Hello again. So in the past eight years I have torn down my last layout, got married, got a dog, moved house and got a right-of-way grant in the new garage. So I am back again, dusting off the trains Land Grant The room is 6m by 6m, or about 20' by 20; but it also has to store power tools, gardening equipment, ... To that end, I've had 2' deep metal shelves installed on two walls and long story short, I have 8' by 13' for the trains; with 1m (40") aisles on three sides and a wall on the fourth. Under the layout has to be more shelving for storage. But all in all, I think I can make this work. Track Plan I made a separate thread over here for the planning of things. Materials Most dimensional timber available in New Zealand is neither straight nor square. So this iteration I am going with 17mm thick (0.75"?) ply sheets. Pine, "C-D" grade at best. I can rip it into strips 2"-4" or anything in between. To date, I have made the under-layout shelving out of this, and bought new supplies of 9mm, 12mm and 17mm ply, as well as 3.2mm Hardboard (like "Masonite" but probably just enough different to avoid patents) for backdrops and front-drops and the like. (aside: I mostly think in mm, but knowing most of y'all are American, I will try to convert to inches where I can) 29 September 2016: The free space, before the layout starts, looked like .. That pile of timber in the foreground will become shelves in the next few posts. I don't think any of the clutter is going anywhere. Some of those plywood boxes behind the saw horses look familiar. Where have I seen them before?
October 2016: Making shelves. eight foot long, a shelf appears in the room, and promptly accumulates model train clutter. My track saw is very handy for ripping plywood sheets into a pile of timber and a mountain of sawdust. I don't own a table saw, and even if I did, man-handling an 8'x4' sheet by myself into a moving saw blade would just be a painful disaster. Each 8'x4' sheet is ripped into 10-16 strips and an 8'x2' sheet to make a shelf top. Here we see the strips being clamped square and screwed together; then the tops can be added and the final shelf carried into the layout room. For orientation, the layout is behind the photographer and when the saw horses are put away, the wife's car moves in to occupy the work area. Seems weird, actually having a car inside the garage 29 October, more shelves are assembled: 12 November, all the under-layout shelves are complete. I clearly own almost enough clamps. (From this angle, some of those cluttered plywood boxes in the earlier picture seem to have track on them. Hmm)
13 November 2016 So here is the overall space as of last weekend. Plywood Shelving at 0.5m and 0.9m (36") occupies the middle of the room, while industrial-strength metal shelving on the outside walls holds more clutter. The window provides natural light for the workbench. I plan on this off-layout workbench being my main "heavy industry" workspace (angle grinders, chisels, socket wrenches, ...), while the plywood shelving under the layout has a smaller "workbench" area (right side, under the red-handled clamp), for painting, installing decoders, and car repairs, etc. The layout plan has staging tracks across the back wall and on the right hand shelves (where the yellow tape measure and the red-handled clamp are): trains can drive off the workbench and onto the layout; the helix is in the back right corner, where the rack of grey bins are currently. The coloured bins on the wall stay put. The main yard is (will be) on the right hand side of this picture, not visible from this vantage point; from here the visitor will be focused on the main Bridge / viaduct scene. Away to the left is the first town, with the left leg turn-around loop back towards the wall. Currently there's 4' from the layout to the back wall, although that will shrink to 3' when the staging goes up. Electricity exists on the back wall behind the helix. Lighting will either be mini-fluorescents left over from the last layout; or I might get some of those new-fangled LED strip lights. I should be able to drop a light-weight assembly from the roof (exposed framing, this is just a garage after all) and have diffuse lighting everywhere (so no alternating puddles of light and dark like halogens make) without the bulbs being in view. Just need to work out how many lumens per metre I need to be reasonable. And find a source of LEDs that have good Colour Rendering (CRI) without costing a young fortune. I want to spend my money on Engines, not lightbulbs! There are more pictures in my Railimages Album, I just thought I'd throw some (of the better ones) up here to catch up. It also occurs to me that my cellphone camera is pretty horrific
19 November 2016 First L-Girder (of six) going together. I guess I own almost enough clamps, so I can only make one at a time. I couldn't find proper Yellow Glue at the hardware store, so I'm using some "weather resistant" white PVA. Ideally I want waterproof glue for this job, so we'll see. As an experiment, there are no screws in the girder, just PVA and clamps. If it holds straight while it cures, then I save a whole barrel of time not having to drill holes, put screws in and all that. If it warps tonight then lesson learned; the dog gets some 'decorative art' to chew on and I get to rip some more plywood to make new straight and screwed girders
Looks like a great start! And no worries about mm, I work in the metric system daily and find it refreshing!
