Thursday, October 16, 2008

Train in a coffee table?

Yes, I'm serious with building a train layout in a coffee table. Here are my constraints:

  • It needs to be a glass table (duh)
  • The glass should cover the whole top of the table (i.e. no exposed wood on the top)
  • It needs to be big enough to allow for a continous run N scale train layout
  • There needs to be more to the layout than just a train on a loop

This is my first try for the table, made with Sketchup. The table is about 10 inches high (25cm), 46 inches long, and 30 inches wide (~120x75cm). The glass tabletop is made from tempered safety glass, so if it breaks it will break into small pieces. Right under the glass is a 10cm high box that will hold the layout. The layout sits on a sliding drawer (not pictured), that can slide out all the way, so if I need to work on the layout I can do so with minimum fuss.

Electronics, transformer, and stuff, would be mounted under the table and connected to the layout with a multi-pin connector, so that it is easy to disconnect the drawer from the table. There would probably be some kind of connector on one side to hook up a tethered control. I'm thinking of using a very basic EasyDCC or Digitrax setup. Controlling switches and whether to use uncouplers is still an open question.

I haven't decided yet what kind of landscaping I'd use either. One option clearly is to leave it fairly bare-bones and build something with LEGO bricks. Or let the kids decorate. Or actually model some pretty landscaping. Maybe a desert theme with an old ghost town, or something that more closely resembles California's Sierra Nevada / Gold country.

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