PLANNING, DESIGNING AND MAKING RAILWAY LAYOUTS IN SMALL SPACES
THE CROWOOD PRESS
First published in 2012 by
The Crowood Press Ltd
Ramsbury, Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR
www.crowood.com
This e-book edition first published in 2012
© Richard Bardsley 2012
All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
ISBN 978 1 84797 494 5
Acknowledgements
Writing a book such as this is more fun than hard work but you can’t do it without the help of family and friends. I’d like to thank: my wife Sharon Bardsley for encouragement; my father Stuart Bardsley for proofing; Colin Whalley for letting me play in OO gauge rather than my usual N gauge; everyone at Railway Modeller magazine and in particular Steve Flint for allowing me to use their top quality photographs; everyone at the Warrington Model Railway Club and in particular Chris Tungate for letting me photograph their layouts; Bob Rowlands, Peter Johnson, Steve Farmer, Trevor Webster and Kevin Player for letting me photograph their layouts; Alex Crawford for photographing his layout for me.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE: POTENTIAL SPACES
CHAPTER TWO: DESIGN PRINCIPLES
CHAPTER THREE: BASIC LAYOUT SHAPES
CHAPTER FOUR: THE ART OF COMPROMISE
CHAPTER FIVE: LEVELS, LAYERS AND SHELVES
CHAPTER SIX: PLANNING YOUR LAYOUT
CHAPTER SEVEN: BASEBOARDS
CHAPTER EIGHT: CLASSIC DESIGNS
CHAPTER NINE: MICRO-LAYOUT
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
Is space the final frontier for the railway modeller? Certainly not! The space available for your model railway is just one of many parameters that define your layout design. This book will show you how to design and plan the rewarding layout that you want, no matter how tightly defined that space parameter might be.
Real railways are big things. Just take a look at a modern railway and see how much room even a country station occupies. Most railways were built when land was cheap and plentiful. There are real examples of restricted railway sites, although they are mostly located in urban environments. Therefore, even modellers with a large loft or basement face compromises over the space available and this will determine their chosen prototype, train lengths and the amount of scenery. Unless you have a lottery win and move to an aircraft hangar, you will always have to make some concessions on space. But having less space than an aircraft hangar is not a problem – it is an opportunity. There is as much reward to be had in the challenge of working within the space available.
It only requires a surprisingly small amount of space to build a realistic and interesting model railway.
Real railways need big spaces. This five-car Voyager set looks lost at Winwick Junction near Warrington as it progresses from four lines to three amidst the infrastructure of overhead wires and masts. Surrounding fields and a genuinely cloudless sky contribute to a feeling of spaciousness.
You may have to find a little more ingenuity to get the maximum out of the space you have, yet the extra challenge makes it all the more fun.
Most of us have to share our living space with other people and other things and these can reduce a promising-sized space into a smaller one. This is not an insurmountable obstacle; you just have to design into the space and work around it, or even complement everything that surrounds you. Consider a layout that can be ‘hidden’ in a bookcase, or be the focal point of a room inside a coffee table, or live on a shelf above the furniture of a guest room. You may be able to find space outside the house by using a garden shed or a garage. If all else fails, you can make a layout that is portable – a small layout can be supported on readily available furniture, such as a dining table or kitchen table, or even, believe it or not, an ironing board.
Designing a layout in a small space is still a relevant discipline for modellers with plenty of space, or those who already have a larger layout. It is especially useful if you are a newcomer to the rewarding hobby of model railways. These modellers may want to build a smaller layout for a number of reasons. Firstly, its relative simplicity means that you will not be overwhelmed by taking on a project that is too big, which may have the worst possible outcome, that you become disheartened and lose interest. A ‘quick’ layout will bring quick results. Secondly, in the unlikely event that one aspect does not quite go according to plan, you will not have wasted too much money, time and effort. In such a case, you can consider scrapping the layout and starting again in the sure knowledge that the next one will be better, as you will have learnt so much from the first one.
