The right height for your model railway

Benjamin | TrackDrawer.com · published 8 November 2026

There is no single right height for a model railway: it depends on your own eye level, on whether you sit or stand and on who is watching with you. The lower the baseboard, the more you look down from above and the easier it is to reach everything. The higher it is, the more you see the trains from the side, as along a real line, but the harder it gets to reach the back.

What height changes

Three things shift at once when you raise or lower the baseboard.

• Your viewing angle. On a low baseboard you see the whole track plan at a glance, like a map. That helps with shunting and with seeing which turnout is where. On a high baseboard you look across the track at a flatter angle: a passing train then looks far more like the prototype, because you see it as you would from a platform.
• Your reach. You can lean over a low baseboard easily. If it sits at chest height, you reach less far: your arm has to go up as well as forward, and you can no longer lean your upper body over the edge.
• What fits underneath. A high baseboard leaves room for cupboards, boxes or a staging yard under the scenery. A low one leaves little space there.

So there is no best height, only a best choice for how you use the layout. Decide first what you do most: building and shunting, or watching trains run.

Measure yourself

A general rule of thumb does not help much: a tall person standing at an ordinary table is soon far above the layout. Measure three things on yourself, in the shoes you wear in the hobby room:

1. Eye level standing: from the floor to your eyes.
2. Eye level seated: on the chair or stool you use at the layout.
3. Elbow height standing: upper arm along your body, forearm level.

Elbow height is a good measure for hands-on work: laying track, re-railing a wagon, checking a turnout. If the top of the baseboard is about there or a little lower, you work with relaxed shoulders. The difference between your eye level and the baseboard height decides how steeply you look down.

Viewing angle in a worked example

How steeply you look follows from the height difference between your eyes and the track and from the distance to that track. A worked example for someone with an eye level of 160 cm, standing upright. The distance is measured horizontally from your eyes to the track: 30 cm is the track right in front of you, 65 cm is an ordinary arm's length away, 100 cm is at the back of a deep baseboard.

The viewing angle is the angle below the horizontal. The smaller it is, the more you see the train from the side. What the table shows: each extra 10 cm of height makes your view a few degrees flatter, and at the back of the baseboard you always look more flatly than at the front. If you sit on an ordinary chair, your eye level drops a lot and the same baseboard becomes an eye-level layout. Work it out with your own measurements: take the difference between your eyes and the baseboard, divide by the distance and find the angle with a calculator (arctangent).

Sitting or standing

If you mainly run and watch trains, you will like to sit. An ordinary chair at a high baseboard brings your eyes close to the track, which is lovely for running trains but awkward for shunting at the back. A tall stool is a good compromise: you can sit, but also stand up quickly to reach across the layout.

If you mainly build, you stand more often. Standing, you work most comfortably with the baseboard around elbow height. If you do both, choose a height that works standing and add a stool for long running sessions. A layout you only ever operate seated can be higher: then your seated eye level sets the view.

The kind of layout matters too. On a small baseboard of 180 x 90 cm you can reach almost everything from one long side, even at a slightly greater height. A deeper baseboard needs more attention to reach: choose a lower height or provide a second free side.

Children at the layout

Children have a much lower eye level. At a baseboard that suits an adult, they mostly see the edge and the underside of the trains. Two solutions work:

• A step. A sturdy, wide step or a low platform along the operating side lets you keep the baseboard at your own height. Make sure it cannot tip over and does not stand in a walkway.
• A lower baseboard. If the layout is mainly for the children, set it at their height. A baseboard you can raise later, with adjustable legs or loose risers, grows with them.

Let children operate from the front if you can, with turnouts and shunting at the front edge. Anyone who has to lean across the layout knocks things over more easily and puts a hand on the track or in the scenery more often.

Reach and depth

You need to reach every piece of track: to re-rail a wagon, clean a rail or clear a tunnel. A baseboard deeper than your reach needs a second free side, an aisle behind the layout or an access hatch. How far most people reach, and what that means for a baseboard 120 cm deep, is covered in an H0 layout on 240 x 120 cm.

Height and depth go together: the higher the baseboard, the less far you reach comfortably. Put things that need little attention at the back, such as a plain running line without turnouts, and keep turnouts and uncoupling spots at the front. A backdrop or a hill at the back makes a low baseboard look taller without changing your reach. A hidden staging yard under the scenery needs even more access: you can only get to it if you plan that access from the start.

Try it before you build

The best way to choose a height is with your own eyes. Put a plank on boxes or trestles, add a few pieces of track and a train, and try different heights: standing, seated and with the children around. Reach into the far corner, re-rail a wagon and watch a running train for a few minutes. You will soon notice which height works for you. Then pick a frame you can still adjust by a few centimetres later.

Height and reach in TrackDrawer

In TrackDrawer, with Pro, you draw the room around your layout: walls, door, windows, cupboards and a sloping roof. There you set your arm length and the table height. The check uses them like this:

So you see on the plan whether you can reach everything and whether a sloping roof or a cupboard is in the way. How the room fits into the whole design process is covered in making a track plan in seven steps.

Draw your room and your baseboard in the app, set your arm length and let the check show you which corner of your layout is out of reach.