Plymouth Citadel - Baseboard
Baseboard construction is conventional, with simple but fairly crude carpentry.
The baseboard size is 6'6" x 2'11". The outer frame is 70mm x 20mm pine, with 40mm x 20mm for the interior bracing. Nailed & glued butt joints with steel reinforcing brackets at the corners and centre cross member. There are small recessed castors at one end of the board to allow it to be rolled around the house on its end. Legs are 40mm x 40mm pine with diagonal bracing, attached with 1/4 inch coach bolts and wing nuts. Each leg has an adjustable-height foot. Layout height was chosen (fairly arbitrarily) as 46 inches to station rail level.
The trackbed is 7mm plywood. I used cork underlay on previous layouts, but elected not to this time around. By the time the track is ballasted, much of the cork's benefit has been lost. It also reduces critical clearance issues at the bottom of the back straight.
The 0-elevation part of the low-level trackbed (the reversing loop and half of the continuous run) is directly attached to the top of the baseboard frame. All elevated trackbeds are supported by longitudinal or diagonal timber, either 40x20mm pine or 30x11mm pine moldings. These are either attached to the inside of the baseboard frames or span gaps between cross members.
The station level is a separate board made of 7mm plywood (two sheets joined with more 7mm ply as a doubler). There is partial framing using 40x20mm pine, placed to avoid point motors and underlying tracks. This is not entirely sufficient at the platform end due to very tight track clearances underneath, so the core of the platforms (11mm pine moldings) will be used to further reinforce things. The station height was set at 70mm above datum, allowing 70x20mm pine to be used as pillars resting on the baseboard cross members. Several of these pillars bolt to uprights attached to the baseboard. Alignment between the lower and station boards is only critical at one place where the main line crosses the board join. This is handled by dowels (two shelf studs and bushes) at the join. Removable pieces of settrack span the join.
The baseboard size is 6'6" x 2'11". The outer frame is 70mm x 20mm pine, with 40mm x 20mm for the interior bracing. Nailed & glued butt joints with steel reinforcing brackets at the corners and centre cross member. There are small recessed castors at one end of the board to allow it to be rolled around the house on its end. Legs are 40mm x 40mm pine with diagonal bracing, attached with 1/4 inch coach bolts and wing nuts. Each leg has an adjustable-height foot. Layout height was chosen (fairly arbitrarily) as 46 inches to station rail level.
The trackbed is 7mm plywood. I used cork underlay on previous layouts, but elected not to this time around. By the time the track is ballasted, much of the cork's benefit has been lost. It also reduces critical clearance issues at the bottom of the back straight.
The 0-elevation part of the low-level trackbed (the reversing loop and half of the continuous run) is directly attached to the top of the baseboard frame. All elevated trackbeds are supported by longitudinal or diagonal timber, either 40x20mm pine or 30x11mm pine moldings. These are either attached to the inside of the baseboard frames or span gaps between cross members.
The station level is a separate board made of 7mm plywood (two sheets joined with more 7mm ply as a doubler). There is partial framing using 40x20mm pine, placed to avoid point motors and underlying tracks. This is not entirely sufficient at the platform end due to very tight track clearances underneath, so the core of the platforms (11mm pine moldings) will be used to further reinforce things. The station height was set at 70mm above datum, allowing 70x20mm pine to be used as pillars resting on the baseboard cross members. Several of these pillars bolt to uprights attached to the baseboard. Alignment between the lower and station boards is only critical at one place where the main line crosses the board join. This is handled by dowels (two shelf studs and bushes) at the join. Removable pieces of settrack span the join.