The Blue Ridge Mainline

Up until a couple months ago, I’d been working on an HCD layout, which I labeled as ‘Chessie in a Condo’ aka, the Nameless & Aimless RR. It proved to be quite the learning experience.
Things I learned:

• I needed to learn how to solder (done that)
• I am not a switching person
• S curves need wide radii-unlike the one I have, which looks ridiculous
• 60’ cars don’t look terrible on 12.5” curves, but would look much nicer on 15” curves (new personal mainline minimum)
• Ballast is not something to do right off the bat. Next time, wait till basic scenery is done.
• Shelling out big $ for .5” blue foam is actually better than shelling out little $ for white polystyrene. (Won’t make that mistake again)
• Just because atlas makes a 10” curve, doesn’t mean you need to consider using a 10” curve. (Won’t do that again either)
• I’m a lot better at producing scenery than I expected to be (hooray!)
• Plan staging first, then the layout around the staging
• I love watching trains roll along the mainline.

And so, I have come to the conclusion that the time has come to move on. Well, I made that decision a couple months ago. Since then I’ve been working on a new layout design.

Now, when I say working on a new layout design, what I mean to say is, I had over 50 saved layout plans of all different sorts-islands, around the walls, shelf, fill the room, share the room, staging in the closet, helix here, helix there, double deckers, no-lixes… the lot. It’s been agony. And then of course my laptop went and bricked on me last weekend, and I lost all of them. Which I guess is a good thing because now I’ve made up my mind.

My new and improved layout will go by the title (as indicated by the thread title) “The Blue Ridge Mainline”.
Bench work will begin around the turn of the year, and I hope to be halfway done with track by the end of January. So… the magical plan, and what’s in it:

This is (I think) a crazy idea: a double decker 4’x8’ featuring a yard that will hold a full coal drag (20-30 90ton cars) a small town, a slightly larger coal town, various mainline paths to enable running at least two trains without having to pay any attention to them and at least two bridges-something I wish I’d had the first time around.

I should point out, that the above plan ^ is a rough interpretation of the real deal. The actual plan was lost to my mac only software on my now dead mac, and I’ve never used xtrkcad until yesterday.

I think aside from the nightmare that is going to be building the one piece benchwork, it should turn out to be a very satisfying long term project. The premise is the same as last time: generic Appalachia!

Construction will get underway at some point around the turn of the year-I’ve already ordered the helix so once I get that assembled, everything else will start to grow out of it. Updates will follow, feedback on the plan is welcome.

Oh, and as for staging, it's going to be on the bottom of one of the two layers-have yet to conclude which, but figure for 6-9 tracks at least 12' long each.

TTFN

 

Painful First Steps

Started my day with a trip to the 8th Annual Tampa Train Show. Bigger this time around, which of course meant I spent more money. Still, nice to see such a nice selection of N material in my neck of the woods. My haul for the day: 10 pieces of rolling stock, a book on the Clinchfield, a bag of bridge bits and pieces for kitbashing and an engine maintenance facility by Bachmann.

So with that done, and home in time for the 1 o'clock kick-offs, I found myself inspired.

I was of course inspired to tear apart my current layout. It was inevitable, never the less, it was something I'd been putting off. The whole process was far more upsetting than I had planned for-first time I've had to rip apart something I'd put that much effort into. However, managed to salvage the one section of scenery I'd wanted to save-my riverbank, along with every tree (most of them with all their stump too lol) and every rock outcropping.

Following that, pulled up the track along the river, along with the tipple tracks (another section I decided to save) and salvaged three switches, which will go into the staging level of the BRM.

So for as hard as the whole process has been, I've gotten (and will get) everything I can out of the current layout, and am quite pleased for that. Tomorrow i figure to salvage at least a dozen more switches.



Packing up for the deconstruction, and soon to ensue construction.



Never using bead board again. Ever.



Salvaged!

 

4' X 8' double deck?

Good luck. I'm having trouble imagining the issues of clearances, support, and reach that you're going to have to overcome with this.

 

Probably should have covered that: firstly, it will be accessible from three sides, so no reach issues. As for support: Firstly there is 2x4 framework, which has the legs connected to it-including legs under the center. On top of that is the bottom deck, also a 2x4 framework with cross bracing. The helix will be attached to this. In addition, there will be substantial support built inside the helix to support the top deck at that end. The rest of the support will be built down the spine (on the plan where it says bottom level) To a minimum of 1' width for the top level to sit on. This would leave 18" on each side unsupported down the spine, and 12" unsupported around the helix area.

