train shelving

Love it, have hundreds of feet of it. Dont paint it, it looks fine just like it is.

I have Glen Snyder Shelving and I am pleased with mine also. I think it looks fine myself.I cannot think painting will improve anything. I do suggest you buy an electronic stud finder at Lowe's or Home Depot. These shelves absolutely need to be screwed to the wood studs in your walls. A stud finder really helps to get this right the first time.

I have quite a bit of the Snyder  shelving and I like it very much.

Over the years I have tried wood , as well as glass with several types of brackets ,

Nothing I have used compared with the quality as well as the finished appearance of the Snyder shelving . Personally i believe it would be a mistake to paint it with anything as myself I have had terrible  luck getting with paint to adhere to aluminum .

I will try to attach some photos of mine in the family room against a white wall  so you can see my results.  I hope this will help Gary

I know of no coating (paint) system available to the general public that would yield a successful finish on aluminum. Besides, it's natural color will tend to disguise the inevitable dust.

After looking at the options,  I went with Trainshelf by Dick Wacthman, www.trainshelf.net 

I prefer the design of the Trainshelf product: the shelf sticks out slightly beyond the trains, protecting them from passers-by, and the shelves have grooves so the trains sit down inside, instead of up on rails like the GS shelves. 

There's one place in my train room where I went with GS shelves, and that was along a beam; the design of the shelf allowed me to place it along the bottom of the beam, maximizing height for larger trains. 

Having bought and installed both, I found the Trainshelf product a lot easier to install and join sections together; all you need are 2 pieces of #12 or #14 wire, depending on which model shelf you're using, to join the sections together. I also found it to be a sturdier, more rigid product than the GS shelves. The price per foot is higher, but worth it in my opinion. 

Best of all, Dick is a great guy to deal with. On one of my orders, 2 sections arrived damaged. The same day I told him about it, he had replacements on the way, no questions asked. That kind of service is hard to beat. 

John

I did paint my walls so they are not white. Still a neutral color to help highlight the trains. Shelves are screwed into the studs and hold quite well.

Al, you could have it powder coated. Its available in many colors and finishes from high gloss to flat. The cost per unit usually drops the more you have done. 

I agree as is its OK for a train room but wouldn't compliment a living room as is.

Pete

Laidoffsick, that is one impressive wall of Santa Fe equipment! 

While looking a Doug's many Wall-O-Trains, the last thing I notice is the **** shelving. Just put the stuff up as is and let it go...

I have Glen Snyder's product and am very pleased with it.  Mounting it on studs is critical.  You'll be quite unhappy with it all if you don't.  Can't imagine painting it, though.

The GS shelves do seem nice but I was in the same boat. I wanted something that would have a little more character to it. Wood shelving is the move, as you can stain it any color you want. I will eventually be staining mine when my layout is further along. For the moment it has been quickly hung to hold all the trains while I am working on the layout. I made my shelves using a router. I now have a jig and can crank out as many as I want at the cost of about 5 mins per shelf and the price of the lumber. 

I kept it simple and inexpensive.  I used 1x4 x 8ft long #2 grade lumber taking time to pick through HD or Lowes stacks for straight boards.  I am not picky about knots as can fill them with wood filler and cover them with primer and off white semigloss paint. 

I paint white for the above reason and because white is brighter and shows off the colorful cars and black steamers very well.

I groove the shelf boards with a 1/8 inch veining router bit (1/8 inch deep) for the tracks to keep the trains straight and from rolling off.  I did not use train track on the shelves as they take up more height space and are more money and effort to install.  I back up the shelves with 1/8 inch Masonite which also keeps the shelves square.  The boards are joined with 2 -1/2 inch finishing nails and the Masonite is attached, ever foot or so, on each shelf and end pieces with 1 inch roofing in nails.  These extra nails help keep the boards straight and provide more support of long shelves.  White felt is glued on the wall side (also the rough side) of the Masonite to keep from marking the walls.

Some shelves are 6 inches wide to hold accessories and the top shelf is 10 inch wide.  All are made in 4 ft high sections to make moving easier.

Two other important points need mentioning.  One, do not make each section too tall or too long as to be impossible to go through doorways and up and down steps.  Make several 6 to 8 feet long shelf sections.  Two, I make the bottom shelf about 4 or enough inches off the floor to clear the base boards in your house and cut out the base board out line so the shelf unit fits flat against the wall.  The shelf ends stand on the floor and take all the weight.  Two or more metal angel brackets are used and screwed into a wall studs on each side and two shelves near the top to keep the shelf from falling away from the wall.

I have had 3 shelf units for 30 plus years and moved to and from 5 or so houses I have lived in.  The have been in spare bedrooms and halls and are now in a train/audio/video room.  So I only had to make once.  I have since made smaller units to fit under windows and need to make one more for more trains!

Picture of side board resting on floor and cut out for baseboard.  I jacked up the shelves in the hall and had ceramic tile installed without having to remove the trains and the shelves !   Boxcar Willie LP record jacket picture is a no extra charge !

Shelf section are in four foot pieces to allow smaller size to go up steps and thru doors and joined with pins.  Extra 1 inch angles are attached here to pin to wall.  See a 6 inch shelf and the grooving for train wheels.

Charlie

PS This post will also be posted on my Layout building post later at

https://ogrforum.com/...ra-027-layout?page=4

POTRZBE posted:

I have Glen Snyder's product and am very pleased with it.  Mounting it on studs is critical.  You'll be quite unhappy with it all if you don't.  Can't imagine painting it, though.

Agreed on the studs. I found that drilling 5/32" holes in the shelves and mounting them with #8 GRK cabinet screws worked really well. 2-foot, 4-foot and 6-foot levels are a good investment for this project as well. 

