Building a model railroad table

25 June 2025

31 min Benchwork Layout

Introduction Choosing a layout design Choosing the right materials Buying the needed materials Tools Cutting plywood sheets Sawing planks and putting it all together Mounting wheels Adjustments and sanding Further work

Introduction

One of the bigest obstacles for me when it comes to starting on a layout is actually creating the benchwork. I am in no way skilled in carpentry, which means that the entry barrier for starting the construction is high. Another challenge is that I do not own a car and that I try to prevent the use of cars as much as possible. Handling the materials is also a challenge due to the size and bulkiness requireing special tools and a decent amount of working space. I have finaly been able to solve these challenges to my statisfaction. This article describes the journey that led to completion of a decent table for my future layout.

This journey actually starts some time in 2022. That was when I started sketching up different layouts using RailModeller Pro that could fit into my appartment. I designed a lot of different stuff, mostly deviated from other existing layout designs. Two of the layout designs I ended up considering was "Martinstadt" and "Silvretta". I will explain what design I ended up with, but lets first have a look at the design phase.

Choosing a layout design

This might be obvious, but I am going to say it anyways. There is no point in starting the construcion of model railroad benchwork without having a well thought out design. The planing phase, where you decide what you want to build, is therefor one of the most critical phases in the construction process. You have several options regarding layout design.

You can create the design entrirely from scratch yourself.
You can use an existing design and optionally modify it to better suit your needs.

Creating a design from scratch can be a daunting task. There is also a risk that the layout will be boring to operate due to a flawed design. The most important thing to get straight as early as possible is the maximum size you are willing to allocate to the layout. There is no point in designing an enormous layout if it won't fit in your house or appartment!

Another thing to remember about layout design is that it gets harder to do properly if space is a premium. Small layouts require more thourough thinking due to the space constraints. The room that I planed to have my layout in messaures aproximately 3,8 by 3,21 meters (about 12,2 squaremeters) according to schematics of my appartment. That might sound like a decent amount of space, but its actaully not that much when there is an closet and office desk in the room allready!

The space constraint in the room and the complexity designing layouts from scratch are two of the reasons why I decided to use an existing design. Another reason is that I consider my self a novice in terms of constructing a model railroad as I have no prior experience in building a layout. I sincerly belive that beginners are best of choosing a pre-made design. There are lot of guides and tutorials out on the Internet that can help with layout design though, if you want to do it yourself anyways. One important design aspect of a layout is what types of industries and how many yard tracks your layout should have. One video that I can recommend that covers the topic is this one from djstrain. The video is some years old but it covers the topic of yard design very well and touches the topic of industries.

One of the great benefits of choosing an existing design that someone has built before is that you will know if it works or not. You will also then be aware of the quircks and caveats of the design. The design will more or less be validated. It can take years to build a model railroad, so its great to know that what you are setting out to build will work when its done!

The design I ended up with as my goto design is "Martinstadt". The design is created by the great YouTuber named Marklinofsweden. He is a model railroad proffesional based in Sweden that creates model railroad tutorials on YouTube and Model Railroad Academy. The mentioned design is a part of a tutorial series where he goes through building a model railroad layout for beginners from scratch. Marklinofsweden provides pre-made schematics of the layout for AnyRail, but I decided to create the layout in RailModeller Pro as I want to build the layout a little bit differently.

But enought talk about layout designs for now. Lets get over to the construction process.

Choosing the right materials

It's necessary to decide on how we want to build the model railroad benchwork before buying any materials or furniture. There are several options.

Some manefacturer sell pre-made layouts. They can come with supports in the package or as an optional addon. One such layout is Silvretta from Noch.
There exist manefacturers that sell "layout modules" as a kit. Examples of that is Mod-U-Rail System from Woodland Sceneics and kits from ABR modelworks.
Existing furniture can in certain scenarios be used as a base for a layout.
Materials can be bought on its own and then be used to scratchbuild benchwork.

There exist no pre-built "Martinstadt" layout. Buying it pre-built is therefor not an option in my case. Layout modules wasn't an option either, as none of the ones available in my region would fit.

Martinstadt is originaly a layout that was designed to be built on top of 4 Ikea tables. There are however a few problems with that as of 2025.

The table type for two of the tables are no longer available from Ikea.
Ikea-tables are usually made out of cardboard, which means that they might not be able to handle the weight of the layout over time.

