You may have noticed a brown and yellow building in the background of a couple of the videos I have recently posted. This is my railroad shop. I decided to build the shop about the same time that I started working on my outdoor layout. I quickly realized that the large-scale stuff takes up a lot of room – both to work on and to store when not running. It was fairly easy to convince my wife that having a dedicated shop building would free up a couple of stalls in the garage and get my railroad construction projects out of the house.
I began by having a contractor take out seven oak and pecan trees in my back yard. This area was slightly sloped so I also had him grade a level pad for the building. I put in the rough plumbing lines for water and sewage before I had another contractor pour nearly thirty yards of concrete. I also had them pour a 4’ x 12’ slab in the layout area for a future car barn.
I had a local steel building company design, fabricate, and erect the structure. It is 30’ x 24’ with a 30’ x 6’ covered porch on the front. I had a 10’ x 10’ roll-up door put on one end just in case I ever need to pull a trailer inside to load or unload materials.
The inner surfaces of the building are totally covered with a 2” layer of foam insulation. After the building was erected, I added 2” x 4” stud walls and another 3½” of fiberglass insulation. I even talked my wife into helping me with the drywall installation. I painted the concrete floor with epoxy paint and installed an overhead air filtration unit to keep the shop dust levels to a minimum. I had the utility company run underground power from the street to the building and install the meter. The wiring was sized for a 200 amp service. I only put in a 100 amp main panel but I can easily upgrade later if needed. I installed a heat pump system to keep the inside temperature at a constant 72 degrees.
I built floor to ceiling shelves along the back wall and put in a “doggie-door” so that I could run trains into or out of the building. You can see the door at the right side of the bottom shelf in one of the photos.
The shop has a half-bath. The toilet is on its own septic system totally independent from the house system. An on-demand electric water heater is installed under the large laundry-tub type sink. I put in a microwave and a small refrigerator next to my computer workstation. I really don’t have much need to go down to the house anymore. This was another strong selling point with the wife!
I ran underground CAT-6 Ethernet cables to connect the shop to my home network. Since the distance exceeded the 100 meter limit for cable runs, I installed an Ethernet switch about midway between the shop and the house. In addition to serving as a repeater for the cable run, the switch provides a network tie point for a couple of WAN hotspots for IP video cameras around the layout (and eventually for cab video.)
In keeping with the “trains” theme, I specifically selected railroad depot colors for the building and even landscaped around the perimeter with old railroad ties. I’m happy with the way the shop turned out and only wish I had built it years ago.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HT9ZyCeYTao[/youtube]
