Not everyone has a perfect train room or endless space to build. Sometimes it’s a corner of the garage, a shared home office, or even a closet!
How do you adapt your layout design to fit the space you have?
Do you go vertical with multilevel shelves?
Build modular sections you can move or store?
Use fold-down or sliding panels?
My “train room” is actually a shared office/guest room hybrid, so I’ve had to get pretty creative with layout design. I ended up going with a fold-down layout that mounts to the wall—kind of like a Murphy bed for trains! When it’s down, it gives me a decent amount of space to run a small branch line with switching ops. When it’s up, the room goes back to being usable for everything else.
I also designed everything to be modular. The scenery sections are built on lightweight foam and can be swapped or reworked without tearing up the whole thing. Wiring is all quick-connect underneath, and I use slide-out drawers for storing rolling stock and tools.
Going vertical has been key—I added shelving above the layout for display models and storage bins, and I’m toying with a second level for staging in the future.