If you believe that you have not got room for a model railway, then think again. Do not think of space as an obstacle – it’s only a boundary. You will only ever be limited by the boundaries of ingenuity and imagination, never by space. The aim of this book is to show that you can achieve more with less space. It contains design theory and practical advice, but the main themes are ideas and inspiration. So no matter what area is available to you, there is always a way to design, plan and then make a model railway that you will find challenging, satisfying and, above all, fun.
CHAPTER ONE
POTENTIAL SPACES
No matter how much time you spend thinking about your dream layout, the first practical task of turning that dream into reality is to find a place in which to put it. Planning a model railway involves lots of decisions. What prototype trains will you model? What scale will you choose? Is the scenery going to be urban or rural? You can think about these questions; in fact, you need to think about them because you need to have a clear direction before you set off on construction. Yet the one thing that will literally define the boundaries of your project is the space that it will occupy.
Many houses have a spare room, yet even if you cannot have exclusive rights to all of the room, there are lots of ways to allow your layout to share the space. There are many ways to integrate a layout into the space in a room by using furniture or shelves. Alternatively, you may have more room outside the house than inside – check out the garage or a garden shed. If none of these avenues is possible for a permanent site, there will still be somewhere in the house that can offer a temporary home for your layout, even if you have to make it portable to pack away at the end of the day.
The bigger the space available, the more opportunity there will be for developing your model railway. Yet for many reasons, and in reality for most of us, a large space is not available. Fear not, for there is always somewhere that you can put a model railway layout. If your only previous experience of a model railway was the train set of your youth that was nailed to a piece of chipboard in the corner of your bedroom, be assured that ideas and thinking have come a long way indeed.
ROOM-SIZED SPACES
A dedicated room for your model railway layout is possibly the ultimate luxury for the railway modeller. You may wonder how an entire room (which potentially offers a sizeable space) comes to be included in a book on designing a layout in limited spaces. However, it is assumed that a small bedroom, a garden shed or a garage are the largest of the small spaces to be considered in this book. The scale of the layout relates to space. If you tried to put an O gauge layout into a garden shed, you would find it to be a tight squeeze. And a large space may need to be shared with another household function – for example, you may want also to be able to put a car into the garage, or be able to lodge a guest in the spare bedroom.
SHEDS
The garden shed is considered by many to be the last bastion of male sanctuary – so how appropriate to consider it as a home for a model railway. If you cannot extend your house, then the garden shed offers a fairly low-cost alternative. Sheds come in many shapes and sizes and, therefore, many prices, though, as with everything, you get what you pay for. At the top end you can now purchase an expensive ‘outside office’ that looks more like a miniature house than a shed. Even traditional wooden sheds can be purchased in quite large sizes. However, for the purposes of this book we shall look at what can be achieved with a traditional garden shed, a simple wooden structure with the modest 6ft × 8ft (1.8m × 2.4m) footprint. Do not be tempted to share the shed with the lawnmower. It will either get in your way, or you will have to move it every time you want to use the model railway. Gardens are all about soil, which is not good for the model railway environment.
Do think carefully about where you might put a shed. If you have a large garden, obviously a small shed is not going to take much off it. If you put the shed too close to the house, you may obscure the garden view, but on the other hand if it’s placed at the bottom of the garden there is the risk of a long, cold trek from the house in the dark depths of a British winter (which is often little different from the British summer). While most local authorities do not require planning permission to erect a shed, it might be worth double-checking to be sure and always consult your neighbours. Finally, allow space around the shed for maintenance and repair; do not be tempted to cram it into a corner where you cannot get round for the sake of having a slightly smaller shed.
Some people are disinclined towards the simple timber shed as mixing softwood and British weather is not seen as such a good idea. Choose shiplap cladding (smooth planed and fully interlocking tongued and grooved) to ensure that rainwater drains quickly. Paint your shed with a good quality wood stain (not paint) every year. Non-ferrous hinges are a good investment and make sure that you oil them regularly.
With the requirement to power lights and possibly heaters as well as your model railway, it is important to get the electrical supply safely to the shed. Regulations usually specify that cables should be buried to a safe depth and be of the correct type. Once the supply is in the shed, all electrical work should be carried out to the recommended current practice – sockets and light fittings should be safely installed, with no wires left exposed. As always, the simple advice is that if you are unsure about any aspects of mains electrical wiring, employ a qualified electrician.
