Ceiling Shelf Layout

Bob

Your 3/4" plywood is very strong with cantilever capacity extending off brackets that will easily handle a corner curve section and 072 wide curve arcs if desired. Home depot has 1/8" steel "Maxi-brackets" that are long enough to extend each side of the room corner and support your corner curve plywood platform. 

On another thread[Electrical Forum] I cover the plan and and construction by an acquaintance of a 1992 14x16 Home Office ceiling shelf layout in East Tennessee with 090 and 079 curves[flextrack] in all four room corners. The corner support used is initially a 4x4 section of 3/4" plywood that had an 072 front edge curve cut fronting the 079 and 090 tracks.

[the very poor copy of a scale sketch shown below might give you some idea of his corner plan. The 45"R and and 39-1/2"R indicate location of his 090/079 track center rail and the 36"R shows where he made the shelf front curve cut-off on the 4'x4' plywood section. The other Radi indicate where his rear track elevation of 5" was located].

His wide curves caused the corners to extend for a "mezzanine effect", a 31" diagonal dimension extending from room corner to front edge of the 072 corner curve cut. The straight section shelves blending into the corner curve cut are 11-3/4" wide and easily carry the two tracks.

The O-gauger building this plan had just bought an MTH Clinchfield Challlenger and also owned 80' passenger cars so he used the max curve arc he could get and still maintain adequate clearance between tracks and from the wall. I argued with him that he should reduce his curves somewhat to enable building fronts, half-trees,etc, along the wall and fake tunnels,etc, in the corners--he declined but was happy with his plan. Years later I learned he had moved to Illinois and taken the shelf RR components with him.

32" seems like a long span and 5" overhang on an inside curve combined with that may cause some twisting in the corners. I'm wonder if some 1" x 1" hardwood gridwork under the plywood might be in order.

Bob I like Dewey's plan. Though I'd still be a little concerned about a 32" span between supports on the straight sections. Using 8" brackets the 16" off the corners actually is only about 8" from the opposing bracket at the extended point.

Personally for carrying heavy weight I like the extruded steal brackets such as these.

I'm not sure why you wouldn't want to suspend from the ceiling. I understand you already have a suspended ceiling and it might be a little effort to reach up beyond that to the trusses. But as long as the ceiling tiles are removable it can be done.

This sounds like a fun project, wish I could be around to assist in  the labor.

Matthew:  Here are the shelf brackets I have.  I think they are pretty strong, just a little smaller than I wanted.  I chose them for aesthetics and strength.  I can buy some more and install them on 16" centers.  I'll probably do that.  If I reduce the corner diameter curve, the overhang should not be a problem.

I have a shelf around my train room it made of 1/2" plywood I used a hole sheet on corners it is 12" wide were tracks are cut 45 angle on corners it has 80" and 72" on it there is a 1"x2 1/2" on front of shelf to hide homesote and help to support it .

Guy

As indicated by all the different builds shown on the Forum over time, there is obviously more than one way to "skin the cat" of ceiling shelf construction. My own 14'x32' five track, twin shelf operation lasted nearly 16 years 1992-2008--outlasted my good health,a zillion traction tires and 3 pw ZWs, replaced by 5 180 PoHos. It was constructed with fir plywood supported by decorative wooden brackets that I reworked with hardwood extensions to support the wider 3 track shelves and the corners.

Actually the most difficult situations were: 1] complying with the Domestic CEO's order to stain all of the shelving woodwork and, 2]not to run trains when she was watching Soap Operas, Oprah,etc.

Building the operation in "her" 18' high Kitchen/Breakfast Room was the result of my agreeing to get track up from the[by then oft oil stained] Den carpet and replace the carpet[train budget be ****ed]. She later opined that there was no agreement to tunnel through her pantry thereby displacing the top shelf of kitchen junk stored there. Fortunately I had already done the deed when she noticed.

Locating support brackets @ 32" on center except 16" in curves under 3/4" plywood was entirely adequate support with never an indication of depressed/deflected shelving between supports. Admittedly, the heat and humidity in a space could affect materials and component location differently but did not in my case. Actually two 4" x #14 screws in each support bracket held the shelves and equipment up. I pitched a cuss/hissy fit when I caught a paper hanger[hired by the CEO herself] standing on the 9' high 3 track shelf in one of the corner curves.

A few snapshots made before it was dismantled in March '08:

That's Awesome Dewey! Maybe a few too many diesels for my taste but awesome none the less.

Bob, the corner piece of 3/4 ply only needs your support brackets at the thin ends and small cleat made of wood in the back corner. 3 points of weight bearing  surface. this will hold your trains with no problem. I had a 32" sony crt tv on a shelf like that. that tv had to weigh 100lbs.. 

John:  At first I was considering just a curved corner, but as I thought more about it, I decided to add a support in the corner like you show.  Thanks for re-inforcing my decision.  I have taken into account all the recommendations thus-far, and I think my plan will be strong enough to support most (one at a time), if not all the trains I own.  Bob S.

