I, even admitting it myself, over did it a bit when I decided to build what I like to call a bar track around my train room. Bar track in reference to some trains I have seen circling a bar in a restaurant. The track is built to run around the ceiling area of the bar which is usually in the middle of the room. My train room is a remodeled water cistern that resides under my garage. Until I got "city water" piped in from the road near my house, I had to catch rain water or have my water hauled in by a flat bed truck with a water tank and pay for it that way. After city water, the gutters were permanently turned out and no more water was caught.
One day I looked to see how much water was in the cistern, just curious, and....it was gone. Soooooooo I had a leak, I guess. Anyway, when the train bug hit me and I needed a room I had a eureka moment and last year on this very day, I began the odyssey of the cistern remodel. In order to keep the garage floor from falling into the cistern, as a precaution more than anything, four concrete block columns were set strategically throughout the area as extra support. When I remodeled, I put some bones around them and skinned them with drywall. Thanks to that I was able to build the track shelves and hang them on the columns.
I built them or had them built using 1/4 inch angle iron. I didn't want them to sag. They don't sag. The just very rigidly hang there being heavy. The problem was adding curves. Four straight shelves were easy, cutting the metal curves proved a bit challenging but we figured it out. Anyway, I spent this weekend clamping the curves in place, marking the holes, and marking where the hangers go. Then, by the way with help from my buddy Hunter who does the welding, I spent yesterday drilling holes and tapping holes and getting my curves ready to paint.
When all is said and done, I will have a full, four curve oval made of heavy metal, "that doesn't sag" and on top of that heavy metal will be thin Styrofoam and fastrack designed for a conventional train run by remote using a DCS system. My remote will become my transformer. It's my grandson's train. I plan to build a wooden covered bridge across one entire straight section using as close to scale as I can, and lots of gorilla glue. Pray for me, I'm not exactly crafty.
I will send pictures when it is done.