Marklinofsweden have provided a workaround for the Ikea table problem, but possible issues with the structural integrity made me build the benchwork from scratch instead. Marklinofsweden have a page with supporting documents for anyone wanting to build "Martinstadt". The section that i found especially interesting was the contribution by Arjan from Netherlands. He had built his own table for the layout. I liked his table design so much that I decided to use a similar design. I had to sketch up the design myself as there where no schematics for the table design on the page. Bellow is a photo of the plan i drew by hand.

The left drawing is the table seen from above, while the right one is the one seen from the "front". The black squares on the schematic is table legs with wheels attached. The scale of the schematic is 1:50, which means that 1 side of a square would equal to 50 squares in the real world.

This drawing is the basis of the material selection. I also got help from friends and family on deciding what materials to get. The original plan was to get the following materials:

2 pcs 9 mm plywood sheet measuring 150 x 75 cm.
2 pcs 9 mm plywood sheet measuring 100 x 60 cm.
1 pcs 250 cm 23x48 mm plank.
4 pcs 150 cm 23x48 mm plank.
6 pcs 75 cm 23x48 mm plank.
3 pcs 100 cm 23x48 mm plank.
10 pcs 50 cm 23x48 mm plank.
2 pcs 25 cm 23x48 mm plank.
6 pcs 75 cm 48x48 mm plank.

That is NOT what I ended up buying! The list above is also not taking into account that some of the planks have to be about 2 - 4 cm shorter to fit! Neither is it the way i ended up sawing the planks. I will get back to what I ended up buying later in this article.

Why am I mentioning what I orginaly planed to do? The reason for that is that I want to give you the option to build the table as I orginaly intended and that I want to show the essence of what types of materials you will need to get. You will as you can see need both plywood sheets and planks to build this table.

The plywood sheets is needed to provide a solid base for your layout. I choose 9 mm plywood over thicker one as it will be easier to work with. Anything from 9 mm plywood and up should work for this table.

You will also need different types of wooden screws. 50 mm length will work for attaching the planks to eachother, while 30 mm will work for attaching the plywood on top of the planks. You will also need some special screws for attaching wheels to your table legs if desired. Special screws will also be required if you need to attach angle braces to the legs. I will get into more details about the screws later in this article.

But enogh talk about materials for now. Lets go shopping!

Buying the needed materials

The first attempt in buying the required materials was actually in the summer of 2024. The plan was to order the materials pre-cut. The website for the hardware store advertised that they offered cutting of all materials, which wasn't the case at all. They where only selling the material as is which basicaly gave me two options: Investing in power tools or cutting by hand. I decided to not order from that hardware store at that time due to that.

Why did I want to order the materials pre-cut? There are several reasons for that. The main reason is that plywood sheets are a pain in the ass to cut by hand and that I do not own any power tools. Most stores do offer powertools for rent (even the library in my region have tools for rent!), but I do not want to hurt myself with power tools. This video goes through mistakes that can happen when using a circular saw just as an example. I am not saying that you shouldn't use power tools, but I am saying that I will not use them.

The second reason is the length of the planks. Most planks in my region is delivered in lengths around 540 cm (5 meters and 40 cm). That is to long to fit in my storage room. It would also not fit inside at all, which ment that I potentialy would have to saw the planks outside in rain, potentialy damaging the planks!

The next attempt was in summer of 2025. I had a different plan and went to a different store. The plan this time was to buy the plywood sheet as is and saw the planks myself in the store so that it would be possible for me to get them into my storage room at the ground floor.

That attempt was sucessfull, thanks to the very helpfull employees at Coop Obs BYGG. They let me use a trolley to pick the materials and then cut it to the dimensions I needed. I could then deliver it to the cashier for home delivery the next day. The postal system they where using allows transport of parcels up to 3 meters lenght. All the material I needed could be cut into such lenghts for transport, thus allowing for the goods to be transported by the postal system instead of special delivery by crane truck. Bellow is two pictures of the trolley they lended me with the materials on after I had done the cuts.

