Fiddle Shelves

I’ve previously written on this site how I use the Ikea IVAR shelving system as the base of the benchwork on The Hills Line. The shelves have given me flexible and consistent storage under the layout that I can easily update as my needs change. Along with that Ikea offers a number of add-ons to the system that work well in model railroading.

A few years ago I picked up the ubiquitous IVAR Cabinet to use as motive power and rolling stock storage. The case was placed directly underneath the Maiden Lane interchange track, allowing me to quickly fiddle whole trains on and off the layout.

However as my car fleet has grown, I didn’t grow the storage system along with it. The result was a sloppy and somewhat disorganized mess that went against my very reason for using the system in the first place. Time to get organized.

I knew I wanted a way to keep each car and locomotive separated from each other while still maximizing the number of items I could hold on each shelf. After testing out a few options, I settled on using balsa wood strips as dividers between each car. Using half-inch strips spaced two inches apart worked for my entire fleet in an optimal manner.

It was just a manner of measuring, gluing, and clamping each strip until dry, then trimming and sanding them to fit. Each resulting pocket is snug enough to align each car while wide enough to avoid damaging delicate details.

The same setup was used for my motive power. However my lone ES44AC is too long to fit into the shelf perpendicular to the front, so it is still placed parallel to the doors in between use. I still, however, made marks for where the strips will go on the shelf. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.