How many of you only run on carpet centrals

I have a 40'X 13' carpet layout. Put it down about 19 yr ago when I was 68 for my grandchildren. Had high plush carpet.  Cut 1/4" plywood for under each piece or run of track. screwed each section into flooring under carpet Put wireing under plywood.  You have to have strong back and knees. Children love it because they can play an mountains and in cities as well as run trains. Have to have strong rules and inforce them or they break things!! After 19yrs I would not change things as my children started helping me build layout as they got older. Great experience!!  Its a bear to change layout.

stan  

I have considered the same thing so will be following this thread.  Not 40'x13' though. :-) I can only say wow Shane.  Do you have any pictures?

Chris

I 2nd the photo request.  But as for me, it's a loop or two, or "pretzel" of FasTrack in the middle of our living/family room.  I change it up every so often.  The young kids love "chaseing" the train or playing "frogger" with them.  And when I'm at work, we have a couple of old gutted locomotives that they can push around on the track to play.

I have a permanent carpet central with three ovals of track with the outer oval being approximately 18' x 11'. The outer oval is for my subways only track. All of my wiring is either under my Fastrack or under wood modules where I have buildings mounted. Some of my subway platforms are located in "tunnel boxes". To view those stations hidden in the tunnels I use a video cam to watch it on my TV.

Them there are fancy carpet layouts!  

I just have a couple of loops to test stuff running around through the three room office suite here. I occasionally change things, but it's been pretty static.  When my grandson comes up to play, we dig out accessories and set them up, after a few days of no interest again, I put them away until the next time.

I'm gathering up the stuff to do the actual layout, I have a bunch of the Mianne benchwork now, and I'm trying to clear out the space for putting it up. 

I have pics of my carpet layout attached to an earlier post. check the following:

https://ogrforum.com/t...30#28882924085284430

stan

Guilty!! 

Actually, hardwood floors!!

I've run a carpet layout since 2006.

hiding most wires with FasTrack is easy. All the wires going to the transformer are the hard part.  I buillt a tunnel platform that holds my Lionel ZW-C above the tracks and hides the wiring Going to it.

In the following photo, follow the tracks back to the tunnel...that is my transformer platform with a rock face...

This is video gives a better look at the platform.  It was shot before my elevated trolley passenger stations were finished...

THANKS TO ALL that replied to my post !

Great layouts ! 

I am glad to see I am not the only one that has or will have  a carpet central .

My temporary layout is a 10'x 6'  table .  It is small ! 

On the floor I will have 20' runs on one wall .

Oh, you're not alone.  "Carpet central" (actually basement floor) is the only kind of layout for which I've ever had room.  Right now, I'm scratching my head, trying to come up with a way I can include 072 curves in it.

In O, it's all Carpet Christmas, for me. No basement, but the plan is, once the youngest leaves for college in 20, or so months, I get a train room.

I forgot to add that mine is 8' x 16' with an O72 and an O60 loop. There is a long siding that runs the length wich can hold a train or be used as a switching lead.  Here is my track plan...the 2' x 7' yard in red hasn't been added yet, it is for a future update.

I do a semi-permanent layout every year at a local historic movie theater, but other than that I only have room at home to set up a loop of track around the dining room when the need to play trains strikes.  I do have a small 2.5x5' Postwar style O-27 figure-8 layout in the basement that I can run smaller stuff on.

Mine is a Tabletop Central. 

As most know by now, I run my railroad presently on carpet in my basement because the basement will be redone sometime in the near future. Thus, I did not want to get to a point where I have this really nice layout on a table with hidden wiring etc. Then having to figure out just how to break it all down.

I was running "G", but opted for O because of room and other details. I have a very modest start now and hope to keep adding to it. I use MTH track with a remote. I have a basic oval and numerous straight track to keep other rolling stock or locomotives on when not running them. Other then telephone poles, a desert back ground and a few semi trucks as well as a home made train platform, that is that. Right now, I am collecting power on point to get the ball rolling for my future "Train Yard".

Pete

Keith; Carpet central or not that is a great looking layout. Love the video.

got my first Lionel locomotive, a postwar 2065, back in 1990 and set up tracks on the floor. got home after work to run trains on the floor and to my dismay, my daughter had cut her hair and left locks of it across the mainline. Didn't see it and wound it up in the running mechanism. had to pull it apart to clean the hair out. Built a train board and haven't run on the carpet since.

Have been running a carpet railroad for about 12 years now. Joe

Take a ride on my carpet layout with the PM 1225.  

Sometimes it's fun to watch the cars behind you too!  

John,

Carpet or not that looks pretty slick, your trains can disappear for a while.

Ray

Spence, thank you! 

That's what I call a CARPET LAYOUT!  I love the multi-room trip!

They do disappear, then the dog takes off if he's in the other room when a smoking whistling thing comes down the tracks!

I'll have to put a camera on the Christmas loop, it's out in the Solarium, it goes around the room, the tree, and I have a siding behind the loveseats.   I'm still waiting on a little USB camera that I can put in, I just have the real-time models that broadcast to a monitor.