I ended up purchasing the following materials:

13,5 m 23 x 48 plank (3 lenghts of 23 x 48 plank with a full length of 4,5 meter each).
5,4 m 48 x 48 plank (1 full length).
3 pcs 9 x 1220 x 2400 mm plywood

All of this materials could be delivered home the next day after i cut the plank in the store. I do not have the exact length I cut the planks into, but I can estimate from the picture that I cut two 23x48 planks at 250 cm (450 - 250 = 200 cm for the other half of the plank) and the last plank at 150 cm. The 48x48 plank where sawed twice. First one length of 150 cm (75x2) and then another one. I made sure to have a little bit of slack when sawing, to ensure that the planks would be long enogh. Shortening a plank can be done with sawing or sanding for example, but extending a plank in a robust way is not possible.

I also ordered some tools to use for the construction and some wheels for the legs. See the tools listening further down for details. Bellow is a picture of the materials after I placed them into my storage room.

The screws I ended up purchasing where as follows.

Countersunk woodscrew 4,5 mm x 30 mm
Countersunk woodscrew 5,0 mm x 50 mm
Woodscrew 5,0 mm x 30 mm
Installation screw for wood 4,2 mm x 13 mm

I also bought some countersunk woodscrews with the meassurements 3,5 mm x 20 mm, but I had no need for them in the end.

Tools

I used the following tools for construction the table.

Hand saw for Plastics/Laminates/Wood/Soft Metals

Metal saw horse

Triangle ruler

Straight metal ruler (1 m length)

Pencil (HB)

One hand clamp

Yardstick (2 m Length)

Short spirit level

Screwdriver with bit that fits the wooden screws you use (T25 for most of the screws and PH2 for the angle brace screws)

Knife

File tool

Protective gloves

Dustpan and brush

P60 Sandpaper

P240 Sandpaper

The saw to use for sawing plywood sheets by hand matters. The saw I decided to use is this one. It worked fine for me and I where able to saw the plywood sheets without any issues. You might need a different saw if you use a different type of plywood sheet. The type of knife needed really doesn't matter as long as you are able to use it for opening packagings. You could also use a plier or a scissor in some cases.

I own an electric screwdriver, but I decided to use a hand screwdriver as i am more used to that. I also needed the excercise. The pencil I used had a 0,7 mm thickness. You can use a thicker one, but smaller will be more precise. I used a pencil with HB type of lead. I used gloves for the most part when handling the wood to avoid splinters getting stuck in my skin.

Cutting plywood sheets

The first thing I had to do before starting to saw was to get the plywood sheets other than the one I was about to saw out of the way. I found a halway leading to some other residents storage rooms where I could temporarly store them out of the way for everyone in the building.

I then placed the sheet ready for sawing on top of three saw horses.

That gave me just enogh space on both sides of the plywood to be able to saw it wihtout sawing through the items or shelf behind.

This is the first time ever I am cutting plywood. I therefor had to do some research into the best way to do it using a handsaw. I found this article from WikiHow and this video from Universal Plywood & Timbers to be extremly usefull. I also got a tip from an Coop Obs BYGG employee that you should saw towards you for the first strokes, thus making a notch first.

What I decided to do when sawing the plywood sheets was the following:

Draw a line to saw after.
Create a notch as a starting point.
Saw as straight as possible slightly to the side of the line.

I decided to cut the three sheets as following:

1 pcs 100 x 122 cm (1 cut)
2 pcs 150 x 75 cm (2 cuts)

This saved me some cutting as the sheets allready was 122 cm wide, which is nice when you are using a handsaw. I started with the 100 x 122 sheet as that was the simplest cut to make.

I started by putting a mark at 100 cm from the short edge using a metal ruler. I then used the angle ruler together with my metal ruler to get a straight line.

I then did the same thing from the other side to complete the line all the way through (the length is 122 cm and my ruler is only 100 cm long). The resuling line is show in the bellow picture.

I then made a notch using the handsaw and started sawing as straight as possible. I sawed a little bit to the left of the line, as its the right side of the line that I will be using. That also ensures that I will have the correct length. Sawing of to much will be hard to fix, but sawing of to little is usually fixable. Its also extremly important to have your arm and shoulder blade dead straight with the saw blade.

Take your time when sawing, rushing will just result in a bad result. Remember that it will be possible to do slight course adjustments when handsawing if needed. Also remeber to let the saw do the job. A common mistake as far as I am told is that people tend to use to much downward force. You are not supposed to push your way through the plywood. After all you are sawing it, let the saw do the job. Bellow is a picture of the sheet after cutting it.

