Train shelving - is this a good idea?

gftiv posted:

We had a whole wall that we installed book shelves on. The wall was the support for the book shelves. The wall started to move. Make sure your wall can support the weight you are hanging on it.

Sounds like your carpenter took some shortcuts.  I can’t imagine that happening with most walls. 

George

We bought  a used house and the basement was drywalled. This was on a outside wall of poured concrete. Firring strips were put on the concrete and the drywall next. some of the firring strips started to pull away from the wall. Firring strips and drywall were never meant to support that kind of load. 2x4 stud might have done much better.

gftiv posted:

We bought  a used house and the basement was drywalled. This was on a outside wall of poured concrete. Firring strips were put on the concrete and the drywall next. some of the firring strips started to pull away from the wall. Firring strips and drywall were never meant to support that kind of load. 2x4 stud might have done much better.

That’s not the proper way to remodel a basement. I wonder if it’s code? I assume they were glued to the wall, not shot. When I did remodeling as a contractor, we built a stud wall and nailed it to a treated wood base plate that was shot into the floor. We nailed the top plate to the floor joists. Behind the wall was foil faced ridged insulation. The wall would have standard electrical in conduit. Those walls aren’t coming down easy. 

George

I noticed that the trains block the circuit breaker box in one photo. This is a NEC violation. its unsafe.  You need access to the box esp if something goes wrong.  min distance in front of box should be 30" clear.   A transformer starts to burn and you need to shut off the circuit you got a big problem. I suggest you think about installing the box on the outside of the building in a NEMA 3 or better box.  

DougB posted:

I noticed that the trains block the circuit breaker box in one photo. This is a NEC violation. its unsafe.  You need access to the box esp if something goes wrong.  min distance in front of box should be 30" clear.   A transformer starts to burn and you need to shut off the circuit you got a big problem. I suggest you think about installing the box on the outside of the building in a NEMA 3 or better box.  

LOL!  I don't believe I have ever seen a breaker box with 30 feet clear in front of the box in any building that I have ever been in, including 50 story office buildings that I have inspected for work.

Nation Wide Lines posted:

DougB posted:

I noticed that the trains block the circuit breaker box in one photo. This is a NEC violation. its unsafe.  You need access to the box esp if something goes wrong.  min distance in front of box should be 30" clear.   A transformer starts to burn and you need to shut off the circuit you got a big problem. I suggest you think about installing the box on the outside of the building in a NEMA 3 or better box.  

LOL!  I don't believe I have ever seen a breaker box with 30 feet clear in front of the box in any building that I have ever been in, including 50 story office buildings that I have inspected for work.

30 " = 30 inches. 30' = 30 feet.

Pretty much every manufacturing/factory building I've worked in has some sort of tape on the floor in front of any large electrical panels stating not to put anything there.  Now, do people sometimes put things there when they shouldn't, possibly.  But they have always been marked.

-Dave

George S posted:

gftiv posted:

We bought  a used house and the basement was drywalled. This was on a outside wall of poured concrete. Firring strips were put on the concrete and the drywall next. some of the firring strips started to pull away from the wall. Firring strips and drywall were never meant to support that kind of load. 2x4 stud might have done much better.

That’s not the proper way to remodel a basement. I wonder if it’s code? I assume they were glued to the wall, not shot. When I did remodeling as a contractor, we built a stud wall and nailed it to a treated wood base plate that was shot into the floor. We nailed the top plate to the floor joists. Behind the wall was foil faced ridged insulation. The wall would have standard electrical in conduit. Those walls aren’t coming down easy. 

George

I'm sure codes vary.  Here's a video of Tom Silva doing the firring strip method.  I did this on one wall in my old basement because it gained me a couple inches in the finished space.  I needed every available inch for a 4.5 x 9 pool table.

gftiv posted:

We bought  a used house and the basement was drywalled. This was on a outside wall of poured concrete. Firring strips were put on the concrete and the drywall next. some of the firring strips started to pull away from the wall. Firring strips and drywall were never meant to support that kind of load. 2x4 stud might have done much better.

You can stud out a wall over this using 2x3's. With drywall you would only loose a little over 3 inches of basement space.

This happened 30 years ago in Iowa. Many people did their own basement renovations however they felt like. You assume your drywall basement is done properly. Properly is expensive. Take an electrical outlet cover off and check out your drywall to see what you have.

gftiv posted:

This happened 30 years ago in Iowa. Many people did their own basement renovations however they felt like. You assume your drywall basement is done properly. Properly is expensive. Take an electrical outlet cover off and check out your drywall to see what you have.

