I saw a great double deck layout last weekend and I thought I would share with the group a couple of things that I thought really worked well. It's HO scale and a freelanced Australian railway. First was the height and size of both decks. The top deck was situated just below my shoulder height and was less deep than the lower deck (about one foot deep on the top and two - three on the lower.) The owner was about my size and there were some shorter visitors (I am 5'8") that seemed to be struggling but it wasn't so high that they could not see. For me and for the owner it was that perfect "I am an HO scale figure" height. There were some foot stools around to help reach the upper deck and children were using them to see. The lower deck was at about chest level while sitting - this is a lower than you want it from a standing position but once you sit down it was pleasant to look at and I would guess quite comfortable to work on from a tall stool. (All track and turnouts were handlayed - some amazingly complicated trackwork as well! - Wow!) I might mention that the upper deck was completed whilst the lower was still under construction - it's a good idea to work on the upper deck first The second thing that worked so well was one of these things that I had not really thought of as an advantage of the double deck. Because the upper deck is blocking the lower deck's backdrop from view, you can really start to manipulate perspective effectively. Many visitors would sit down to view the rear of the lower deck (plenty of chairs around the layout room) and the scenes seemed really deep - well that's because the background buildings were in N scale. It was so well done, I almost didn't notice it and when I pointed it out to my wife, she didn't believe me at first. (We both said "Wow!" a couple of times.) One of the reasons that I think the forced perspective worked so well was the buildings near the front were super detailed with interiors and the background N scale buildings were not detailed at all. It was also effective on the upper deck - again because you have so much control over how people look at your layout. In one scene N Scale horses were behind the tracks and HO scale cows in front. This fools the eye easily because you readily had the HO scale cows as a reference to the N scale horses so they suddenly looked like they were hundreds of scale feet away (rather than 30 scale feet.) Again we said "Wow!" But alas; the helix was a monster and took up a huge amount of the layout's space. Fortunately the rest of the layout was strong enough to overcome the helix-monster and my attention was easily swayed from it. Should I go the helix route myself, I shall banish the helix-monster to it's own room or large closet and keep it from my layout room.
In reference to your helix question, a friend of mine is in the process of building an HO helix as part of his layout. It will be enclosed so that you can't see it. It will have an access door underneath it and you will be able to stand up inside. I'm guessing that he will continue the scenery painting on it to go around to the wall. He also is going to use it as a staging area, it is double tracked. A helix can be very close to the layout but if you have it covered it won't be calling attention to itself. Good luck! Greg
The particular helix I was speaking of was disguised by a large cliff that was representational of the types of escarpment you find quite common all around Sydney (they are quite dramatic) and it featured one of the best weathered deck girder bridge I have ever seen. The rock face itself was fantastic and it was the very first thing seen when entering the room (going for drama and 'Wow!' right away.) What bothered me was how much it dominated the rest of the layout. Fortuanly, the rest of the layout was extraordinary and made it easy to forget that there was a big helix-monster in the corner
Rob, One of the things that bothers me about helix's is the amount the train "disappears" from sight. At my friends layout, it isn't at all unusual to see some one with their ear against the "cliff" trying to determine if the train is still running. I personally have walked out of the room forgetting the train was still in the helix...never heard the end of that one. Some people don't mind the train disappearing for a time, they say it resembles their "down" time while railfanning. I personally prefer to have trains in view as much as possible with the exception of the purposeful disappearing acts like tunnels, etc.
Sounds like a great layout. I just moved into my mobile home that will have a two level layout running around the outer walls. It's 16' wide X 70' long, and i intend to reach the second level by a long 2% grade. I model country here in Arizona that goes from about 1,000' to 7,000', so i will be traveling to the second level in natural terrain. I've got one module 8' long that i've been working on while waiting to find the right place, but now benchwork will be built in earnest-3' deep normally , but narrow down hallway, etc. Curt
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rsn48: One of the things that bothers me about helix's is the amount the train "disappears" from sight<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Same here. I wish I could figure out what the acceptable percentage of hidden running time is. It seems to be a largly personal thing. From recent articles by Tony Keoster it appears he is thinking along the lines of zero percent. I recall him writing about daylighting tunnels on the A&M to allow operators to see the train as much as possible. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Some people don't mind the train disappearing for a time, they say it resembles their "down" time while railfanning.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That's fine when your railfanning, but when you are driving the train it can be nerve racking - I'm sure the engineers on this board will attest to the fact taht there is little if any down time while the train is actually moving!