It's not perfectly straight, but its good enough for this project. It's now time to saw the two other sheets. I started by meassuring 150 cm on the long side of the plywood sheet. My ruler is still only 100 cm long, so I first marked 100 cm, and then meassured another 50 cm from that mark.

I then again used my triangle and metal ruler for drawing the line. I actaully did a mistake when drawing up this line. I meassured in a direction that resulted in the cutting line ending up in a location where it wouldn't be possible to saw! I therefor had two options. Move away all the stuff I had stowed in the corner or flip the sheet around. I decided to do the later as that was the faster option.

I then started sawing just like I did with the previous sheet. The next step after sawing is to turn the sheet so that its possible to draw up the line for the 75 cm cut.

The line drawing is done in the same way as with the other lines. One thing to be aware of is the length you need to saw for this cut. You will now be sawing 150cm instead of 122! I therefor decided to start sawing while sitting on the sheet as it wasn't possible to reach all the way across comfortably with my arm length. I therefor decided to use all threee saw horses in the setup as shown in the bellow pciture to ensure it would handle my weight (I am quite lightweight, but its better to be safe than sorry).

I afterwards did the exact same thing with the other sheet that should be cut into 150 x 75 cm. Bellow is a picture of all three plywood sheets after I cut them and transported them all the way up to my appartment in the third floor. There is no elevator in the building, so it was a nice excerices up the stairs.

Bellow is a picture of the leftover plywood after sawing. It was unfortunately not possible to use up all the plywood due to the sizes needed for this project. I might use the leftover plywood to build some dioramas or modules of some kind later.

I decided to take the planks up to the appartment and saw them there. I therefor cleaned up all the sawdust in my storage room using a dustpan and brush. I have electricity in my storage room, so I could have brought my vacum cleaner down, but I decided to not carry it all the way down.

Sawing planks and putting it all together

It was now time to saw the 23 x 48 mm planks to the correct length. I started by meassuring out the length of all the planks and drawing on lines as a saw guide. My triangle ruler was used to ensure that the line was as straight as possible.

I then used a pair of one-handed clamps to attach the plank to my kitchen table for sawing.

I then used a piece of P60 sanding paper to smooth out any irregularites.

The process was repeated for all of the planks. I cut the planks to the following lengths:

4 pcs 146 cm
2 pcs 75 cm
2 pcs 100 cm
1 pcs 250 cm

I then placed the planks on top of the plwood sheet to verify if they would fit.

Note that I actually had to few planks to get the design I originally planned! I luckliy found out that the planks I had where enough to properly support the plywood sheets. Having all the planks I initialy planed would have been overkill beacuse of the plywood sheet. It would have been necessary if the the table I built had been identical to the one Arjan built.

The next step after sawing the planks was to screw them together. I removed the plywood sheets first, as I want to fit them on the top of the planks. I decided to use 50 mm screws as those where a nice fit as you can see from the bellow picture. 30 mm is way to short.

I used a screwdriver with a T25 bit as mentioned previosly. I screwed in two screws for each location where the planks joined. Bellow are two pictures showing the process. Note how the screws in this examples is screwed in way to much to the left resulting in some damage to the planks.

My steel ruler and spirit level where used to ensure that the planks lined up as they should before I screwed them together.

The process was then repeated over and over again until all of the planks was screwed together as show in the bellow picture.

It was then time to place the plywood sheets on top of the planks. I used 30 mm lenght on the screws for the plywood sheets as that would be sufficient. 50 mm could work, but that would give a margin of only 7 mm as the thickness of the plywood plus plank is 57 mm.

You might have to use sanding paper and file tool to shave of the sheets a bit if you have uneven cuts. My cuts are not perfectly straight, but I where able to place the sheets in a way that allowed me to get the uneven sides outward, so that I could correct the cuts at a later time. I will get back to the file and sanding process later in this article. Bellow is a picture of the underside of the table after fitting the plywood.

I then started sawing the table legs. All the 48 x 48 planks for the legs was sawed to a lenght of 70 cm. I drew the cut lines using the same technic as described earlier and used my kitchen table as a sawing bench like earlier.

Bellow is a picture of what the table legs looked like after sawing. I initialy sawed only six legs, but I found out rather quickly that I needed a seventh leg.

