Layout fascia shelf

Great article! The text mentions a fascia shelf right round the layout. Any chance of a couple of photos of this? Or maybe one from underneath to show its construction?

thanks.

Having seen this layout in

Having seen this layout in person a couple years ago, it was one of the most impressive I have ever witnessed in person.  The level of detail on every inch is incredible.   The finish of the entire basement really makes it look like a museum piece.  His shop is out of this world as well.

Fascia Shelf

My ears perked right up (or maybe my eyes widened) when I heard about that fascia shelf, but it wasn't there!  That's the kind of thing that makes an article useful in any scale or gauge. 

In Picture #2, Please Note

I believe the shelf can be seen in that picture. It is recessed and below the regular fascia.

Fascia shelf on Pete's layout

Yeh, we missed showing the layout in the room, so here you go. The distinctive about the fascia shelf is it's inset under the fascia, making it take a zero footprint out of the aisle. If you drop the inset shelf down 6" below the bottom of the fascia, then you have plenty of room for things like pop cans.

Note the end of the aisle in the background where the scenery drops below the normal benchwork level -- no shelf in that part of the layout -- but no big deal because there's so much shelf on the rest of the layout.

The shelf

That's a nice shelf.

On my old O scale layout I did a sort of compromise approach (having gotten the idea of the recessed shelf from someone else, don't remember where I first saw it).  I made the shelf 6" wide, inset under the layout 3".  So it ate 3" of aisle space still.  I liked the width of the shelf, but I ended up not liking the 3" aisle intrusion that much.

If I do a shelf again, it will be more like Pete's.

Very Nice

Enjoyed the article and visiting the layout.  What I like the best is the laid back simplicity of design and operations.  Shows you don’t have to have a complicated mega-layout to enjoy model railroading!

Nice idea in regards to the facia shelf.  Sometimes just to find an empty spot to set the controller down can be a challenge!

Joe