O27 Hollow Core Door Layout Jan 2016

Good idea on the hollow door for portability. I had a similar idea for my kids to put an O27 layout on a 4x8 sheet of osb that I could lean against a basement wall when not in use. Well in the mean time I caught the bug, and now I'm working on a larger permanent layout for me!

Excellent! One suggestion, consider covering the door now with felt or indoor/outdoor carpet, before you develop the layout much further. Not only will it deaden the sound a bit, but it can look really nice, too.

Thanks.  I like the felt or carpet idea.  I also looked at the Woodland Senics Readygrass mats.  I also thought about just painting the door.  Not sure yet.   I am also looking at accessories.  I have a K-Line milk car and dairy to reload the car.  This would be fun, but I'm not sure how I will handle accessories on this portable layout.  Not being in a club, I would be interested in hearing how they handle buildings and accessories on their modules. 

If you add carpet, you can always cut out space for a building and surrounding landscaping mounted on a platform of similar height; 1/2" carpet with a removable 3/8" plywood platform. Action accessories get a little more complicated because things need to line up, so pins or dowels are used. Modules for portable layouts generally include the track and everything is permanently mounted on the module. Everyone brings their modules to an event and they are all interconnected because they are all built to a standard that make them interchangeable.

Thanks for the thoughts on the carpet and I like the idea for the buildings in cutouts.  I added the side rails around the door.  Tested the track with a few engines.  My 2-8-0 rubs on one corner, but my diesels switcher, 0-8-0 and A5 work perfectly.  I played around with a bump out for my control panel.  I am not sure if I want to mount the controls on the facia board or on a control panel bump out off of the facia board.

MikeN,

    Something else for you to think about, my platform is up on the exact same kind Saw Horses as yours.  I built myself a rolling Power Station, that rolls in and out from under the platform.  You might want to consider doing something similar, so you can use all your top side space for track, accessories and such.  

PCRR/Dave

The woodland scenics grass works great. I was able to find a roll at my local Hobby Lobby. (not sure if you have these in your area). I think it would make the layout look great.

Also, is that a penn flyer 421 lionchief that I see in your photo? If so, how does that handle your O27 curves, and does going across your turnouts cause it to make random whistle/bell/crewtalk noises? I have lots of problems with mine on O27.

Dave, I am planning on laying it right on the floor with no legs or get very short legs about coffee table height. If I do use legs I will make them removable.  I was thinking of making a section along the long side that bumps out from the front about 7-8 inches wide to hold a CW-80 or GW-180; the four remote controls for the switches; door bell buttons for the UC track; and the two remotes for the operating track.  I would remove the transformer when transporting to/from the basement.  

Coltm, It is the Pennsylvania Flyer LC.  I had to cover the sides of the center rail and points with electrical tape to prevent shorts that occur when the wheels touch.  This helped with operation and the problem of the sounds triggering randomly as you described.  I plan on using liquid electrical tape to make this fix more permanent and nicer looking.  When I get a chance, I will take a picture to show you what I did on these 42-path switches.

Great idea using hollow core door.

Next year, it would be easy to add another pair of switches and a 90degree crossover to make a figure 8 (two reversing loops!).

Best regards

Elguy

Elguy, I am trying to use materials that I have on hand to keep the costs down.  I had two hollow core doors so I thought that I would repurpose one of them.  I tried the cross over and it was tight.  I am a track guy too.  I loaded up my bigger basement layout.  I get into having a lot of track because I like driving the train around and having options, but this time I thought it would be fun to have a very sparse layout with more of a purpose.  The size of the thing really limits what I can do, but in testing my engines with a few cars, it was fun to switch out the industry spurs and reverse to get into them.  I envision the two spurs as opposite ends of a manufacturing process.  It could be milk, lumber, or coal resources being loaded on one end and then delivered to a factory on the other end.  It also keeps it simple for my 3 year old.  Right now he is the conductor that goes around and throws the switches manually and runs the operating track.  He also likes to ring the bell and blow the horn. 

It also takes me back to the layout that my Dad found at a yard sale for my brother and I when we were little.  That layout was on a 4X8 sheet of plywood with a single siding.  We had a station, telephone poles, foam tunnel, newsstand and a few plastic people.  It also had the Mark crossing signal that you see sitting in the corner.  The siding had an operating track section to dump a log car.  I still have the track and plastic 666 Marx engine and cars from the 70s.   I plan on getting that train up and running for this layout as well.   I hope this will be something that my son keeps for his kids. 

Just to add to the idea of using a surface layer of carpeting on the doors, and enhancing the portability of everything....

If you use a loop-pile carpeting, you can attach the 'hook' portion of Velcro to anything and everything that will be placed on the layout....including the track!!.  It will keep things reasonably located against an occasional jostle.  It provides for freedom of re-location, re-design of buildings, trees & telegraph poles (as long as they have some support base), and roadways. 

