Video of my layout

I found the table at a local furniture store. At first my wife displayed kick-nacks in it. I managed to sneak in a few of my 1/1200 ships and it soon lost favor with her as a living room center-piece. Of course it takes up a big chunk of floor space and she started talking about getting rid of it. I started thinking of making a little layout in it for the grandkids (OK and myself). After weighing the benefits of N and Z, took a chance and settled for Z (I'm glad I did). I had previous experience with N, but it's larger size limited my track options.

After playing around with an old engine and track I discovered I would need a little more depth for scenery and for the the over-under style layout I wanted. So I combined the two top drawers. I had to cut out the shelf that the top drawer rides on and attach the drawer ends to the middle one. The bottom drawer houses the controls and allows for storage. It will eventually be moved to the WRECK room where it will compete with my HO layout for attention. Now it sits in the middle of my office while I play/work on it.

The table is pretty solid and heavy. The one problem that derails things is friction from the drawer sliding in and out. It tends to hang and will jerk suddenly when you apply a little more effort and it breaks free. But I have some Teflon tape to install to fix that. I purposely arranged the yard to be parallel with the direction of drawer motion. I also avoid parking trains perpendicular to the sliding motion as that jerking will flip cars real quick.

I have a lot more to do including wiring 14 DPDT center off momentary switches to control the turnouts and finishing the scenery.