You'll probably need some shims as well to compensate for less-than-perfectly-flat walls. 

My shelfs are in my unfinished basement and I used 1 X 4 X 8 with cut down 1 X 6s to frame the outside, The shelfs have O-27 tubular track that I have a ton of and I added plexi glass to keep the cars somewhat dust free. One has paneling for the back the other is finished ply.

I have a combination of Glenn Snyder shelves and Oak 1x4 eight foot long shelves which I fashioned myself and stained in red Oak.  I used excess Gargaves track I had on which to place my engines and rolling stock.  Quite honestly, I like Glenn Snyder's better.

Mill City posted:

While looking a Doug's many Wall-O-Trains, the last thing I notice is the **** shelving. Just put the stuff up as is and let it go...

Thats the whole point in my opinion.... I don't want anyone to notice the shelves. The trains are "what" is on display. I put them close to together for a reason too, more trains in the same space....less wall showing, more trains.

I use Rail Rax which is the original  with the glossy finish and I am very happy with them.  I have about 80' up on the wall with another 100' or so waiting to be put up. It is imperative that you screw them into a stud and unless your walls are perfect get ready with some washers to shim here and there. Mine have been up for almost 12 years with absolutely no sagging ,drooping  or coming loose.

I'll try to post some pictures later if anyone is interested.

Laidoffsick posted:

Mill City posted:

While looking a Doug's many Wall-O-Trains, the last thing I notice is the **** shelving. Just put the stuff up as is and let it go...

Thats the whole point in my opinion.... I don't want anyone to notice the shelves. The trains are "what" is on display. I put them close to together for a reason too, more trains in the same space....less wall showing, more trains.

I'd say it depends on the room. Bare aluminum shelving will be fine in some areas, but perhaps it fits not so well in certain finished rooms, depending on the decor. I put up wooden shelving, and painted the bottom and sides an off-white enamel which matches the door and window trim in the room. "L" brackets are mounted to the tops of the shelves and into studs, so the bottom of the shelves have a clean, finished look. The top of the "L" brackets are painted the wall color, and are also hidden behind the trains, so they are not visible. Sliding plexiglass doors slide on grooves in the top and bottom shelves, which are slightly wider than the other shelves. The result has a fairly finished look, more pleasing to me in this particular room than bare aluminum shelves would be. I also don't think there's anything in the design that takes away from the impact of the trains sitting on the shelves. Just my taste, of course. But again, in making a choice, a lot depends on the room that the shelving is going into.

GS shelving is the hot set up.  I recently re done my living room and painted the shelving to match.  It loves paint and is great to work with.  The people at GS are fantastic.  In the train room I leave it as is.  It looks great.  In my living room it looks better color coded.  Goes up fast and last.

I have some shelves attached under my living room mantel that was stained by the same stain as the mantel.  It stains perfectly and that adds a bit more you can do with it.  

The wood shelving on this post shown looks fantastic and was done by a craftsman.   It was done right.  I have seen some wood shelving not done by craftsman and it can be nasty.  Pine boards can do funny things in a non climate controlled room.

Pardon my ignorance, but why not place track on shelves and have the trains sit on track rather than sit in grooves cut in wood? Cost prohibitive?

lionel1946 posted:

Pardon my ignorance, but why not place track on shelves and have the trains sit on track rather than sit in grooves cut in wood? Cost prohibitive?

Jay:

My assumption would be that letting the flange disappear into a groove saves approx 1/8" in height per shelf (possibly more for prewar trains, less for scale trains with scale flanges).  In addition, depending on whether you used O27 or O track, you would lose 1/4" to 1/2" in height per shelf  for the track itself, versus the train wheels just sitting flat on the shelf surface with the flanges resting within two dado cuts.

It might not sound like a lot, but even at 1/4" per shelf, a savings of 2" in height per 8 shelves might be the difference between a wall of shelves fitting into a space and not.  Saving a 1/4"-1/2" of height per shelf might even allow the addition of an entire additional shelf row on a taller, wall-sized shelf, such as the one shown on LaidOffSick's post:.

Another advantage of cutting two dados into a wood shelf is that, your effort aside, it's free.  I.e., you wouldn't need to purchase track and screws to install on the shelf.

Those would be my guesses anyway...

Steven J. Serenska

P.S. BTW, when I was a teenager, I cut my own pine shelves and screwed in O27 track to display my trains. I did this because we didn't have a table saw in our house and I had no way to make dado cuts.  Everything Marty F. says above about pine boards ultimately looking like a mess in a non-temperature-controlled environment is on the mark.  For my new layout I'm building, I will be looking into Glenn Snyder or Trainshelf shelves.

Glen Snyder shelving is great. I use for both my O and Standard Gauge trains. Love it.

-Eric Siegel

Make sure you use real good eye protection when you have to make cuts; those little metal filings go everywhere. 

Using 4" wide wood shelving, how wide and deep should each router/dado groove be so the cars and loco's sit properly  ?

I'm with Big John, I used wood.  I cut grooves in the length of the shelf for the wheels to sit in.  Stained it the color I wanted and used "L" brackets to "hang" the shelves so the trains hide the brackets.  Some of my lower shelves are wide enough for 2 or 3 rows of trains.  Mounting the shelves on studs is still very important.

My shelves are inside my house.   I have not seen warpage problems after 30 years.  The brackets tend to force the wood to retain it's shape.

Using track on the wood shelves adds height and reduces the number of shelves you can get on a wall.  I cut the grooves about 3/16" deep just to catch the flanges of the wheels.  The bulk of the wheel still sits on the top wood surface. 

I use eye protection when cutting with the saw, wood or metal.