w00t! Finally got the tables up. I still need to throw more legs under these things, but as it stands now there is a surface approximately 4' 1/4" from the floor and it holds HO track with O scale trains quite lovely. On30, FUN!
Deep thought for the day: It is rather difficult to take a picture of a room when you're standing in the room. Some of the room will always be out of the picture.
Here is an elevated shot from the doorway to the room.
This is basically eye level from the doorway.
From the doorway looking into the closet doorway.
From the opposite corner looking back toward the doorway to the room and the doorway to the closet. You can also see the doorway to the attic just outside the doorway to the room. I thought about putting the trains in there, but someday I'll post a picture of it and you'll see why I chose not to.
Looking down the hall - you can see a bit of the door to the other train room option. That room is now frilly with lace, bows, flowers, and ... a guest bed. Door stays closed so the cats don't pee on anything in there.
Woo woo!
Uhmm ... woo woo! ... ?
Athena rubbing her face on a table leg. Soon the underside of these tables will be a spider web of electrical wire. Actually probably not - I'm going to operate turnouts manually, and probably not set up many DC blocks since I want to switch to DCC fairly quickly.
What's going on in that little cat brain? DEMON EYES!
So I think this is what I'm shooting for. Of course all things are subject to change, but it offers me quite a large variety of operating options. Two loops, or double crossoverable (did I just make up a word?) into one really long round and round and round loop. Remove the duck under bridge and it can be operated as a sort of point to point. And there should be plenty of areas for little spurs and sidings to drop log cars for loading.
The outermost loop crosses the duck-under at 10" above table height, comes down to about 5.5" at the double crossover to interchange with the innermost loop which then continues down to 0" above table height.
It's currently missing any good sort of passing / run-around siding, and I'll need to figure out where the standard logging related facilities go, but I believe there are plenty of options for all those things.
The isles may seem a bit narrow, and that's because they are. I'm the primary occupant of the space and it fits me quite nicely. Others may feel a bit snug, or think the tables are a bit high, but they're just visitors
It's actually happening. I'm so happy!