# What scale for ceiling train?



## MJSavage (Dec 27, 2007)

I've only seen a couple of ceiling trains and they were in buisinesses with tall ceilings. I am considering putting a train along the top of the walls in my home office. The ceilings are 9' tall with 10" clearance above the moulding around the doors and windows. I could probably overlap the moulding an inch if that made much difference. The room is 17.5' X 14.5' and I am trying to decide between On30 and Large scale. Any and all help/advice is greatly appreciated. Oh, yeah. 40' or shorter cars and older steam is my preference.

Thanks in advance.

Mike


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## stanman (Jan 4, 2008)

My overhead layout was built in a room just about the same size as yours. Worked out fine; easy to enjoy the trains from ground level.


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## Jerry McColgan (Feb 8, 2008)

I built a ceiling layout years ago that even includes a few buildings, water tower and sidings to park trains on. There are probably better ways to do it but you can see the photos of how I did it here:

http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/je...%20Layout/

The layout handles trains running under track power, MTS/DCC and DCS. It even has a sleep timer to keep the trains running until I fall asleep.

Your train size should not be a problem as my layout handles anything that will go around 8' diameter curves which includes LGB Mikados, Aristo Heavyweights and MTH Challengers and passenger cars.

I had written a topic about this but that became part of the archives which have since been deleted.

Stan's layout is a great example of what can be done by someone with the talent and skills to do it right while my layout represents what can be done by someone with minimum skills and minimum effort.

Jerry


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Mike; 

An LGB Mogul pulling a short train would probably work very well for the room you described. The locomotive is big enough to look good, yet compact enough to negotiate the curves without looking ridiculous. These locomotives were seen on narrow gauge freight, passenger, and mixed trains. The trains can be short - 3 passenger cars or less - 3-5 freight cars (the same for a mixed train). LGB's scale is "roughly" 1:22.5. The Mogul (2-6-0) is currently back in production. Cars can be LGB, Bachmann Big Hauler, or the USA trains wood sided era cars. 

Have fun, 
David Meashey


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## blueregal (Jan 3, 2008)

I have a ceiling layout and it worked out fine for me in G-scale, just make sure you allow 10+ inches for clearance, and one other suggestion I failed to realize until I had it put up in the ceiling when you get old, and your knees, and back start giving you problems you will wish that you would have placed the layout down far enough where you can service it (putting engines and rolling stock up on it) from at least as high as a step stool! Myself now I have abandoned it as I can't or its kind of dangerous for me to get up on a ladder to do this. Likewise on my outdoor layout on the ground, I need to raise it up to at least 36 inches so I'm not on my stomach getting trains ready to run. Just a thought you might think about ahead of time. Regal


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