Velcro is often packaged as equal hook and loop portions.  I've used the loop pieces simply as soft pads...like felt or cork...for other display objects (chinaware, display bases, metal items....anything that might mar a shelf/table.), so it's all useful.

A local club that I built a portable O3R display layout for had the carpet/Velcro arrangement.  Still giving good portable duty after 10+ years of service.

FWIW, always...

KD

MikeN,

 Nice job on your layout. How did you add on the extensions to both ends of the door, some type of brackets?

 Let's see pictures of the A5 running when you get a chance and more as you make changes.

Tom

Great job, I used green felt from a fabric store on my wood door layout, pictures and video can be seen here.  https://ogrforum.com/t...hollow-wood-door-fun

Best...Rich

Thanks Tom, I will definitely do some video of my engines on this layout.  For the extensions,  I used 1X6 boards screwed and glued to a cleat that I attached to the door end.  The hollow core doors have a band of wood the takes a nail and screws very well.  I used locktite power grab adhesive.  I will take a picture of the underside to show how I did it.  The side rails also tie things together nicely.

Rich, I watched your video at the beginning of last year and it gave me the idea.  I like the wood ties and the felt. 

I have used green felt on all my layouts, home and modular.  I recommend that you use spray glue to attach it to the wood surface, then when you need to drill thru it for wires, or screw thru it, it doesn't pull and stretch.

I prefer Locktite spray glue from HD.

Looks nice so far!

Ed

I'll have to get better pictures but here's my on-going hollow-core door layout. I have another pair of switches so I'll eventually have a section of track that will expand onto a second door.

Engineer Bob posted:

I'll have to get better pictures but here's my on-going hollow-core door layout. I have another pair of switches so I'll eventually have a section of track that will expand onto a second door.

Very nice.  I like the clean look.  Where do you have the transformer and controls?

For your control panel, perhaps you could make it a bit smaller by using one switch controller to handle the two on the "mainline". I can't imagine a time where those would have to be arranged in opposite positions. You could probably also use one doorbell button for both the uncoupler magnets if you wanted to.

As for the buildings getting moved from modular club layout and back, I use a lot of Plasticville buildings , which I disassemble and place in gallon Zip Lock bags to keep all the parts together. Then the bags get placed in a box with all the others. I have different boxes of groups of buildings; one box is a farm scene and another is a small town downtown area. I also have a box of tin cookie buildings that I use at Christmas time.

Guys in the club that use larger permanently assembled buildings do something similar by putting the building in its original box or a similar sized one, and then place all the boxes into a larger tote.

J White

Miken posted:

Thanks.  I like the felt or carpet idea.  I also looked at the Woodland Senics Readygrass mats.  I also thought about just painting the door.  Not sure yet.   I am also looking at accessories.  I have a K-Line milk car and dairy to reload the car.  This would be fun, but I'm not sure how I will handle accessories on this portable layout.  Not being in a club, I would be interested in hearing how they handle buildings and accessories on their modules. 

I've used the WS Readygrass mat and indoor/outdoor carpet.  I have nothing against the Readygrass, it looks very nice.  The indoor/outdoor carpet will deaden the sound. If the track is attached directly to the door, the door will resonate the sound a little.  The carpet help prevent the sound and it looks pretty good.  BTW, the Readygrass does require some surface preparation before applying the adhesive.  I STRONGLY recommend doing the surface prep if you use the Readygrass and you use the recommended adhesive for the mat.

Steve

The switch controllers are mounted on the corner of the board just outside of the picture, although I think I'm going to move them. I plan to make some form of outrigger to put all of the controls on but I'm not sure how I'll do it yet. I want it to be easily removed for storage. The door is mounted on foldable legs from an old banquet table. I should also mention that when I got the door I got the widest standard size they make which is 36". It fits the standard O curves nicely. I also wired two of the opposing switches together so that they automatic change when the train crosses them, That way, when I have it out on display the train takes every path possible. The only draw back is some of those switches are very old and derailments happen occasionally. I'm continuing to tweak them for better performance.

So I went with the outdoor carpet .  I decided on grey.  I think it looks pretty good.   It also works well with the hook side of the Velcro for holding accessories.  

All the power feeds are wired.  I plan on putting a toggle switch to cut power on the little spur off of the O27 manual switch.  

If you can check out run 251 Aug-Sept 2011, there is an article there on a 027 layout I did on a door. It might give you some ideas. You will be surprised just how much you can fit on a door.

Dave, that looks amazing.  My door layout is 30x96.  It is surprising how much will fit on there and how much fun it can be to try to find ideas for what to put on it.  My son is super excited about it.

These all look great guys. My son is at the age where he's ready to try his hand at wiring a layout so this might be the perfect size.