SPACE remains the biggest challenge to building a model railway in the home. There are many ingenious solutions to shoehorning compact layouts into limited living space without impacting on day-to-day living. One concept with potential for great layout building is the shelf layout. It is rarely described or used in British outline modelling principally due to the dominance of portable exhibition layouts.
Simple shelf brackets can be the foundation for a compact layout theme. The shelf layout concept opens up all manner of opportunities, especially if you have an interest in more than one scale or railway era. It can consist of more than one level, occupy the length of one wall for an end-to-end theme or completely circle the room for a continuous run.
Advantages
Shelf layout design is a very flexible concept which does not need the complex construction required for portable exhibition layouts with the strength to withstand