Do install ample security, as garden sheds are seen as an easy target by burglars. An alarm and some security lighting are wise investments, as well as a better lock than a simple padlock. As even a modest locomotive collection can be worth a lot of money, consider keeping it in simple rolling-stock storage cases, which can be stored in the house and easily transferred out to the shed for operating sessions. Check your insurance policy as well, since these can be a bit hazy about what is covered in garden sheds. If the policy is not satisfactory, you can get specialist model railway insurance cover for sheds and outbuildings such as garages that is not too expensive.
What may put you off a shed is the potential for wide temperature variations, particularly the cold in winter. However, sheds can be insulated easily and cheaply. Do not use polystyrene sheets, as these are an additional fire hazard in a wooden building and they do not mix well with electrical cabling (they can react together, causing the plastic covering of the wire to fail). Rolls of loft insulation (especially with the silver foil backing) are suitable and easy to install between the framing of the shed. Cross-battens can then be used to retain the insulation; they also form a frame to support your chosen facing for the inside of the shed. The greatest heat loss occurs through windows, door, roof and floor. The roof and door can be treated in the same manner as the walls, while windows can be double-glazed, or, at the least, secondary glazed. The floor is the worst offender for heat loss, since although heat rises, so does dampness. As a minimum, the shed foundation should be flagged and the shed raised above ground level on beams. Most shed floors are just a single layer of wood. Lay insulation or carpet underlay on the floor, then add a plywood layer on top.
Bear in mind that insulating the walls, floor and roof will reduce the nominal sizes inside a shed. If you plan a layout to use a 6ft × 8ft shed, you will not get exactly those internal dimensions. If you are planning your layout before the purchase and fitting out of a shed, allow for these slightly reduced internal dimensions. You can carry on planning, but the best advice is not to cut any wood for baseboards until the shed is finished and the internal dimensions can be accurately measured. Most sheds will have the door in the middle of one of the gable ends, though, unlike rooms in a house, the door opens outwards, which saves having to allow for the door swinging into a room.
A 6ft × 8ft shed is an ideal size, as it allows virtually any type of model railway to be built within, certainly in OO gauge and N gauge. The 18in (0.45m) minimum radius in OO gauge easily accommodates a half-circle from one side of the shed to the other. By fitting a lift-out section in front of the door, it is possible to have a continuous running oval layout, allowing you to just sit and enjoy the trains rolling by.
A typical 6ft × 8ft shed offers just enough space for all the typical layout shapes in the most popular scales.
Carefully consider how deep your baseboards will be. The ‘bit in the middle’ is referred to as the ‘aisle’ and there needs to be enough space in the aisle so that you can sit comfortably in the middle of the layout. If the interior width of the shed is just less than 6ft (1.8m) and the baseboard depth on each side is 2ft (0.6m), this leaves less than 2ft (0.6m) in the aisle.
The common ‘fiddle yard at the back’ type of layout is easily accommodated using one side of the shed. The depth required for the fiddle yard will likely be less than the scenic section. This gives the opportunity to offset the baseboard depths relative to the door, deeper on the scenic side to maximize the scenic potential and narrower on the fiddle yard side. The deeper baseboard will overhang the door opening – you can choose either to squeeze past it, or provide a slight cutaway by the door to make entering and exiting the shed easier.
The larger O gauge is likely to be harder to fit into a shed, since the radii will require more than the 6ft (1.8m) width to complete a half-circle. A modest shunting layout or motive power depot could fit on the 8ft (2.4m) length, possibly with another layout on the other side. These could be separate projects, or joined by the use of cassettes (see Chapter 2) to pass stock from one side to the other.
GARAGES
If the garden shed is declining as the natural habitat of the male of the species, the garage is probably taking over. Just over half of the homes in the United Kingdom have a garage, yet it is estimated that only a quarter of these actually contain a car. For many, the garage is simply a black hole to absorb all the junk that modern life accumulates. Modern houses tend to have integral garages accessible from within the house, while older properties have standalone garages often of the concrete or asbestos type. More often than not, integral garages have been converted into another room within the house.
