Joe Fugate's HO Scale Siskiyou Line - High, narrow benchwork

Here is an example of the high, narrow benchwork I use on my layout.

Rice Hill (upper deck)

The benchwork here at Rice Hill is on the upper deck of my mushroom layout and is the highest location on the entire layout. Here the track reaches 80" off the floor -- however, with the 15" raised floor the apparent track level is 65" -- or about 5' - 5".

The operarator in this photo is my son-in-law Bob Thurman. Bob happens to be the same indentical height as me (6'-3") so you can see this location on the layout is very near my eye level. You can also see the ceiling is very close to the top of Bob's head! Since I designed the raised floor height of 15" first of all to accommodate me, it leaves a mere one inch over the top of my head to the 90" ceiling (7' - 6").

This benchwork is also rather narrow here. In the distance, the depth is around 12", and here at the Rice Hill east switch, the depth is about 7". To see how this scene looks to me, see the next photo, below.

Same scene and how it looks to me

And here is how this scene looks to me as I am running this train through Rice Hill. Pretty nice, I'd say -- especially considering this particular scene is about 7" deep, front to back!

So my conclusion is that high narrow benchwork actually works surprisingly well. I wasn't so sure when I was designing the layout so I mocked up some scenes and things looked like they might work, so I took the plunge.

And am I ever glad I did! Not only did I get more layout into my space by narrowing the benchwork and getting the track level up into the 55" - 70" range, but the trains look great! I would not hesitate to recommend high, narrow benchwork to anyone who is trying to design a layout and is wrestling with how to fit the layout they want into their space.

Joe Fugate's HO Siskiyou Line Model Railroad