Hi Folks, John Colombo suggested that I share my helix Photos with you. My layout is the Nickel Plate Road from Lima to Bellevue in Northwestern Ohio during the fifties. It is a 2 level around the room shelf with a peninsula and the helix is off stage in the middle of this point to point plan. The room is 14 x 18 and the helix is in the adjacent furnace room. It is a 3 loop helix rising 9 inches. The rise is 1.31% and is double tracked outer going up inner coming down. The radius at the far end of the photo is nominally 15 in and the near end is 18 in with the straight sections 70 in. These leads to about 2 scale miles. The total layout when finished should be 9.5 scale miles or about a 1/9 scale down from the prototype 80 miles. The helix is based on a great deal of on-line research and is based on a number of concepts. Too many folks to recognize. I know that long helixes in the middle of a layout are often frowned upon. However, having worked on the NKP during my college years in the mid 60s there are some long flat areas that have similar scenery as the whole 80 miles and of course the NKP was a fast freight RR so I am not missing a lot of switching. Jack Sibold
Not often I see the highly elongated helix in use. It's a good solution if you're modelling a non-mountainous line, particularly in steam days.
It's actually a NOLIX - which is what you call a non-circular helix - and it's very well executed IMO. If I needed something like that I would definitely go with a nolix in order to get the easier gradient as opposed to the helix's more restrictive grade.
Wow! that is too cool! If I ever had to have something like that I would have to hire someone to do it. Very nice job!:thumbs_up:
Very nice. Building such a huge helix in a separate room appears to be an ideal solution. Good thought, well executed. Thanks for sharing with us Cheers Dirk
Excellent example of a nolix. If I ever get track laid to the back of my storage room I'll be constructing something very similar to this. Mine will be 6' X 3' (6' X 4' if I can steal the storage space from my wife) I particualary like the threaded rod method of height adjustment. My plan is to use laminated plywood for the layers with side "ears" for the rods to attach to. Brian
Is a nolix really any non-circular helix? By dictionary definition, I realize that a helix must be circular. But I thought a nolix was the technique of elevating the track from one level to another by incorporating the elevation change into the scenicked portion of the layout (such as an around-the-walls layout like Tony Koester's NKP layout). I thought that any corkscrew-like device built as a single unit was still referred to as a helix, even if it was a circle, oval, blob, etc. The reason I bring this up is because I often hear advocates of the nolix tout the fact that a helix has a ton of hidden track while the nolix has none. Jamie
Interesting, Jamie! We'll probably have to let the rivet counters figure that one out! But thinking on it, no real reason an entire layout couldn't be a nolix! Probably stretches whatever the definition might be though...
You got me. I have to agree yours certainly looks better. You've got mine beat by a post mile. You'll have hours of railroading fun.
