Now that is a good idea, I wish I'd had the space to do something like that at uni! To make building a little easier, how about getting some thin sheets of ply to cover the shelves so you can actually get scenic on it. That way you can take it with you as well, all you need is some frames built separately, that once you're done with uni, you can fit the boards to the frames and hey presto!

Will be watching with interest

J

Good thinking - like what you've done.

It's given me some ideas - I have a box full of Lone Star track and stock too...

JaymzHatstand: an interesting idea, though at present I quite like the simplicity of what I have, I'll pop down to the local hardware store and see if they have any offcuts going cheap. As a student, of course, this layout is being built very much "on the cheap", with second-hand or kit-built (using the wonderfully cheap Peco wagon kits at £3 something each) rolling stock. Scenery-wise, a roll of grass mat that happened to almost exactly match the dimensions of my scenic section has made a world of difference, and I may well glue scenic items to this (possibly even ballasting *very* carefully to prevent glue soaking through and avoid using track pins) if I can find a way to reliably hold the mat down without marking the shelves...

If you decide to not use a mat on the shelves then double sided sticky tape could be a better solution for holding the track down as it wont move as easily and could even provide a base for putting down some ballast. You could also consider using foam ballast as that would not need the glue to keep it in situ.

Also double sided tape would allow you to stick your grass matt in position and keep it in one place.

I used to use double sided tape a lot and on a shelving unit like this it might be worth checking whether it comes off with relative ease. I think that it might do considering the material but you would not want to wreck your shelf and have to fork out for another one.

Good luck with this project, I look forward to seeing how it comes along.

The way things are looking right now, this layout will either be built on wood offcuts if I can source any locally cheaply, or on corrugated cardboard left over from the moving boxes. As said before, this layout is being built on the cheap, so I'm loath to stick much down because it will make removing buildings etc. in a few years' time complicated. On the other hand, a form of baseboard would make life a lot easier in stopping track moving relative to platforms and so on. Does anyone know if it would be possible to simply glue down the track with PVA? Would that be strong enough? If so, I think I'll head down the cardboard baseboards route, if only because I already have a lot of cardboard here, taking up more space than necessary.

You can glue track down with PVA but it does make the reuse of it a lot more difficult as either your cardboard baseboard will come up when the track is removed or the track could get damaged (depends how strong the glue is as there are different strengths of PVA available).

You might find that with cardboard the track could become unlevel at some point and this may have an effect on the running quality of the stock. I am trying to think of a good cheap alternative but unfortunately wood seems to be the best choice. Mind you a 4 foot by 2 foot sheet of MDF would only set you back about £7 from B & Q. With wood you could tack the track down which would allow you to reuse it in the future.