I run lionel fastrak on carpet all the time and i have no room to set up a layout. 

keith ,is that a red....lionel commador vandy,,I see????  do you have any vid's of that bad boy??? super sharp loco,terry

My carpet layout goes around my living room during the year with single loop and with a siding.  Then my Christmas train layout takes up much of my living room for 2 - 3 months.  This year I plan on everything coming down after New Years for awhile since I need to give my family a break from my trains and having to step over  them!  Ken

Terry, it sure is.  Sorry but I do not have a video of it running.  It was purchased cosmetically perfect, but innards are a work in progress.  She is able to run now, but not perfect yet.  Sounds are a little messed up too.  Every once in a while I start messing with it then give up.  She's a lot better than when I received her.

How about the floor of my bedroom.......probably Christmas 72-73.......

Peter

I run a "hardwood/laminate" central - if you are creative with it, it can work pretty well.  This year, I ran mine literally around the entire room - it ended up being large enough to require additional power drops.  If you use the furniture strategically, you can hide a good deal of the wires and such.  Still, some will always be visible - the best you can hope to do is camo them.  The cool thing about it this year was that I can easily see how it could be transformed into an elevated 'around the room' layout - all I need is the benchwork.  I find myself saying things like "I could add another siding if it weren't for the d*&% couch..." and "That piano cost me O-72 curves...".   

The downsides are obvious - things can get trampled.  Track is hard to clean in many places, and it seems to get dirty pretty quickly.  With wood floors, things get loud, but real trains are loud, so that one doesn't bother me.  I put mine up in a room that we almost never use - the kids and dogs never go in there, so that helps.  It does look a little odd to the casual observer.   

Mine didn't come down last year until almost March.  This year I may leave up the long loop that runs around whole room - the inside loop will have to go at some point.  I already have the logistics worked out - I can squeeze in one long siding; maybe two.  That would leave me three trains to run - I only have four in the layout now and I switch them out a lot.  

Caveat:  I jut like to run trains.  I'm not an operator - I think that would get old fast on the floor.  

Gunrunner,

Just watched the youtube, the multi-room trip was great, also love the reversing loops, maybe next time some train music with that guitar? 

Ray

Sad to say Ray, that's not my layout, I just quoted that one from Volphin's post.  Mine is the much more mundane layout below it.

I've enjoyed layouts filling my trainroom for years. This was the case until August of this year. After suffering five severe falls in three months resulting in eighteen days in Intensive Care, my children performed the unforgivable. My doctors instructed them to remove both of my prewar layouts. To be done supposedly for my personal safety. I came home after an extended hospital stay for other health issues to find everything gone. My tables, track and all my prewar accessories removed and sold. My children refuse to tell who bought everything. They say my friends stepped into help buying everything and cleaning up the mess. All I can say is, some friends I thought I had. All they wanted was vintage prewar accessories at bargain basement prices.

Anyway, here I am at 72 having to sneak around trying to gather up enough track for a small, very small carpet or table top central. If my children find it, they'll more than likely sell it too. I hope they don't find it until after I'm gone..

God Bless,

"Pappy" 

You still thumpin' a bass, doc?

Pete

Well it's nice to know I am not alone!  I have had a carpet central for about 5 yrs but it's been the same for the last 3.  I was just running my 3 engines for my grandson, using the all engines command and forgot about throwing one of the switches.  The resultant pile up has been recorded by the NTSB(my camera).  While Nicky goes for a nap I get to clean up the mess.  

Started by the Crusader ramming the woodside  passenger train and the S2 diesel short freight ramming the woodside cars from behind.  The initial wreck did not blow the CB but when the S2 hit the other train from behind that did it.

Ramming speed was 35 mph for all trains!  It's amazing how you realize it is going to happen but not soon enough to prevent it.  

And I'll bet your grandson wanted to see it again, right?

I told him I made a mistake and he would repeat 'made a mistake' and then say 'circuit breaker'  because I told him how that works. Somehow these accidents don't seem so critical when you have a 'buddy' to run trains with.  

I can't tell you the number of trains that have crashed one way or another due to family and friends, or mistakes I made.  But I just remember that they are all toys and for fun, so I fix what I can and keep them going.  The smiles are worth so much more than pristine trains. And keeping them on the carpet means they don't have as far to fall too.

We have grown up on carpet layouts, and both my brother and I really enjoy them. We become very creative with the designs because we have to work around furniture, rooms etc. Though I do not have any pictures, we have many videos. Feel free to watch them and get ideas. For best quality, watch in 720 or 1044 hd.

Hope I helped and happy holidays,

Greg 

www.youtube.com/trainbros89

Right now the carpet is the way I run my trains. I have some GarGraves that I screwed to some particle board strips that I painted to look like ballast(sort of). That way I can set up my trains quickly on the carpet. I have a small 8'X8' sectional layout, but I rarely set it up because I have to go out to the shed to get the sections and carry them to the house. I set it up on the floor also, so I guess it can be called a carpet central layout as well.