The top level will most likely be of 1x3 construction built around a 1'x8' spine built of 2"x4".

As things stand there is going to be about 10" between the top of the bottom deck, and the bottom of the top deck, with no scene deeper than 16", so I think it will provide a good viewing window. As planned for now, the track on the bottom level will be 42-45" above the ground, the top deck track between 57-60". (I'm 6'2" so I'll happily have track that high)

I'm going to get things drawn out so i'll have a more concrete idea of things, and can then give more definitive details

 

A Matter of Staging

So I've gotten to the point where I need to have a serious plan in place for staging, as there is a good chance that will be the first part of any track that gets laid. The problem I've run into is that I have two very different ideas, both with a variety of extreme pros and cons. They are as follows:

Staging internal to the layout-this would be six tracks connected at both ends, which would allow for continuous running through the staging, ie, not having to run any locos back around, and having the ability to connect to it from two points, thus not requiring a reversing loop anywhere etc. That plan would look a bit like this:



The six tracks would be directly below the mainline, with a 3-4" clearance, switches operable from the 'town side' fascia. As you can see, this makes for some very complex maneuvering to ensure clearances while making one's way down to the bottom of the bottom.

Pros: Self contained, not visible, great flexibility for trains based there. Cons: Pain in my ass to build, big pain in my ass to build, requires big whole in town side fascia, uses far more track (which is expensive from my point of view)

The alternative is staging external to the layout: for this there would simply be a wye as indicated, with one track leading off to a massive transfer table (think 7-10 tracks, 10' long-ish) This is a much simpler track layout:



Pros: Much easier to build, cheaper, quicker, easy to access cars and engines to remove/re-stage. Could be operated like a second major yard, adding operating capacity if desired. Cons: Requires far more benchwork, will be ugly as hell, will take longer.

I don't like to be one to ask people to do work for me, but I would appreciate some feedback on this one. As things stand, I'm leaning towards internal simply for it's neatness, and the fact that the staging is mostly for storage for when I get bored with one train, and wish for another. Switching things up is for the main yard. At least those are my thoughts. I'm open to being dissuaded based on matters that I so far fail to see

 

I guess I'm not so lucky as to get some feedback on that ^. Nevermind, internal staging it is. Beauty wins over cheap and easy. Moving on:

Christmas has come early!!!



A nice big box courtesy of FedEx (P.S. Polar Express rules)

My helix is here! For everyone who thought I should dial back the insanity of this project, bad news: full steam ahead!



Sam investigates (He is referred to as an 'exploratory' dog)



This was all last night, and today I began construction in earnest:



I can only build one layer at a time before I have to lay the track, else accessibility becomes a big issue, so the process will be slow. Yet to decide whether to splurge on sectional track for ease and speed, or keep it cheap with flex-downside being a lot of tedious soldering-still a newly acquired skill for me. So far I'm impressed with what I've received. Onwards!

Cheers

 

TrCO,

Your trackplan is truly ambitious. Just the number of turnouts alone scares me. I am sure many look at my track plans and think "boring", but my track work has managed to operate a train for 8 hours straight at trainshows without a derailment. After 4 completed layouts, my advice to you would be to stay on the conservative side, increasing the probability of success. There is nothing worse than getting into a layout project, to run into challenges with a complex design, or getting overwhelmed with the track laying stage of building, and discouraged about moving forward. Your design looks like a lot of fun, and it has a lot of possibilities. However, it could also create a lot of frustration due to the complexity involved. Good luck to you. Looking forward to watching it grow.

HuskerN

www.nscaleaddiction.blogspot.com

 

I built the same helix and used Kato superelevated double track . It worked great. Built the entire helix then installed the track one section at a time constantly pushing it down the helix. Very easy to do. I then hot glued the track in place. Workded great. If your going to use DCC I highly recommend that you attach leads every half circle. Here's a few photos of the helix. I also added veneer strips on the outside of the helix in case of a derailment. . View attachment 50074 View attachment 50075 View attachment 50076 View attachment 50071 View attachment 50072 View attachment 50073 View attachment 50077 View attachment 50078

 

"Your trackplan is truly ambitious. Just the number of turnouts alone scares me... ... it could also create a lot of frustration due to the complexity involved.

