New Peninsula Added

I have added a peninsula to my model railroad, finally! Here's a video of the first train taking a test trip around.

Obviously a tremendous amount of work remains to be done.

The circle is restored

On Saturday I put the Bridge of Death back across the layout room door. I call it the Bridge of Death because any train that should derail on that bridge is in for a long fall to the carpeted floor. I keep meaning to put rails on the bridge (OK, plank) but so far I haven`t.

By putting the BoD in, I now have continuous running on the layout. My kids are fascinated by the trains running around and around without stopping, my baby son especially. My daughter keeps stopping the train and changing the cargo. :)

A short train crossing the Bridge of Death

Still Here

I haven't forgotten about this blog, honest! Alas, my train room is currently a storage room. We are getting most of our basement refinished, so the stuff that was in the unfinished area has overwhelmed my train room. Once the work is done, in a few weeks, I hope to get back to running trains.

Building a layout - shelves

My new layout is an around-the-walls style layout, with a peninsula coming from one end of the room. I decided to build the layout on shelf brackets screwed into the wall studs, with shelves cut from 4x8 foot sheets of plywood. This way, I would not have legs under the layout, leaving room for storage of my model railroad equipment and railroad ephemera.

I started by deciding what height to make the layout. As I mentioned before, the whole layout is on one level. Most people say you should build it somewhere between belt height and shoulder height. I chose a height of about 44" from the carpet to the top of the plywood. I wanted it a little on the low side so kids would have a chance of seeing what's on the layout with a little stool.


After borrowing a friend's stud finder, I set about marking where the studs were on the walls with a pencil. I used a laser level on my tripod to make sure I was building the layout perfectly level.

Maybe I was geeking out a bit too much. Maybe I just wanted to use my Christmas present. :)

I screwed the supports into the wall at each end of the plywood sheet, then screwed the supports into the sheet from below to ensure no screw heads would be on the top. I then filled in the supports between the ends and screwed them into the board too. The result was a very very firm layout with no wobble. I'm pretty sure I could stand on it, but I haven't tried. :)

In the corners where I couldn't get supports in, I used little metal connectors to screw the two boards together and prop up pieces of plywood I cut to fill the corners. I reasoned there wouldn't be much weight there so they didn't have to be as strong as the rest of the layout.

For the end with the peninsula, I built a traditional box structure and put legs on it. The peninsula is going to be on legs and I figured it would need a firm, rigid structure to attach to.


I haven't built the peninsula yet, since my layout room is doubling as a spare bedroom for a few more weeks. Soon, soon!

So far I'm very happy with the method I used to build the layout. It has made tracklaying a breeze and I appreciate the rigidity of the structure. The NSER was built on legs, and wasn't attached to the walls, so it was a little wobbly until the whole thing was built. This layout is rock solid.