A garage offers a sizeable internal space; however, if it has to be shared with a car the space will be long but without much depth. Removable baseboards in front of the main door will be necessary so as to allow access for a car. Removable baseboards at the back of the garage may also be needed if there is an internal door; with no internal door, the baseboards can go all the way round in a U-shape.
Unlike sheds, garages are broadly similar in size. You can expect a garage to be approximately 8ft (2.4m) wide and 18ft (5.5m) long. This is twice as big as the typical 6ft × 8ft (1.8m × 2.4m) shed. Many of the comments about sheds apply equally to garages in respect of insulation, electrical supply and security. All garages are likely to be more weather-resistant; however, even modern integral garages are unlikely to have cavity walls and be plastered. The biggest challenge to temperature will be the large door on the front.
If you only have to share the garage with some paint tins and a lawnmower, there will be a reasonable space left over in which to build a layout. The suggestions for baseboards outlined for sheds apply equally well to the virtually identical footprint of the average garage. One extra consideration might be a side door into the garage as well as the main door, or a door through to the house in an integral garage. If the main door of the garage is still to be used, this means that there has to be a break in the base-boards to accommodate this door. In a standalone garage, the side door may well open outwards like a shed, but with integral garages the door will most likely open into the garage. If the latter is the case, then a lift-up section can be used to bridge the door opening. It is still possible to use the main door and have a layout in front of it. The layout can be made permanent along the side walls and portable in front of the main door.
This leads on to design considerations in case you actually want to use the garage to store a car. With the car outside the garage, portable sections can be erected in front of the main door for the duration of an operating session. At the end of the session, the portable boards can be taken down and stored out of the way under the main layout. Inevitably, this does not leave much depth for your baseboards. If you want to sit down during operation, it may prove necessary to compromise by having fairly narrow baseboards. If the wing mirrors on your car are the type that fold back, you may gain another couple of inches.
If you do not mind standing up while you operate your layout, you can raise the baseboard height above the normal ‘tabletop’ height. This may allow you to gain another couple of inches of width. Some modellers actually prefer a more elevated baseboard height as it allows them to get down to eye level with the layout rather than the traditional ‘helicopter view’ of tabletop height. Another advantage of a higher baseboard is that it increases the storage under the layout. It’s not ideal to be storing things (especially heavy and bulky items) above your layout – they only have to be dropped once to do a lot of damage to your layout.
It is easy to measure your garage, but it is also well worth consulting the car manufacturer’s brochure to find the exact dimensions of your car. Also, allow for room to open the car door once it is inside the garage, unless you want to end up having to clamber out of the window. When you come to change your car, check the car’s dimensions before you buy – remember that the trend is towards larger cars and even if purchasing the same make and model, a midterm cosmetic facelift may have added an inch here and there.
Most people drive into a garage, rather than reversing in. Therefore, it is likely that you will have to have a narrower baseboard on the right-hand side (as you look in from the main door). As with the shed designs, place a fiddle yard on this side as that is usually narrower than the scenic baseboards.
Those big front garage doors, especially the older ‘up and over’ type, are likely to let a lot of heat out of the garage around the door frame. Another associated issue is that they can let in a lot of dust and damp, especially when it’s windy. Therefore, you may wish to consider a protective cover for your layout when it is not in use. This can be nothing more than a sheet of lightweight polythene; ‘wheelie bin’ bags are ideal for this. If you use a heavier polythene, be careful not to damage any fragile items such as trees. The next step up in covers would be to make a simple wooden frame to support the polythene sheet. If you have a plywood or MDF back scene at the rear of the layout, it can rest on that. At the front, you can make hinged flaps that fold down while operating the layout – these are a good idea anyway as they will help to avoid damage to the layout when you are doing other things.
Despite these suggestions for mutual coexistence within a garage between a car, a model railway layout and general household junk, you may still find that you cannot get it all to fit. The final option is just to use the space to erect a completely portable layout when the car is outside, though you may find that this limits you to the warmer months of the year. However, you can always spend the long winter months at the kitchen table making some new models and rolling stock.
