One of the things many of us like about N scale is the ability to run long trains. Nice, when they're running but to get there involves either (a) a lot of real estate for staging or (b) lots of time to set up and take down those 60 car trains. Well, since the wife liked the rest of the house, I ended up with half a basement, i.e. no (a) And after a few times I discovered I didn't want to spend that much time setting out and packing up trains. So I built a storage/staging system that consists of several 5 foot cassettes, each with either two or three tracks, giving me a 10 or 15 foot train in a single cassette. Or in once case a 30 foot container train. As John Madden would say, that’s what N Scale is all about! Here is a single cassette: I first tried it with some scrap 3/8” MDF we had lying around the shop. That worked OK, but the supply ran out before I could get enough cassettes (trial and error is heavy on the latter, I discovered ). So I turned to scrap acrylic. Same price This solution will probably work a little better with plywood, which will be as strong and a little lighter. The few MDF cassettes I ended up with also worked just fine. So it doesn’t appear that the choice of material is that significant. There are no requirements for length, width or thickness, but I ended up with 5 foot lengths. The wall along with the cassettes would be stored is 10 feet and I can "bleed over" a bit, but not much. Cassettes of that length are just way too cumbersome to handle though, so I simply split it in two. Four feet is a natural length, but it ended up wasting precious wall space, so I opted for the 5’ eventual size. Acrylic comes in 4' x 8' sheets and in various thicknesses, just like plywood or MDF. Because my first batch of scrap was 3/8” I simply kept it at that. Thinner means more flexing and thicker means more weight. Besides, the available scrap was 3/8” so the price dictated the width in this case. I kept the protective brown paper covering simply because it's more or less the same color as the MDF. I discovered our table saw blade is 1/8" thick, so I got some scrap 1/8" acrylic for the side walls. Using the table saw I dato'd 1/8" grooves into the base and glued the sides in with epoxy. The sides serve 2 functions. Besides the obvious protection from falling cars, it adds resistance to bowing (a problem with any material in 5 foot spans). The tracks are lightly glued onto the base with common white glue, lined up with the ramp tracks.
Getting trains from the cassettes to the layout and vice versa required a wedge-shaped ramp. My long train layout is extremely simple - two mainline loops. So two switch ramps were necessary, one for each line. Each had its own little challenge. At one end is a bridge and at the other is a removable section the wife insisted on in case we needed to get to the heater or water heater. Each ramp consists of a length of 3/8” acrylic sanded down to a wedge on a stationary belt sander, onto which I glued Atlas switches with Caboose manual throws. Here’s the bridge end ramp: The heater end ramp required a little rounding to fit inside a gentle curve on the mainline. That picture shows the mainline with both ramps empty. Each is set up so the switches on the mainline are trailing, in order to minimize the risk of switches getting picked by the happily rolling long trains
This shot shows the storage system - the ultimate in basic engineering: 8” brackets, Home Depot sourced, with the cassettes resting on them. This allows either two 3-line cassettes or three 2-line cassettes per bracket. Removing a cassette is accomplished by simply sliding it off the bracket. There are two risks in this operation, pitch (lengthwise rocking) and rolling (side to side). I found it impossible to move these cassettes keeping them level on both planes, so I covered the back end of each cassette with simple adhesive tape. Now, when I lift a cassette, I pitch it toward the tape and then I only have to focus on keeping it level width-wise (i.e. not rolling). That’s easy – even I can do that!
So, if I want to run a train, I simply pick it off the bracket, line it up with the ramp, bring back the locomotives and we’re off! Here’s a picture showing the cassettes turned into staging yards: an empty cassette waiting for its train to come back, while the other one is waiting for locomotives to come get it to go join the fun. This shows how easy it is to back up the locos to get the train from the full staging yard cassette:
That’s it - the redneck storage/staging yard! Here are two pictures giving more of an overall pespective The glare in this one is from a reflected fluorescent tube - sorry about that...
WOW! That is basicaly what I have in mind for the staging on the GandG. How do you keep the cars from roling? Maybe I missed it in your pictures. Thank you! Oh, wait, here is your answer: [ February 28, 2006, 05:21 AM: Message edited by: Grey One ]
This is a very good idea. This I can also take into consideration. I know too well the pain of setting down seventy cars and then having to take them up at the end of the day. I can't wait until my layout is complete. What I had initially planned was to set up staging below the layout. That would take far more tracks and construction to achieve. with this method I could set up shelves to hold the cassettes. I'm now caught between the two. A part of me would love to see the trains disappear into tunnel in the mountain side and reappear in the staging yard below and another part wouldn't mind not having to go through that much trouble. Your method seem a lot easier and I think I can manage the balancing part too. I'll figure something out though.
William, what a great concept. That is really a neat way to keep access to all your rolling stock. I agree with Jason, this would make a great artical for NSR.
I would probably have to stick a hat pin or something into the roadbed at each end of a string of cars to keep them from rolling off when I tried to pick them up. I could just see all my cars vanishing off the end without tape. [ February 28, 2006, 09:25 AM: Message edited by: r_i_straw ]
Thanks for the nice words, guys Russell, that's why I use the Scotch tape at one end. There is no roadbed to stick a pin into, only hard acrylic. I tried the pin idea, but the tape just was easier to do.
In UK most cassette users fit a wood/acrylic/brass vertical square section strip, glued to the sidewalls both sides at each end, with a small gap in between them. A drop-in "whooopsie preventer" slides into the gap between them before the cassette is removed and stored, and taken out again when it is back in position ready for ops. Gravity switching sucks - and sod's law says that if the end is open -, it WILL happen! Shortliner(Jack)away up here in the Highlands
William, How about drilling a hole into the acrylic at each end? Then you could insert a steel pin (or nail) to hold the cars in check. You could also drill multiple holes in each end which would allow you to customize the pin's location based on the length of train in the cassette. This would give you less slop so the trains wouldn't roll end to end so much. I would imagine that after sticking and unsticking adhesive tape to the acrylic, it would get pretty gummy after a while. Plus you would burn through a bunch of tape over time. Not to mention, difficult to peel back off if the edges of the tape stuck real good. Just some things to think about. Love your idea. I will remember this one to use in a future layout.
Mike, I never remove the tape. It's at only one end (the back) and when I move the cassette, I tilt it so the cars roll against the tape, and there's no rolling on the tracks. All I have to care about is not tilting the cassette sideways. I've obvioulsy not had this system operational for any length of time yet, but so far the tape has worked surprisingly well - probably my biggest pleasant surprise of the whole exercise. As for partially full cassettes, that's not a concept that applies!! They are all pretty full, or soon will be.
Great idea William but may I make a suggestion? I would use colored electrical tape, anything that is not transparent. This will prevent the "Gee, I swear the tape is on that end" comment.
