Mystery Solved

I figured out what happened with the shelf. Apparently, someone had come along after I mounted it and move all the studs left 1-1/2"! Can you believe it?

OK, so I measured 16" from the corner and thought the drill was biting into the stud. Apparently, it's just thick drywall. On the second attempt, I used a stud finder and that puppy is really anchored now.

The newly secured shelf

I was able to remount the shelf Tuesday evening and even get the light fixtures in and wired, just in time to clean out the room Wednesday evening for the Thanksgiving party we were hosting. Next, I hope to get the sky fascia up while Joey is home from UC this weekend.

Major Setback

I spent a couple of days mounting lights under the shelves. I wired the left side and center which provides fantastic lighting over the work desk (for now) and I was really pleased at how everything was coming together. Collections of stuff were neatly stacked on the shelves opening the space below to work and the lighting was so good, you could turn off the room light and not notice a difference.

Last night I mounted the right side lights. Didn't fit. I had to take everything down, finagle a few things, and c-clamp the 3 light fixtures back in place. It fit ... barely. I drilled and screwed the first fixture and went to the bathroom.

This is what I found when I came back. It was actually worse than it looks. Very frustrating. The entire shelf pulled out of the wall and collapsed. Of course, all the stuff on top fell including a bucket of used CFLs. Nice. One of the light fixtures got pretty bent up, but it's still serviceable and I have 4 or 5 extra from the old layout.

I was only gone a few minutes....!

The other shelves are strong and stable, so I am not sure what the problem was here. I'll need to verify that I had mounted it into the studs (every 16" right??) and then I guess I will try again with longer lag screws and bolt the shelf into the adjacent one.

So close...

Shelves, Part 1

Well, technically, part 2. I previously posted my attempts on the support bracket for a shelf around the layout room that would provide both a storage space above the layout and a mounting spot for the lighting. I completed the bracket last week over a couple evenings and this past weekend, I added the shelf, and painted the bracket white so it will reflect the light down on the layout.

Completed shelf, ready for lights

If you look at older photos of the train room, you'll see  that I have been able to move a lot of the smaller boxes and containers to this shelf and once I get things a little more situated, I plan to have my scenery and supplies over the work desk, much like the photo above, while on the other side I'll have completed buildings and storage for freight cars that I don't use but don't want to get rid of.

Left side of the room, door to back yard just out of the scene to the right

If you look closely, I've placed the fluorescent lights around the left and center shelves to get an idea of how they will fit. Looks like either side will have 2 4' lights with a single 2' in between while the center will fit 2 4' fixtures with a small 3-4" gap between them. On the plus side, it seems I will be able to get some really good illumination with minimal gaps and only needing a one more 2' fixture.

The down side? Anyone need 4 or 5 four foot, single bulb fixtures? Seems like I have a few left over from the old layout.

Loop Layout with Penisula

Give him 24 hours, and Bruce will work miracles! He took the ideas we toss back and forth Sunday and last night sent me the first draft of a loop layout with a small peninsula for the coal mine in Herminie.

Loop Layout v.3

The basic idea is instead of having two offline staging yards to feed trains, use a section of track to hand stage the trains that will come on and off the layout - this is at the bottom of the image where the duckunder entrance is to the room. Next, simulate the train traveling from town to town by covering the loop 2-3 times before stopping. There are several spurs in both Irwin and East McKeesport for servicing industries and I still have a nice passing siding/yard lead in East McKeesport but I wonder if we could fit one or two more tracks in the yard.

This is looking good.

More Track Plan Ideas

Bruce and I got together this afternoon and discussed some of the ideas we've been mulling lately. His latest plan ... nothing short of amazing ... tucks both an east and west yard in the room, keeps the Herminie mine and has a narrow duckunder/lift out. There is plenty of switching opportunity but I expressed some concern about the elevations in this small an area. We did a couple of quick calculations and we might have 3-3.5% grades. Ouch! This is a great plan for running tracks point to point, and Bruce kept an option for continuous run, but I was not sure I would be happy once we started operating.

Point-to-point with option for continuous run

I have been thinking that I was trying to do too much in the small space I have. What if I eliminate the staging yards and have the train traverse the mainline 2 or 3 loops to get from point A to point B? For that matter, what about a terminating yard where all the traffic coming in was destined for local industries and all the outbound freight went in a single direction to the division yard for sorting? Basically, I was beginning to focus on an industrial yard servicing a small city ... say, East McKeesport. As an example, I showed Bruce the Big Island Railroad plan from the Model Railroading layout database which is very close to the size room we have to work with.

Model Railroader's Big Island Rail track plan

Now a peninsula in this plan does create two rather narrow aisle but we could put 2 or 3 spurs here, even the Herminie coal mine. There is a small workable yard online and several spurs off the mainline as it makes the loop. We even discussed making an outside track or two where the duckunder would be and have a "mole" make up and break down the trains that move on and off the layout - sort of a manual staging yard.

Possibilities....

Squeezing the design

When I first realized that extending the layout plans outside of the train room would not work, I was a little hesitant to tell Bruce because he had already created a half dozen trackplans based on my original idea. Fortunately, he accepted the news in good humor and said it was a learning exercise. I vaguely described what I was now thinking and figured we would get together later and maybe create a new, shorter list of Givens and Druthers. Bruce had a different idea.

Fitting the track into a 10 x 10 space

Bruce took the last trackplan that had the east and west staging yards and moved them into the train room. I am still amazing, looking at the diagram for the 4th or 5th time, that he managed to fit it in so well. Obviously, he made some compromises but he still provided a lot of the features I was looking for.

We hope to meet at the NMRA Division 3 Train Show this weekend and maybe we'll be a little closer to a final trackplan. Anyway, I just wanted to share what an awesome concept Bruce had.