HuskerN"

I agree-very very ambitious. The purpose is to provide a large challenge-I don't expect it to be easy, I expect it to be incredibly frustrating, but I will finish it, and find it hugely rewarding. (Staying positive). I spent such a long time designing my 'next' layout and having settled on a design, wanted to rush right into it. And I did-recycled my old benchwork, started constructing the lower level structure (to the plan) before stopping and thinking. This is going to be a long and grueling project, and I'm going to do it right from the beginning and not cut corners at any point on the journey. I'm hoping that this will help cut down on the frustration element of things. As such, I'm starting fresh on the benchwork. I'm actually following your lead, and am going to have my local big box store rip me a couple sheets of ply into 4" widths.

The only thing that worries me about the turnouts is that they won't be thrown with ground throws-all from the fascia, and it all has to be manual (think bullfrog as opposed to tortise) but thinner.

Long story short: what you say is very true, but I'm going to be patient and do this right. It will indeed be fun to watch it grow

 

Looks very nice! Hope mine looks half as good when I'm done with it. I'm not so lucky as to be using the kato track-I'm having to lay as I build, which is proving tedious, but nevertheless is progressing at a steady rate Thank you so so much for saying 'hot glue'-I've been using caulk (force of habit) and think hot glue will help with the tediousness tremendously!

 

Bill Denton's Kingsbury Branch used/uses a very simple setup involving a Double Pole Double Throw slide switch screwed to the underside of the plywood facing up. He inserted a piece of steel wire into the "handle" of the switch, and connected model airplane linkages out to the fascia to a knob. Simple, cheap, and relatively low profile. Requires a 1/4" to 3/8" hole to allow the wire to move back and forth and throw the turnout. Tried it on my last layout and it worked well. He described it on the Kingsbury Branch, but I no longer see the photos.

Bill Darnaby does something similar on his Maumee Route. His version uses linkages and such under the layout. It was published in Model Railroader some years ago. I tried this one as well, but find it unnecessarily complex. Does not require the large hole, since the turnout moves via a small rotating linkage.

 

Thank you for the ideas. It'll probably be a month or so till I get to that stage so I have plenty of time to figure out a solution-but the ones you suggest sound excellent. I see much tinkering with dpdt switches and servo horns and the like

In other news, have about 2.5 turns of the helix complete, working on about 3/4 of a turn at a time. Laying cork and track in such a confined area is proving challenging, but so far all my soldered joints are holding up and for every time I've rolled cars down the track I haven't had a derailment, so things are looking good

 

Pretty ingenious to use the Unitrack V11, superelevated curve sets for a helix. A bullet proof helix with sectional track, who would have thunk it? Well, you did! You've addressed the only down side (electrical connections of the rail joiners). Sweet idea.

 

Getting Dizzy

Finished the helix last night, and on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being ecstatic, I am an 8.5ish. Functions perfectly, not very pretty, not entirely circular all the way up-but it's put together, it works a charm, and I have no complaints.



So today, I went benchwork shopping



The original plan was to get MDF ripped into 3-4" strips which I would then bring home and cut further etc etc. Turns out the narrowest board they were willing to cut for me was 12", so that plan died pretty fast. Of course, I ended up with dimensional lumber Still, it's the straightest stuff I've ever found in a big box store, so it should work. Should.



I already had the spine built for the lower level, and this shows how the helix fits into things. Off later to pick up my shiny new compound miter saw and then things will get back underway.

 

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is not going to be a portable layout...:wink:

 

You might be surprised Things have gone a little differently then planned (again) to the end of making sure I can move this when it's done. I have the benchwork in place for the lower level. This benchwork sits on 'the spine' with the spine sitting on the legwork. These are three entirely different pieces, and come time to move, each will separate from the other. The top level will sit on the spine and will also lift off when the track is detached from the helix.

Photos coming soon, and not too long after that I'll have a video up on my tube channel showing how it all goes together with lots of hand gestures lol

 

I think it's a heck of a interesting trackplan and overall concept.

Certainly a lot of possibilities as far as train-running in an area that doesn't consume a lot square feet.

 

And just like that

Benchwork flew up today-I was a man with a miter saw on a mission. Things are going to come to a bit of a stand-still now. Next step is to cut the track path out of ply for the bottom level, get that secured, then lay staging around all the uprights. As I said earlier, this is three different constructions assembled together. A dozen screws hold all three together, all easily accessed from the underside. Moving it from apartment to apartment won't be pretty, but it will be doable.





If you look at the leg nearest, and follow it up to the top, you will see a little triangular piece with three screws in it. This (and three more) is what holds all three sections together. It will never be a stress bearing element of the construction, just a placeholder. Pop all four of those off, and it's moving time

 

I built my layout in removable sections also. The one thing I messed up on is that I forgot to put removable sections of track at the joints in the bench work.


Gary