THE SPARE BEDROOM
We now move into the house and consider the spare bedroom, sometimes called the box room. Most houses average three bedrooms and there’s a good chance that the third (and always the smallest) of these will be available. If you are an ‘empty nester’ with the kids grown up and moved away, this room is quite likely to be spare. More so than sheds and garages, the spare room can be any shape or size. It may be square or rectangular, or even L-shaped due to some peculiar architectural layout of the house. Some spare rooms are so small that you wonder the architect ever thought to get a bed in at all. You may also have to contend with an airing cupboard, which possibly houses a water storage tank and maybe even the heater for it. Another common feature that bites a chunk off the room is an angled bottom to the wall to accommodate the stairs. These ‘features’ will interrupt the simple rectangular structure of a room such that you have to design around them.
On the assumption that the spare bedroom becomes a dedicated model railway room, there is a temptation to build the baseboards with a degree of permanency. However, even permanent baseboards should be made to be portable. Consider that you may move house – while your next model railway room may not be exactly the same size as the current one, you will want to take your layout with you, with a minimum of disassembly difficulty. If you are not moving house, it still pays to make a permanent layout portable. There can be all sorts of wiring and plumbing under the floorboards that may need to be accessed one day.
Even if the room has just four right-angled corners and no airing cupboard, there is a good chance that you may have to share the room with some furniture. There may be a wardrobe in the spare bedroom. Like the airing cupboard, you will have to work your design around it. In fact, it may be that the spare bedroom is also a guest bedroom. In this case, the whole room needs to be designed with a dual purpose in mind, though never the same function at the same time. This can be achieved with a mix of permanent baseboards and semi-portable baseboards, the latter being easily taken down and stored under the permanent baseboards (and when I say ‘permanent’, bear in mind my earlier comments about ‘portable permanency’).
L-shaped brackets attached to a wall in a spare room allow baseboards to be supported without cluttering the floor with trestles and legs. Anything from boxes to a bed can be stored underneath, while a simple curtain hung from the baseboard gives a very neat and tidy finish.
The L-bracket system of supporting a layout allows for a lot of flexible storage under a layout. While the fixing of L-brackets to the wall is a very permanent solution indeed, the baseboards still just rest on top, which makes them easily removed if required. It is possible to store a single bed (with a modest headboard) on its side under an L-bracket-supported baseboard. The bed can be hidden by curtains when the room is being used for a model railway. When it is required as a bedroom, the bed and the fiddle yard can swap places. Using fold-up flaps and covers for the main baseboard will both hide and protect the layout when not in use. By using wooden covers instead of polythene supported by a wooden frame, you can quickly make your layout look like just another piece of furniture. By hiding your layout, your guests will feel much more comfortable in the room than if they were sharing it with a model railway. Unless the guest is a fellow railway modeller, they might possibly consider you to be less eccentric.
Like the garage, there’s a good chance that the spare bedroom is also a junk room. However, by using L-brackets, or making shelving or cupboards under the layout, you will be able to neatly hide all that junk away. So if the lady of the house needs any convincing about using the spare bedroom as a model railway room, the winning argument will be that it will look a lot tidier than it does now. You may even have some storage left over for railway-related books, magazines and all that spare rolling stock that won’t fit on the layout in one go. If you build your layout in this way, do remember not to prevent some level of access to the underside of the baseboard without having to disassemble half the room to get at it. There is always a chance that a turnout motor under the layout may fail, or a wire may come loose, and you need to be able to get at it to make a repair.
If your room is free of awkward shapes created by airing cupboards and wardrobes, your next biggest headache is likely to be the door into the room. Doors usually open into a room to swing away from the nearest wall, but this is not always the case. It is a fairly simple exercise to hang a door on the opposite side of the frame. Altering the door to open outside of the room is a little more involved (and unconventional) as it requires alterations to the door frame itself. You would also have to consider how the opening of the door into a hallway or landing would interfere with the rest of the house and the movement of the people around it.
