Large Scale Central

Train Wall

I am having a wall built in my basement so I can get some of my trains up on display so I can see them, instead of staring at them packed away in boxes.
I do not have a finished basement, but it is fairly open and I do all my little projects down there… and my cats love it when they get the opportunity to roam around and check it out.
So the wall will have one section that will contain my S-gauge collection that was mostly my fathers (I added some pieces to it) but the majority of it all came from my Grandmother who had family that worked at AC Gilbert, and the trains were given to my father when he was a kid (most of the sets were from 1949-1954, as I have the original catalogs they were ordered from).
The rest will be what I can fit of my G-scale collection, not sure on how many rows of shelving there will be, it will all depend on what space is available. Should be at least three rows of shelving at 18’ and one row along the bottom of about 26’ in total length.

Clean up and prep started a few days ago to get ready!

And the construction started bright and early at 7am today!
The crew got started, and my girl and I went to breakfast!




What’s the hole for…gonna run’em out the wall instead of carryin’em?..:wink:

Ken Brunt said:

What’s the hole for…gonna run’em out the wall instead of carryin’em?..:wink:

I wish, the hole is a water shut off…

And the crew just finished up, pretty good results for 6-hours!




I have all of the shelving already, the S-gauge trains and the G-gauge will all be on Rail Rax and http://www.gsds.com/ shelving.
Either tomorrow night or next I will be putting a coat of poly on the stained wood, then it will be up to when my builder is available to help me hang the shelves… I can try doing it myself, but I kind of want them to come out level, so I will probably wait!

Looks good Vincent, Just one ?. Why do you have roof trusses in your basement?

Ron Tremblay said:

Looks good Vincent, Just one ?. Why do you have roof trusses in your basement?

Just one wall, maybe more later. I couldn’t tell you what a roof truss is to any other truss! I just know the house was built in 1986 and passes all current codes.

You gotta love a clean slate like that. It’s gonna look good with all your trains up there.

Thats a nice long wall you got there. Lotsa work for sure. I put up some 24" wide steel shelves up a few years back in my basement to store my fleet . Are you considering a "test"track there ?

mike dorsch said:
. Are you considering a "test"track there ?

It is on my To Do list, but I have a few other projects that need completion first.

Ron Tremblay said:

Looks good Vincent, Just one ?. Why do you have roof trusses in your basement?

They use them to avoid having to put in a beam and lolly columns to support the 2x method and they’re much stronger. Gives it more room. My next door neighbor built his that way. And it makes it easier to run wiring and pipes.

I’m jealous!

It looks great. I’m jealous too. I never owned a home with a basement!

After work today I applied a coat of polyurethane to the wood, let it dry for a few hours… then I figured I would try my idea for rails on the bottom shelf.
I was going to just buy some used or cheap track to install on the bottom shelf, but I couldn’t find anything decent for under $5 per foot… so I improvised. While searching around Lowes I found some 1/2" x 1/2" aluminum angle pieces, they were $5 per 8 foot section. So for $40 I was able to by enough rail to do my bottom shelf.
The main intent on this bottom shelf will be to hold all of my heaviest engines as I won’t feel comfortable with them up on the upper shelving, this looks like it should work out nicely.




There’s cheaper track out there that would work great for this if you wanted it. Gargraves comes to mind along with others. Even a plastic display rail now. Glen Snyder (and others) also makes a product out of cast aluminum for train shelves. I’m guessing that it’s more expensive.
I do like this whole project. Very nice. I don’t think you could beat that price, unless you just made grooves in the shelves. If your happy with it, that’s all that matters. If I made that big a shelved wall, I’d have an excuse to fill it!!
(go shopping!)