Hello,
Just a little bit of background - I used to live in Atlanta GA, USA for a number of years and moved to Chennai, India over 3 years ago. I had a 10 x 7 feet layout in Atlanta. All my MRR stuff was shipped here in a container along with the rest of my belongings.

For over 3 years now, they are sitting in boxes in a bedroom converted to a storage room as we are currently living in a rented place, waiting for completion of construction of our own place which we expect to be ready early next year.

Unfortunately in the US I had a bedroom exclusively for my MRR stuff but in India I don't have that luxury. We do have an extra family room which the kids use as a play area and I am thinking if I can put a suspended layout in that room. What I have in mind is the layout on a frame which is winched up to the ceiling and brought down using an electrical winch whenever I want to 'play' with my trains.

Have any one of you seen any layouts like this? (There are a few in youtube). Any experiences, comments etc. are welcome.
I need to point out to you that it is very dusty in India and I would need to find a way to keep the layout covered. Any ideas on this also would be welcome.

I have previously posted this solution:
https://www.marklin-user...osts&m=8400#post8400

This system works quite well on a small 8x4 (2.4 x 1.3m) layout, it would no doubt do for something much larger.

Here are pictures of my setup. Please don't give me credit for this engineering masterpiece. It was built and installed by the previous owner of the house, and was used to lift the roof rack and commodities for the top of his 4-wheel-drive truck. I could not believe my luck when I first inspected the house, knowing immediately how I would use it.

This view shows the winding lever, and ratchet mechanism, above the west side of the layout, with ropes attached to south and north ends. There are 4 ropes, to 4 corners, and each winds on the common winding bar. The layout can be lifted to the ceiling, so that a vehicle can be parked inside the garage space.


This picture is above the east side of the layout, and shows the pulleys used at each of the four corners, and the main winding bar.


The vertical ropes are attached to straight 1" x 1" (25x25mm) bars, one bar at the south end, and one bar at the north end of the layout. These bars go under the layout framework without being attached.
So the winding mechanism lifts the layout on the 1" x 1" bars.
You can see the 1" x 1" bar at the south end, there is a similar bar under the north end.


I covered the layout in painters drop sheets, which are very light PVC sheet (cost about $1 each), and that kept the dust off quite well.

Kimball

ensure that the rafters can take the load. Rafters are there not to support a load, but to keep the walls from moving away from each other. i.e. they are in 'traction' with their forces in a horizontal plane. They keep the roof trusses in a triangle. If they were not there the roof would flatten out pushing the outer walls away from each other.

If you do decide to attach it to rafters, try to place the load points as close to the side walls as possible, and keep the mass of the layout as low as possible.

I rigged up a layout in my garage once, I made the board too heavy. I could not even pull it up, which is just as well as it probably would have broken the roof.