Bob I used brackets that look almost identical to those. I used 3/4" MDF and cut my curves out so the MDF doesn't even go all the way back to the corner of the wall. I have brackets on both sides entering the curve, and no support in the curve itself. The brackets are 32" from the corner on both sides. I did this mainly because I have TV's mounted to the walls in the corners and the brackets would have interfered with the TVs. I've NEVER had an issue with support in the corners and it's been up for about 9 years. I even have a corner that is a double track with a 12" shelf and it's plenty sturdy. 

The curved corner eliminates a lot of extra weight from the shelf that isn't used anyway. Especially if you have large curves. I used 080 and 072 so that trimmed a lot of dead weight out of the curve. Unless you want to use that corner shelf space for display of other items, I would cut the corners.

I built my deck almost completely out of 1/2" plywood and have had no issues with sagging in the corners.  Sagging was one reason I chose the plate rail cornice type support as opposed to metal brackets...aesthetics being another.  

Notice that the curves are not fully supported in the corners.  In this way I saved some materials, the span made from a 4' X 1.5' piece instead of 3' X 3'

Over a door opening where no wall support was available I strengthened the plywood on top with a 3/4" steel "L" bar about 3' long....not really visible in this pic.

I maintained 072 throughout the dual mainlines by beginning the inside curves before the outer.  Less running restrictions is a big plus compared to having totally parallel tracks in the curves.  The kitchen cupboard prefabs serve to support the wider yard area.  The pull out control panel and transformer holder were conceived before even dreaming about Legacy control.  It will eventually return to being useful when I revert this layout back to conventional control.

Bruce

Quite a few "airborne" and/or "stepladder" train pilots on this Forum.  A good thing!

Lot of ideas.

This is kinda the look I plan to go with when I get around to building the loop in my bedroom.  How exactly did you fasten and anchor everything?

Looks good!  I've done something similar, with 1x4 boards around the perimeter screwed into the studs, and 3/4" cabinet-grade plywood for the "shelf" fastened to the 1x4s with course drywall screws.  To transition between the 36" 2-rail corners and the straight sections, I cut 3" stock into 45 degree blocks, which gives it a little more decorative look and provides a good anchor.  Not as fancy as crown molding, but works.

~Tim

Basically, start with a 2 x 2 perimeter screwed through the drywall into the wall studs for the major support.  The crown molding and 1 x 6 are simply assembled around the supporting 2 x 2 with screws to form the triangular plate rail.  If ever the layout was to be removed then the plate rail could remain and not be an eye sore.  The main shelf is then screwed atop with a 4" overhang on the straights that really requires no additional support. 

Added this so you get an idea how much room is available for 2 tracks.  Unfortunately the outer circle is positioned too close to the wall for large equipment.   21" Streamliners and Big Boys can't negotiate.

Bruce

A bit of a re-hash as I was searching something else and found this thread,  here are a couple of examples of the ACCR (Adams Ceiling Central RR),  I have had it up for about 18 years now.  12' x 14' perimeter in my office.  The two photos are of current day set up.  I've been around the block on this one,  started out with O Gauge tin plate with 0-72 curves (have some large articulated and wanted to run those).  

2 years ago approximate,  I decided to go larger radius as the Big Boy looked funny with the wide throw out of the boiler around the curves.  I moved to Atlas O with 0-91 curves now and a big improvement for my tastes.  

As you can see the braces are very simply 2x4 cut downs and I stained everything to match the current wood stain in the office when the home was built.    I need to put the edge molding back up and stain,  I recently got some fancy cast iron brackets too but all in good time.

You can see the progression over time as I have fairly old videos of the previous versions of the ACCR on my You Tube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/user/NativeFLA/videos

Here are a couple static shots:

Gentlemen,

   Everyone of those shelf train layout is just fantastic, I would however use the 3/4" engineering design, when using plywood, or some similar materials, sold oak shelves you can definitely get away with the 1/2" stuff.  Using the window and door frames makes everything very very strong, especially if you use metal brackets, I really like the molding idea for over all finish design however.  Great work gentlemen, all of it is great stuff.  I wanted a shelf layout in our game room but have never had the time to

completely build it, thanks for the great ideas however.

PCRR/Dave 

here is a ceiling layout done bu Aub V from the forum using SilkCity girders and hangers

Heres a few pics of my ceiling shelf layout in my warehouse. It is 2 tracks and G scale. I have 8' and 10' diameter tracks. 48'x15'. As you can see the standard shelf brackets at 3' intervals and 3/4 particle board work just fine. I leave the 14 USA streamline passenger cars and all the other freight carsup there even when not running with no weight issues. If this system can support G scale, I am sure O scale would not be an issue. I am considering removing the G scale and replacing it with O scale. This shelf system is 6'4" above the floor. Easy walkunder for me.