I told my wife I wanted to put a lionel train around the ceiling in my train room. She then told me to do the whold basement. I still want one for the train room alone, so with that in mind I am thinking of double tracking the train room. My question is since I will be putting a shelf up for the trains, how big will I need the shelf out from the wall and how far apart to make the tracks from each other and how far out from the wall for the inner track so as not to hit the wall? I usually work in HO so this is rather new to me. Thanks for the help.
Hi Kevin, I guess the first question is what Lionel trains are you going to run. The smaller O27 sized trains or full scale trains. If you are running Classic Lionel F3's or GP7's you can get away with O27 or O31 curved track. Lionel uses diameter rather than radius, so O27 is equal to 13.5 radius and O31 would be 15.5 radius. You will want the track closest to the wall about 3.5" or 4" and the second track about the same from the 1st. Then the next question about the track itself is who's brand will you be using. Lionel Fast Track, MTH Real Track or Atlas. K-Line made track that matched the old Lionel tubular rail O27 and O gauge. For the straight sections you can probably get away with a shelf 1' wide. Depending on the curve selected it will take some figuring on that. Big box hardware stores sell real wood shelf brackets that would work well for mounting on the wall. The shelving will depend on what you want the final product to look like. I hope this helps. Greg Elems Reno NV
I will be running an older Lionel steam train that was given to my dad years ago and a Polar Express train with a 9 (?)car consist ( I have all the cars including the toy fair box car). I was thinking of the three foot pieces of three rail track since no one will see the track from the height of the shelf. Thanks for the info!
Ok the software that I have to draw layouts does not have the O27 track in it but that might be what I need. Here is a picture of the drawing showing the Lionel fasttrack with O36 curves. You will see a section that disappears out of the room. This is where it will attach to the rest of the basement.
