Finally - storage shelves

Today I finished installing some storage shelves under the staging yard on the N scale layout.  The staging yard is totally wired now.  Each piece of track has two feeder wires (one for each rail) soldered to the rails and connected to the main feeders under the support.  That added up to 52 individual wires to install.  Not my favorite part of the hobby.  But I have found that unless every single piece of track is wired to the main feeder, you can have DCC signal problems and things do not run right.  In the old days I depended on the little metal track joiners to conduct electricity which worked OK with DC control, but not DCC.  I also added seven toggle switches (at the far left, under the front lip) so that I can cut the power to each of the seven tracks.  This way I can have trains staged there ready to enter the layout, but not burbling away thanks to their sound decoders.  As one writer called it - "sitting there cooking".

The shelves are from IKEA - where else?  Excellent quality for the price.  Top shelf will be for exercise stuff - shoes, clipboards, DVDs to watch during training, etc.  The bottom two shelves will hold train stuff.  Since I model two distinct eras - the steam-diesel transition of the 50's and the modern era of present day, only one era is on the railroad at a time.  So the other era's locomotives and roiling stock gets stored in large flat boxes that stay on the shelves.  The shelves will also give me space to store unmade structure models and other supplies.  Hopefully the floor will be clear.

The wooden wall cabinet is actually part of staging.  I will take cars and locos down from there to replace cars and locos that are leaving the railroad from staging - like they are continuing on to far reaching places.

Yes - I have too many cars and locos in both eras so only about half will fit at a time on the layout.  But, as an old friend told me, "if you don't go first class your kids will".  I am sure they will be thrilled that this hobby and the rolling stock is part of their inheritance.

Now that this is done I can get back to the real fun of laying track and installing switches (turnouts)