While a door describes a relatively modest arc into a room, it does still reduce the amount of available floor space for a layout. This becomes ever more pronounced the smaller the room is. Another option is to replace the single door with a bifold door. This will describe approximately half the arc of a normal door. Finally, if you just cannot afford any space to be taken up by the door, consider converting it into a sliding door. Door runner kits are widely available and they are quite easy to install. You can probably use the existing door as well. Be careful to check that the wall will adequately support the runner (especially if it is stud and plasterboard construction). Equally, be careful of attaching to the ceiling, as the joists are only meant to support the ceiling itself. Some door runner kits include a floor runner as well as hanging the door from a higher runner, and this should be considered if weight may be an issue. A sliding door will only take a thin slice off one wall and that is easily surrendered. While all of these door alterations are relatively easy to accomplish, if you are in any way unsure, do consult a joiner.
Make a sketch of the room before you do any layout design work to identify all the key dimensions. Do not assume that a room will be perfectly square. There is a good chance that one side may be fractionally longer than the other; after all, houses are not built to engineering tolerances. Add to your sketch all the things that are ‘in the way’ – windows, doors, cupboards and any furniture that will remain. Finally, note where the power sockets are so that you do not put a baseboard leg in front and can also easily reach them to switch your layout on and off.
A LAYOUT HOIST
Imagine if you could just press a button, you hear the hum of a powerful electric motor and your layout disappears out of the way to leave an empty room. It may sound like the stuff of a ‘Wallace & Gromit’ film, but it is possible and it has been done. There are two types of layout hoist – the lift-up and the fold-up. The former is not very common for the reason that it is not for the faint-hearted, yet the latter offers some practical possibilities. Both are suitable for garages and spare rooms and allow the layout to be quickly moved out of the way to leave the room free for another purpose.
This is a simple plan of my railway room showing all the key features that will influence the shape of potential designs, namely, doors, airing cupboard, window, radiator, sockets and light switch. Inches have been used as the unit of measurement, but you can use whatever you are most comfortable with.
The lift-up layout hoist literally lifts the entire layout up to the ceiling. By suspending the layout at each corner by a wire, you can raise it up to the ceiling and down again. This is a complex solution that requires substantial engineering, not the least of which is to ensure that the ceiling will take the weight. It is best to fit folding legs under the baseboard in order that when it is down, it does not swing about like a hammock in a storm. Unless you are a competent engineer, a lift-up layout is the sort of thing that is best commissioned.
More practical and easily constructed is the fold-up layout hoist. This pivots one edge of the layout against a wall so that it folds up flat against that wall like a drawbridge. The height of the operating level of the layout will determine its depth, since this is the dimension that must fit under the ceiling when the layout is up. There is less of a limitation on length though. You could use a pulley system to winch the layout up, but because much of the weight is taken by securing the folding edge to the wall, it is practical to lift up by hand. Make sure you have plenty of secure catches to hold it upright. A couple of security chains are worth considering as well, just in case it was to fall on you. Those chains could be used to hold the layout in the ‘out’ position, but folding legs are once again a better prospect, especially as they can have adjusters fitted at the bottom. These will ensure that the layout can always be folded down so that it is perfectly level. Remember to set the hinge far enough away from the wall to allow for the tallest scenery and buildings that you are likely to have. Any particularly tall items like factory chimneys can always be removable.
A fold-up layout hoist allows a layout to be quickly and easily put away to leave most of the rest of the room space free for other activity. No real engineering skills are needed, just carpentry. The frame and underside of the layout will be visible in the room when it is in the up position but this can always be hidden by a curtain.
The lift-up layout hoist is probably a bit too ‘Heath Robinson’ for most modellers, but the fold-up layout hoist could be a practical solution. You can have a reasonable-sized layout erected in the room very quickly with just the rolling stock and a few scenic items to add before you are ready for operation.
FURNITURE LAYOUTS
One of the space challenges faced by the railway modeller is how to integrate the need for space for a layout with the rest of the household’s needs for space. If outside space in a garden shed or garage is not available, and there are no bedrooms going spare, you will have to look at sharing an existing space. It may be important to be able to hide the model railway layout when it is not in use, or blend it seamlessly with the room so that it becomes a feature and not an eyesore (if not to you, then to everyone else).
There are two classic examples of layouts that can be built into the furniture. The first is the layout in a bookcase, which offers the potential for a spacious layout discretely tucked into the corner of a room. At the other end of the extreme is the second type, which is the coffee table layout – much smaller in scope yet more of a feature.
BOOKCASE LAYOUTS
