Background for Shelf Displays

I would ask what type of collection do you have? Do you have a lot of steam power? Than I would stay away from black as they would be lost due to no contrast. Do you have prewar tinplate with lots of color? I believe a safe and attractive contrast would be a shade of off white to allow the trains to stand out.

Good question Rich.  I have all the postwar Lionel Steam engines (at least by type) but the majority of engines are postwar diesel.  Rolling stock is mostly Lionel postwar freight and passenger, along with some newer items like billboard reefers.

I'm leaning towards either a sky blue or an off-white but would like to hear from some others.

White or off white.  I have gloss white and was originally concerned about that, but it really sets off the trains. You can see the detail really well.  I think any other color would diminish the impact of the trains.  

Go with a lighter color and the trains will stand out.

It would seem 'white' is the best in most cases for the reasons stated above. Most pieces are 'other than white' and even boxcars and passenger cars that are white usually have some trim in color that set them off.

The trains definitely stands out better with a white background. Here is a comparison.

One other possible option: extend a backdrop into the background:

Back story: when I was designing the roll-down backdrop for my layout, I printed out (40 pages!) and taped together a "draft copy" of the backdrop I eventually had custom printed:

As it happens, the setback behind the hanging backdrop turned out to be the perfect place to create storage shelves, and when I contemplated the blank white waterproofing plastic covering the basement wall, I remembered the paper test version I'd created earlier, which I'd kept for some reason (*cough* packrat *cough*!) and decided to throw it up behind the shelves before screwing them to the wall. The picture is obviously smaller, but IMHO provides a nice visual echo of the rolled up backdrop.

FWIW, if you prefer to spotlight your shelf storage, I agree that white is a good choice for background color, but if the storage is adjacent to the layout and just incidental or supplemental, you may want to consider a background that echoes or supports the foreground layout instead.

White. If you would like to see everything displayed on the wall.

Sherman Williams color Jordun Almond paint it is a light color with a slight yellow tint.

I used a very light blue as the backdrop for my train shelving.  Personally, I like it more than a white background.

A light warm gray (not a cold "primer gray"), almost a white but not.  Perhaps even with an "unconscious" green undertone. In other words, something like the background tones of the world outside. 

I also went with a light blue, since it complemented the other walls in the train room.
The details in the cars on the shelves stand out well against it.

I love the natural color of high quality wood. This shelf was built by D3R member Joe Delude, a professional cabinet builder.

- Jason

mirror

Have your glass guy cut strips of mirror glass to fit as backing between the shelves.