Well an apartment will not save them any money and I could use the extra help around here. There is more of an advantage for me because they both work in the evening and my wife has been babysitting for over a year which means she doesn’t get home till 1 in the morning. At least with them here she can put the kids to bed at 8pm and go to bed herself at a normal time. It works for me because I’m a morning person and it drives me crazy with her sleeping in 5 days a week. Anyway I’m in the process of dissembling my layout and storing it in the rafters for now. It will probably not be until next year before I get back to it because I have a lot to do for now, but at least I have my O-scale Christmas train going up at the end of November to fill in the void.
RAISE that sucker! Bring the deck height up to five and a half feet and you have about five feet clearance below. If your legs are far enough apart (or hang it all from the rafters) you can put a sofa underneath, or a bed, or a dresser, or just about anything except a curio, highboy or grandfaher clock. It not only allows you to live below it, it childproofs it (use a stepstood as a viewing platform--OUT of arm's length). Makes a great alarm clock, too, to have the bed under the railroad. Got a heavy sleeper? Run a train over their head! Am I the only kid here who had a train board in lieu of an upper bunk to my bunk bed? Really? Yeah, cleaning track or working on the scenery can be precarious. It's a stretch, and hard to keep your shirt front from draping on the scenery. But working on the wiring underneath is so much easier! It's a tradeoff. Soon you'll be spoiled, and won't want to duck walk underneath any more. And you'll remember what it is to look at a layout from eye level, which really is better than getting the usual bird's eye view. You'll be there, like when you were a kid. That part is really great. Also, I remember an old magazine which showed how to use little block-and-tackle sets to raise a layout to the ceiling when not in use. Yeah, that seems dangerous with a long layout, but it could be done in such a way that even a long layout all comes down evenly, and doesn't get bent in the process...
That's not a bad idea, @acptulsa! While I think it could be done as a permanent shelf layout similar to mine at somewhere around 60-66" base height, the "lifted to the ceiling" thing is very doable. I have a friend with a garage-sized L shaped layout that he winches into the rafters when he is not using it. It's a fairly extensive cabling system but he's been using it for years. If he can rig that behemoth to lift and lower smoothly, a lightweight N scale shelf should be no problem (although intentionally making it heavier and stiffer might actually make the lift/lower system *easier*...) Don't ask me how to actually execute it, though. That is well beyond my mechanical skill set.
I love looking my locomotives in the eye! That's the way kids see model trains. Makes you feel young again. A block and tackle at each corner of each section, with the ropes/cables all tied together into one. The several pullies make it possible to lift the entire weight, and the fact they're connected lets you pull only one rope and keeps the whole thing on an even keel as it moves up or down. All the little block and tackle sets have to be identical, of course. Old school, simple, mechanical, works. Even when the electric is out and nothing else works! But honestly, a deck height of five and a half feet allows room underneath for sitting, sleeping, an entertainment center, all sorts of things. And that can be done on legs, if your sections are long enough
When my son was about 7 years old we lived in a house with open vaulted ceilings with beams in every room and I used pulleys to hang is layout over his bed. I had it set up like block and tackle so he could easily raise and lower it on his own. The layout actually rested on half a bunk bed so that the posts were all at the same level which provided a solid level support. He used that layout for at least 4 years before we moved and never had a problem. I tried to convince my wife to have one over our king size bed, but she doesn’t want to hear it. I wish I had high ceilings in my garage because I would definitely have it on pulleys over my work bench in my shop.
Ah, so you've run trains over your kids' heads before. I'll stop worrying about you then. You might make them feel young again, too, before you're through.
