Layout Construction I: Shelf Benchwork

The Eastern S-Line layout will be multilevel with three levels of operating railroad and staging above and below the layout, all connected by helices. Like all multilevel layouts, there is a premium on having the decks as thin as possible so there is more room for sceniced, operating layout.

My first thought was to use 3/4 plywood as described in Tony Koester's book Designing and Building Multi-Deck Model Railroads. Thinking about this I realized that even though the layout structure is only 3/4 inch thick, there will still lots of "stuff" hanging down below the layout. This includes switch machines, wiring, signal and power distribution circuits, and lighting for the level below. Depending of the particular equipment used, this will generally be not more than about two inches thick.

If the stuff under the deck that we have to hide is two inches thick, we may as well used that for the layout structure as well. This will save vertical space by having the "stuff" and the structure use the same space. The design that I came up with is shown below, upside down on the workbench.

Bottom of Layout Shelf

To give you a sense of scale, the shelf in the lower left corner is 12 inches wide. The whole thing is 64-1/2 inches long and it's 36 inches wide at the far end. The ribs and the caps are two inches wide and they are in line with the studs in the train house (24 inch centers) and will be supported by stamped steel shelf brackets. The shelf is made from 1/4 inch underlayment grade plywood, and glued together. The holes in the ribs are to allow passage of wires and don't have much affect on the strength. The holes in the top are the locations of switch machines. Holes will be drilled as needed for track feeders. The ends where the sections are joined together are made from 3/4 inch plywood to provide a stiffer clamping surface. I've painted the bottom white so it will reflect the lighting down onto the level below.

The earliest reference that I could find to this style of layout construction was in the April, 2009, issue of Model Railroader and it appeared more recently in the Layout Design Journal No. 43 (Summer 2011), published by the Layout Design SIG. Both of these were for portable layouts. The advantage to this type of shelf structure is that it is lighter and stronger than a 3/4 inch solid shelf. The biggest drawback is that it is more work to build and, if you're going to be making a lot of it, requires some specialized tools to do it efficiently. In addition to the workbench shown here that I used to assemble it, I also used a table saw to cut the two inch wide strips. Gluing it up also requires lots of clamps.

Gluing top on upper staging yard

I'll get double duty out of the workbench, since I'm planning on doing all of the track work, including switch machines, wiring, power and control circuits, and lighting on the workbench and testing it before I install it, and it will still be light enough to handle by myself. The structures and scenery will come after I've started operating it to make sure there aren't any major changes required. If there are, I can take it down and put it back on the workbench where everything is easy to get to.