I always assume it was done by a total hack.  Never been disappointed!

"Train shelving - is this a good idea?" 

Yes!  I used shelving in our basement den to display my Milwaukee Road trains and also added color coordinated furniture in burnt orange.  IMHO it looked fantastic!

Bob Nelson

DougB posted:

I noticed that the trains block the circuit breaker box in one photo. This is a NEC violation. its unsafe.  You need access to the box esp if something goes wrong.  min distance in front of box should be 30" clear.   A transformer starts to burn and you need to shut off the circuit you got a big problem. I suggest you think about installing the box on the outside of the building in a NEMA 3 or better box.  

I put a bamboo screen room divider in front of mine to hide it from the room. There is plenty of clearance and you can just push the room divider aside. I don't have any transformers in my panel though. I never heard of that in residential applications. The meter is outside, and I believe that is where the 3 phase is split to 2 phase. 

George

MikeH posted:

George S posted:

gftiv posted:

We bought  a used house and the basement was drywalled. This was on a outside wall of poured concrete. Firring strips were put on the concrete and the drywall next. some of the firring strips started to pull away from the wall. Firring strips and drywall were never meant to support that kind of load. 2x4 stud might have done much better.

That’s not the proper way to remodel a basement. I wonder if it’s code? I assume they were glued to the wall, not shot. When I did remodeling as a contractor, we built a stud wall and nailed it to a treated wood base plate that was shot into the floor. We nailed the top plate to the floor joists. Behind the wall was foil faced ridged insulation. The wall would have standard electrical in conduit. Those walls aren’t coming down easy. 

George

I'm sure codes vary.  Here's a video of Tom Silva doing the firring strip method.  I did this on one wall in my old basement because it gained me a couple inches in the finished space.  I needed every available inch for a 4.5 x 9 pool table.

Looks like Tom used 4" long concrete spikes to anchor the initial firing strips. Those wouldn't pull out from the wall. That looks like a suitable method. You should be able to hang loaded shelves on a wall like that. I suspect the do-it-yourself prior Iowa homeowner glued the firing strips to the concrete. Construction glue doesn't have a high sheer rating, at least in a concrete to wood application. We used to use it to mount spikes on the concrete and the spikes would hold the rigid foam insulation. We weren't trying to hang drywall on them.

George

Hi folks,

Bringing this to the forefront again. As I have just acquired a good sized basement and workroom, I am looking at storage options for the workroom. I just bought four metal units, 12 inches deep, from Lowes but am now looking at some 18 and 24 inch deep shelves and wonder if shelving from Uline might be better? Open to any and all suggestions, thanks, Miketg

I am with JimmyZ, and floor support my train shelves.

Three wall, easy to build, economically, wall friendly and moveable train shelves were made in the 1980's and were installed in a hall ways and/or a spare bedrooms of three prior houses and the current house.  Each shelve is made in two sections each to allow moving thru doors and up stairs.  They also stand on the floor and are held to the wall by two 1" x 1" angles screwed into a wall stud per section, meaning only two small holes in the wall are required. The shelves are backed with 1/8" Masonite, with some strips of white felt glued to the back, to protect the wall.  The shelves have router grooved surfaces to hold the train wheels and keep the cars and engines from rolling off.  The design has one wider 1" x 6" wide shelve, one half way up and one wider 1" X 8" top shelf to allow display of wider accessories or other items in addition to the typical train cars and engines.  Construction is 1" x 4" straight pine #2 lumber with grooves routed in for train wheels.  It is usually less expensive to buy 1x 4 x 8 ft long #2 common pine boards at Home Depot and pick through them to find straight boards.  Knots are not that important to me as they can be filled in and painted over.  I use 5 min epoxy glue to coat the knots to keep them from bleeding through the white paint which I chose to make the trains show out better.  A few of my shelves have sections of track and power to light some trains.

Complete building details at OGR link below

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

Charlie

Here's the shelving I put in my office / work area.  I routed the grooves to simulate track and added "ties" to add some character.  I used metal brackets to support the shelves for strength and covered them up with wood for aesthetics.  I also added a shelf with track and power to show off lighted cars.  The bottom shelf is HO and N track with power for testing, etc.. 

I have a great many shelves for trains - under the layout, behind the layout, in my workshop. I've learned two things:

The best display and storage for the trains is shelving with clear plastic or glass sliding doors. I have both covered and open shelves; dusting trains on the open shelves is a big nuisance...

