For those who are planning a three foot deep layout please be careful about where you place your turnouts: I am planning on two to four foot buildings in the middle there. Guess I better: Make sure the track work is flawless. Have remote control of the turnouts - with an indicator light telling me which way it is thrown. Make the buildings movable. Make sure the support in that area is solid and good for 150 lbs. Feel free to post your own situations, anecdotes, and thoughts. Edit: The table is 3 feet high plus 2.5"s of foam. I am 5'8". If I was not planning a city in the middle it might be easier.
I do no more than two foot (65cm). That is already a pain in the back if some scenery has to be worked on for more than 5 minutes.
Better make it stronger then that if I come over... :tb-shocked: :tb-shocked: :tb-shocked: :tb-shocked:
Remote-control Kato #6s for operation, the whole layout is on casters for maintenance/troubleshooting. That's the plan anyway.
As the image shows, one can do more reaching safely (key word there) as the height of the operating surface(s) is reduced. For me, and for others who like their operating surfaces near chest height, or higher yet, you won't be able to reach safely more than about a foot or two, at most, and that depends on what you have close to the operating position in the way of structures, utility poles and lines, trees, water towers. For example, some fellas really like having the outer main running essentially parallel to the operating position and to the bench's main axis. But they also like the outer of two tracks (not double mains, but just two close-to-nested tracks) raised by an inch or three to separate them. How will you reach over such a higher outer main and get to items even right next to it if you have your operating surface on the layout near chest height? I have gotten used to dragging a foot stool around with me. I wanted a central operating pit, I wanted the benchwork chest height, and I wanted a lot of depth for the yard module which has the outer main running at the back some 9" higher than the surrounds (folded loop design). I soon learned of the challenges, right from laying splines, then refining their surfaces, then laying the track, then hot gluing the cut aluminum window screen, then slathering on all those batches of ground goop....then came all the scenicking with ground goop, all those bushes, and then the trees. I kept in good condition, lemme tell ya....
That's a great picture, and a good lesson. I'm going to have to watch this pretty closely, since my proposed layout will be at about a 50 inch nominal height, and will be running over furniture. I'm keeping most of it 18" or narrower, but I hadn't considered the effects of buildings on reach, though!
Even though I am 6'-3" (about 1.9 meters) tall with a proportional reach, I am trying to minimize any reach greater than about 24" for my layout. This is a good illustration, Grey One.
Great advice and a great photo for reference - thanks! :thumbs_up: This is something I kept in mind when designing my track plan. Even though some parts are 36" deep none of the track is more than 30" from the front edge. Turnouts are no more than 24" back. Planned table height is 38"-42", as I need to be able to operate the layout while seated due to a severely arthritic back. Turnouts will be manually operated via push-pull knobs on the fascia at first, turnout machines later one (I hope).
My layout is 3x5. I am lucking that my layout is movable. Another suggestion is depending on how large the layout is to add casters to the legs. Some of us are so engrossed with building the bench work that we forget about the simple things just like you mentioned.
