New To Zed - Planning a Coffee Table Layout

I've been playing trains since childhood - which is about a half century now. Started in N and dabbled in G - but never Zed. My wife has always said she wanted a Zed Scale Coffee Table. We went to the Edmonton Train Show in September and one of the vendor's had a small collection of Zed Scale for sale all neatly stored in a plastic bin. A CP GP30, two box cars, two flat cars and a caboose (wrong era for the engine but hey what's a train without a caboose). It came with two manual switches and lots of track and a Marklin transformer, everything else is Micro-Trains. I posted the picture in the gallery here - link below.

Our Initial Collection

I've put in an order at NeedTrains.com - Free Shipping to Canada on orders over $150 and prices are comparable - great deal. Added two other switches and a package of four remotes to I'll have two lefts and two rights all remote, plus ordered her the barn with silo, farm house, old mill and a covered bridge. Still will need to get a grain elevator, loading ramp (or cattle loading coral) and maybe a house for over by the mill, and maybe a cottage in the woods. I note that there are very few Zed Scale vehicles and mostly trucks. Will have to keep my eyes open.

I was disappointed in Zed on Ebay, with N scale there are tons of great bargins to be had on Ebay, but in Zed they want full retail or more on Ebay - crazy. But that does say pieces keep their value, and usually an assembled building costs more than the kit NIB? What's up with that?

I am going to order her the new CP GP38 just annouced by AZL for Christmas. Hopefully Needtrains will have a grain elevator in stock by then. Santa's presents should all fit into her stocking this year.

I found that Anyrail Layout design program supported Micro Trains Zed so downloaded the free version which is limited to 50 pieces - and fortunately my layout is almost exactly 50 pieces. How considerate of Anyrail. I like that program, very easy and intuitive.

I was concerned that my cabinet building skills are not quite "living room ready". But then I was looking at coffee tables and realized I could buy a table that would allow me to build a layout in a plywood box and just slide it in. Here are the two tables I'm considering:





Both allow me to simply insert a built layout. The rectangular one fits the room a bit better and has drawers for the engine & cars, but the square one allows for a more interesting layout I think. I don't know how deep of a layout the square one would allow - clearly the rectangular one would allow for a bigger mountain as there is plenty of space - not so much on the square one. Will need to see if there is a way to get dimentions on that square one - worry about that after my dearly beloved lets me know which one I can put into the living room.

I'd like your opinions on my designs. I need to work on the grades and ensure that I allow plenty of space for the up and over climb. What is the clearance required for Zed Scale? How do these engines handle grades?

The layouts I've planned have been posted in the gallery - I'm going to rework that rectangular one and post a third plan later. I have a feeling my dearly beloved will not go for the 3 foot square one due to the small size of our living room - but who knows.

Rectangular Plan

Square Plan


I did ask her to consider an alternative - a shelf layout in the rec-room. That would be about 14 feet long, about a foot or so deep along the wall and just enough room to turn around at each end. She's not sure about that - still wants the coffee table one I think.

Your comments and suggestions for this Zed Scale Newbie please.

FKD

I found another table on line that could work - and good news it is not $300 - but only $78 at Ikea. Take a look at the potential winning candidate - more optins than the 20x42, but fits the room better than the 36" square one would.

Klingsbo 30x45 coffee table

I posted my drawing of the layout plan - it offers two train operations on independant track. I'm going to keep at this one trying to get two train option, or one train twice around. To go twice around with this track plan you'd have to be pressing a switch to select the inner loop. I also did not add the buildings yet - but this one probably would not have a grain elevator as it has no real sidings.

Let me know what you think.

www.zcentralstation.com/index.php?view=image&format=raw&type=orig&id=9333&option=com_joomgallery&Itemid=178

Yes - I am planning on building a plywood box with an open top that would just slide in under the glass. There would be either sold plywood or perhaps plexiglass sides (I have lots of plexiglass I could use). I trust that will be sufficient to keep the dust & cat hairs to say nothing of the pesky cat off the layout. I do a fair bit of kitty-bashing in my model railroading.

It would need to be able to be slide out enough to allow for the placement of the train onto the track - I'm hoping that I'll be able to slide it back in without knocking the train off the track. That is one aspect of this 'slide it in" approach that has me a little worried. Even a very smooth slide could be enough to jar the train off the track. Anyone with experience with this type of "layout in a slide out" style coffee table. I can't be the first one to dream up this idea?

I posted a prettier and significantly updated version of the trackplan just a few minutes ago.

www.zcentralstation.com/index.php?view=detail&id=9334&option=com_joomgallery&Itemid=178

If you look closely you'll see I had Anyrail create the grades - one grade is 2.6% the other is 3.0% if the train will not do the 3% well it may need to only go up the 2.6% and down the 3.0% grade. In a coffee table getting the grade down to 3% was a challenge.

I have tried Xtrack in the past but it has a much steeper learning curve than this Anyrail did. I should give it another go though. I had to make two different versions of the plan - save them as a JPG then merge them into one jpg in Photoshop Elements to get past the 50 piece barrier in the free Anyrail - a variation on if there is a will there is a way.

I find in N Scale I can put two engines together, even though I'm not using DCC (yet) and it seems to help if the two engines are the same motor so they run close enough to the same speed. Does this work in Z - or is DCC the only way to lash them up?

And given the grief I had linking to the Ikea page I uploaded an image of the table

The Ikea Coffee Table Last effort to make this link work - it is in "Glenna's Zed Scale" gallery if this link doesn't work.

FKD

Gave reducing the grades another go - the last variation for today ( I promise) This one has grades of 1.9% and 2.6% which should let me pull a little longer train up the hill. I hit the 50 piece Anyrail limit with just a couple of pieces left to go so they are represented by a gray box on the siding - I will give Xtrack another look.

Very keen to hear opinons on the idea of a slide out layout - can it be slide in without the trains coming off the track? I will have to do some experimenting with a board and track to see if it is possible.

Link to my picture


FKD

Of the three coffee tables you showed, I’d choose the first one with the drawers. The reasoning is simply because you mentioned your cabinet building skills might not be up for the challenge to make this a piece of furniture. With that said, you then state you would use plywood for the “box”. Well, anyway you look at it stained or painted, plywood doesn’t look like a piece of furniture. Instead you might consider pre-stained/finished bookshelf shelving to make the “box” out of. Next, don’t worry about needing to pull out the box for any reason. Build it in place and use suction cups to start lifting the glass out of the table enough to grab hold of and remove to get at your train/layout. Clean both sides of the glass before reinstalling in place, and use cotton work gloves when “gently” replacing (or you could use the suction cups again and then clean the marks off after reinstalling if you find the cups are working well).

Another reason for choosing this table is the drawers. You can mount your controller inside a drawer to keep it (and other accessories/cars) out of the way. The train could even be running without a controller in sight. Besides the other (square) table lacks the height clearance of this one due to the cross bracing in the middle, and the Ikea one has an angle to the upper legs that would be more difficult to cut the box to fit.

Hope this helps.

Joe

I found that a square layout is not too pleasing; but did one any way -- my coffee table project: www.zcentralstation.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=2&id=12928&Itemid=212#12950 .