For open shelving, the aluminum rail racks are the easiest and most efficient use of space possible, IMHO.

Jan

@Miketg posted:

Hi folks,

Bringing this to the forefront again. As I have just acquired a good sized basement and workroom, I am looking at storage options for the workroom. I just bought four metal units, 12 inches deep, from Lowes but am now looking at some 18 and 24 inch deep shelves and wonder if shelving from Uline might be better? Open to any and all suggestions, thanks, Miketg

Metal units aren't pretty, but they're solid, easy to move, and the 12" depth will allow for more display space on each shelf.  Perhaps it would be useful to buy or build extra shelves, since most commercial shelf units allow more vertical space between shelves than is needed for most trains.

I'm not familiar with the Uline units, so can't comment.  The primary concern with any commercially available unit is making sure that the shelf material is adequate to support the weight of the trains - particle board (laminated or not) and MDF can sag if spanning too much of a distance.

Earlier posts have covered the gamut of options pretty thoroughly.

I made my shelves out of Diamond Plate material. I happened to do business with a company that had a Brake and Shear.

@lashup50 posted:

I too, am finishing up a layout and looking at storage/display options. I'm curious as to everyone's take on the possibility of metal or spring fatigue from long-term display of trains with roller pick-ups. I run 3-rail but was considering displaying my trains on 2-rail track, letting the pick-up roller mechanisms suspend between the rails rather than keepingp them continually compressed. Any thoughts?

Any further thoughts on lashup50’s concern about spring fatigue? Truthfully, never would’ve occurred to me.

@HiramO posted:

The best display and storage for the trains is shelving with clear plastic or glass sliding doors. I have both covered and open shelves; dusting trains on the open shelves is a big nuisance...

Jan

I'm with you, Jan! I don't have nearly enough wall space in my finished basement (train room/home office), but what space I do have is used for commercially made wall units with sliding glass or Plexiglas doors. Some of the units have O gauge (U.S. Army and Amtrak, mostly); some have O gauge tinplate; and a couple have my collection of LGB streetcars.

I don't get much dust at all in my basement, despite having three very young grandsons--1, 3, and 5--trumping/stomping/jumping around upstairs a couple of days a week, and I'm not really sure why. My guess is that having had the basement's open-ceiling sprayed with black dryfall paint when we did the finishing has helped keep dust to a bare minimum. Nevertheless, I prefer that any trains not on the layout be displayed in glass-enclosed display cases.

@Mark V. Spadaro posted:

Any further thoughts on lashup50’s concern about spring fatigue? Truthfully, never would’ve occurred to me.

My trains with pickup rollers have been on my layout for years.  I've never had a spring issue.

Ron

Back in the seventies I collected American Flyer Trains.

Thanks for your comment, Ron.

Some of my storage is under my rolling train table.   My wife made alternating brown & camo covers.  It is amazing how many people including kids don't notice anything could be there.

I found Pizza Dough boxes at the restaurant supply .  They each hold 12 lionel items.   Some cookie sheets  where the space is a little tighter.  All In all I have 25 of the Pizza pans and 6-7 cookie sheets.

Then some kitchen shelf anti-skid in the bottom of the pizza pans.   I know, keeping the items on their side is not a good idea unless you have some paper that wont stick to the paint.

I did have to re-inforce the shelves with a 2x4 about every 2- 2 1/2 feet.  Those steamers tend to warp the 1/2 plywood shelving otherwise.    the table has 6 of the wheels you see in the first picture.   I think they are each rated at  500lb/240Kilo or more.   About 2x what I need with all the boxes loaded.

My house is 1 story, cement floor, no basement so it works.  I wouldn't recommend it on a floor with a basement under it or 2nd story unless the floor was very well made with at least 2 layers of 3/4 ply.   It gets heavy in a hurry with a number of steamers.

Running out of storage, isn't that one of the good problems to have?

Is there any concern about rubber traction tires getting flat spots from sitting on storage track or aluminum shelves that are similar to track? Would it be better to cut shallow grooves in wood shelves and  have the wheel flanges bottom out & support the weight & take the load off the tires, at least for shelves that store locomotives with tires?

routing out the shelf to make it look like rails and ties....  I like that.

much thinner than using track.

I could do that with my laser cutter.

@Mark V. Spadaro posted:

Any further thoughts on lashup50’s concern about spring fatigue? Truthfully, never would’ve occurred to me.

I don't see any issues with pickup rollers, but traction tires develop flat spots over time.