I used 50 mm screws to attach the legs to the table as shown in the bellow pictures. I only used two screws initialy, but I later added some braces in addition to the screws as described later in this article.

Bellow is a picture of the table before fitting the additional leg and wheels. The time spent on building the table from sawing the plywood sheets to this moment is about 9 hours.

The extra leg was added to the table on the following monday, as it's not socially acceptable (and sometimes ilegal) to saw on a sunday. Bellow are two picture showing the addition of the seventh leg. This ensured proper stability in the front of the table. The version of the table that Arjan made needed fewer legs, but thats probably because he placed the legs smarter.

Mounting wheels

I want to be able to easly move the table around inside the room. That requires wheels on the table. I initialy bought Home-IT wheels Item number 570861411234. Those wheels have a 48 x 48 mm plate. The probelem is that the legs I made from the 48x48 plank is actually a little bit smaller than 48 x 48 in the corners due to being curved a bit. That means that there is the risk that the screw might damage the legs due to being to far to the outer rim as show in the picture. I therefor had to go shopping again to buy some wheels with a smaller plate. The wheels I bough this time was item number 5708614112281 and item number 5708614112366. Bellow is a comparsion of the first wheel type I bought and one of the second types.

The store I bought the wheels at only had three wheels left with brakes. I therefor had to buy the four remaing wheels without brakes. The wheels where mounted to the leg with 30 mm screws with a flat head. I tried to screw them in at a little bit of angle to make sure that they wouldn't damage the leg.

Bellow is a picture of what the table looked like from the underside after fitting the wheels.

I then flipped the table back. One thing I noticed after fitting the wheels was that the table was a bit more wobbly compared to when it didn't have wheels.

I did therefor purchase some angle braces and fitting screws some time after writing this article. Bellow is a picture of the angle braces and screws I bought. Its important to get the wood edition of the instalation screws and not the metal ones. I bought the wrong ones when I had to buy some more after running out of the first batch.

I then used my spirit level to make sure that the legs where as straight as possible.

The angle braces I bought had two screw holes in one end and one long screw hole in the other end. I decided to screw in the screws like shown in the bellow picture for all of the legs.

The table is now less wobbly compared to what it was previosly. There is stil some movement due to the wheels, but nothing that will cause a problem.

Adjustments and sanding

I mentioned earlier in the article that I didn't bother to sand or file down all the irregularites when assembling the table. That means that I will have to do it after assembly. I primarly used three tools for the adjustments. Those tools where my handsaw, a file and a set of sandpapers. I used my handsaw to saw of the worst irregularites, the file for medium irregularites and the two different sandpapers for minor adjustments.

Lets look at an example. The bellow image shows that I where way to much off to the side for one of the cuts on the plywood (which was partialy intentional as described earlier).

I then used my handsaw to saw of the iregularity. The table will more or less work as a guide for the saw. It's extremly important to be careful anyways though, as the saw might saw a bit into the plank benath, which is something you defintely do not want!

The result after sawing is as seen in the bellow picture, which I am actually quite satisfied with.

The cut was clean enough that I could go straight to using the P240 sandpaper. That sandpaper is perfect for getting a nice finish. A worse cut would have required the use of a P60 sandpaper or a file first.

Lets also look at an example where I used the file. Bellow is the edge to be corrected. Its hard to see on the picture, but it actually has a variance of 2 cm!

Bellow are two pictures showing the use of the file tool. The benefit of the file is that you have much more precission, but the drawback compared to the saw is that it takes much more time.

Use of the file tool will require you to sand with the P60 sandpaper. Also note that its more likely to be a little bulky after use of the file. Using the file wasn't perfect, but it worked fine for me. Remember that how much work you would like to put into your table is entirely up to you. Bellow is a picture of the table after I did some filing and sanding.

Further work

I do at the time of writing this article still have some sanding to do to make the table look a little better, but I would say that I am quite satisified with the result. This is the first time I have ever built a table from scratch! It's off course not perfect, but its suits my use case well.

Another thing is the slight instability when bumping into the table caused by the wheels. I have after the initial writing of the article bought some angle braces as described above. That fixes that issue to my satisfaction for now.

And I will off course start building the actual layout some time also, but that will be for another article. This have been quite a lengthy article, but I hope it have provided you with some tips and inspiration to make the first steps of your own layout a little bit more managable.