Looks like three of us have chosen the same range, 42-1/2" to 44-1/2" on mine and like with y'all, it's a time-tested height from previous layouts. I'm 6' and it allows me to reach the rear of the layout (36" deep) and is perfect when standing up or sitting on my stool.
I will stick with 40". At 5'3" that is plenty. The O gauge in the yard and drive way were much lower. Long time ago when I could still bend over so far.
So here is what I'm up against. As for weight and the shelves and all. Here's how I see it. The layout itself weighs about 50ish pounds and there's about another 75 pounds of added bracing there. That's about 125 so lets factor in a 35 pound buffer and call it 160 total pounds. It's sitting on 4 book shelfs with 2 touch points on each bookshelf. The weight is fairly evenly distributed so that would put approximately 20 pound on each touch point or 40 pounds per book shelf. It feels very stable right now and I am finding with it raised, I can reach almost everything without actually sitting under it. I made decent progress already this morning so I feel confident that it will be back to it's new permanent height before Christmas. That's my goal at least
Oh my gosh, you do indeed have your work cut out for you. It looks like you color-coded your existing wiring, so that should help keep things straight as you work through it. Very clever of you to first lift the layout to a working height kind to your neck, back and eyes.
Raising it up has made a huge difference in being able to work on it. Good eye to! The wires are color coded. Kato dictated a little of that. Blue and white for track power, red and black for the switch/turnout controls, green and yellow for accessories. I have to figure out how I will add some Woodland Scenics plug and play components.
The wife asked me how I could make such a mess with the wires yet keep my work table like this. And progress...... one section fairly cleaned up
BNSF FAN, Your layout height makes perfect sense for a sitting view. I prefer a standing or walking view as my layout is longer, so the the 56" view works well for me and my 5'10" height. - Tonkphilip
Progress is progress. Have all but a couple of the items that connect to the auxiliary bus wires redone now. One I'm still trying to decide what to do with. The other I apparently never had connected in the first place. There is also one light that is burnt out so I need to find a replacement for that. Since many of the controllers for the track power and switch controls will be getting relocated when I redo the fascia, I pulled out a bag of wire ties and cleaned up those wires up as best as I could for now. I guess I need to get the fascia done next so I can finish all that up correctly. Here's a view you can compare with just a few post ago. Here's a look at how much wire I removed plus 6 terminal blocks. I'm amazed everything still works I may simplify the power districts as well. I have 12 but should be able to take that down to 8 or maybe even 6 without an issue. Of course I know since I'm going mainly DCC from here on, I could make it all one big power district but I feel like it is a good idea to be able to isolate sections of the layout when needed.
Man what a difference, it looks amazing now. And I think that is the new height he wants, but I am guessing from previous post he made
Nope, it's going to be considerably lower than it is in the last picture. I'm lazy, has to be low enough to see from my chair. My goal is to get this project done by Christmas.
Just read above you are looking at 42 inches height. Pretty decent and like you said...you will be able to see it from your chair. THERR is at 36 inches sitting on kitchen lower cabinets. It works out great for cruising up and down the aisle sitting on my mechanics stool.
In a break from the wires, I was going through some of the items accumulating on the desk and uncovered three post card style photos that I picked up at an event back in October. I went to put them up against the back of the workbench while i continued going through stuff. Was only then I realized they were almost a perfect fit and made a decent lighter backdrop than the oak wood. Not much but now they serve a purpose and are out to view. The refection on them is from a strip of cheap LED lights mounted to make it easier to see what paints are there.
Well, while I'm wanting to get started on the new fascia, I wasn't able to this past weekend since the rain kept me from being able to transport materials if I had bought them. Maybe I'll be able to get them one day this week and get started this coming weekend. In the meantime, I can update the status on a couple of things and take a look at a couple more freight cars. For this post, what's say we look at the Atlas ACF Pressureaide 4 bay hopper. I'm sure it comes as no surprise that this example is factory painted and lettered for BNSF in the modern Swoosh scheme. You can see before even opening the case that it has some nice extra piping detail Here we see it out of the box - Side 1 - As we all expect these days, the printing is crisp, clean, and the small print is readable. End 1 - Since this end has the brake wheel and the air yank, it looks a lot more busy than the other end Side 2 End 2 Top - The etched metal roof walk is a nice detail on this car and the round hatches look nice Bottom - I like all that extra piping on this car especially since a good bit of it is visable when viewing the car from the side. I've actually had this car for a while and it has logged some run time on the layout. It will probably get upgraded to M/T's at some point but for now, no issues with the factory Atlas trucks and couplers. Overall, a nice car that looks good in a consist or sitting on a siding waiting to be loaded or unloaded.
Picked up a set of Atlas 3d printed pick up truck bed tool boxes recently. Fairly nice and would have gotten more but will be looking at a different set that was recommended. Overall nice but to be honest, they are not just drop in. They have a bit of a lip that does require trimming. In the package Out of the package And a couple of shots of them installed. RPS F250 RPS F250 and Atlas F150 I still needed to do more trimming on the one for the Atlas F150. Ironically, they are made for the F150 but seem to actually fit the F250 much better. My F250 there still needs a bed liner and tail lights painted. Yet another project.......
In the what's on my workbench thread, I shared this project. Like I needed to start another project, right. Well, I've made good progress on this one. Here, the 5 that are out and the additional 5 in the unopened package are all assembled. After that, I started on the first car to lad. An Atlas SP flat. Now I have two more to load and this will have turned out to be a quick project. I had previously done two of these kits. They are fairly easy and look good. What I found is there are 6 sets of the wood frames and 5 stacks of auto or truck frames in each kit. The flats only hold 4 stacks of frames so I had 2 stacks left over from the first two kits where I had loaded 2 flats. With these 2 additional kits, I have enough to actually load out 5 flats. Once the next 2 are loaded, I'll try and get a shot of all 5 together for you all.
Those are really nice. You also have a neat looking water tank that shows in the bottom photo. Where did you find it?
Thanks sir! That water tank is the Walther's pre built tank. Came with 2 water spots and used to be in the engine terminal on my previous layout. Now it just serves as filler around my desk top service tracks,