Nice start, will be looking forward to more pic and all the fun stories that goes a long with a new laout.
Hello again. Unfortunately I have contracted some form of plague - the wife was sick last week, so it's probably just ManFlu. I feel rubbish and am struggling with basic math (like 42mm to inches...) Test-fitting the first L-girder on the weekend I discovered a small problem: From the bottom of that L-girder on the left down to the shelf below is only 22cm (8.5"). (2/3 drawers of rolling stock) Not a heck of a lot of use as a shelf, and even less use for getting under the layout for wiring, etc. So, I am going to have to lower all of the shelves, reducing their usefulness, but making the underside of the layout accessible at least. This picture also shows that with a 42mm joist (1+5/8", or "2 inch" from the lumber yard ) over the L-girder and 17mm of subbed over that, the lowest main deck height is 139cm over floor (54"). I can go higher, by risers, thicker joists, and even lifting the L-girders a little; but I won't go much lower. To the right, I have lowered the workbench to 69cm (27"). At least two levels are showing me that the timber is level, but the floor is not - about 1/4" rise over 4 foot. Coincidentally, 90cm is a good bench height for standing jobs, and 70cm is a good height for sitting jobs. So I have a sitting workbench. Fourth L-girder. To make any more I have to set up the track saw. So, next week. Next problem, my timber shelves are 9cm thick (because why not over-engineer things) (3.5"). With a shelf at 50cm and one at 90cm, I have three heights for storage (floor counts!) and a good 41cm between shelves. One shelf at 70cm leaves 61cm (24") from the floor, which is too much space to use efficiently. But adding a shelf means I have 52cm split in twain, so 26+26cm (10"), or variants thereof - 30+22 etc. Not as useful. So I might have only one shelf on at least part of the rest of the layout. My friend, who owns welding gear, says we should make metal shelves instead. Or I could rebuild the shelves, recycle the current framing for joists and risers, and rebuild with thinner framing to cut that 9cm imposition down to 5cm (2"). Any thinner and the shelves will bend under load. So much work; but better done now before there's anything up top! So, slight pause here while I recuperate, and then adjust the shelving heights; and I can finish the L-girders and start working out how to get plan from the computer and onto the layout.
Over-engineering IS the railroad way! When I built my under layout shelving, I put a bottom shelf 2 inches from the floor and a top shelf 3 inches below the lowest framework. That shelf protects whatever is on the shelves below it from any stray water or glue or whatever else might fall through. The railroad extends a ways out beyond those shelves, so the underside is still accessible for wiring. The shelving you're a building looks truly able to hold up a LOT of tonnage!
Feeling better today, so I got out to the shed. Applying track saw to a new sheet of plywood. Probably not visible at this zoom, but my local disreputable timber merchant has learned a new trick: 5-ply 17mm sheet. Used to be 12mm (1/2") was 5-ply and 17mm (3/4") was 7 ply. I would say this is to save pennies; because the price of timber keeps going up. (I have two choices around here: disreputable merchant at $60-90nzd a sheet ($45-$65 usd a sheet) for C-D grade; or Furniture Grade A-B or A-C for $much $more Buy ply and rip it is still cheaper than dimensional timber ) With some more timber ripped into strips, I was able to make the final two L-girders, so I now have all six made and leaning against a wall in anticipation. I also decided to wear the pain and dismantled the 7' section of shelving. I will keep the top shelf with 70mm (2.75") of framing and 17mm (3/4") plywood and lower it to 70cm (2'4") off the floor. Because it is now the taller shelf, it stays nice and overengineered (like, strong enough to hold my weight). The bottom shelf, I kept the top ply sheet and made new framing the same dimensions, but only 39mm (1.5") thick. This probably won't take my weight but doesn't have to. The old framing pieces will make great joists and risers for the layout Much effort and flailing and clamps later (10 clamps on the L-girder, 8 clamps on the new shelves, I only have my 3 box-clamps left), the shelves are restored and importantly the same height as the other wing. So, tomorrow, if my back hasn't seized completely, I can repeat this game with the third section which links the other two and then, hopefully, I will have everything I need to start putting up the L-girders and start transferring the plan from computer to garage. Not sure how I'm going to stop liquid spills from obliterating that top shelf when the scenery starts. Wonder if I can peg or tape a garbage bag under the fascia temporarily to direct the spills away from the valuable things?
Well as an engineer by trade, I have to disagree, but just a bit. Your solution is solid engineering! Over engineering would be using welded steel framing and being able to park a motor vehicle on top of it. I really like your under-table shelving and your overall design. Sorry to hear that you have back issues; you may want to get a rolling stool for working on the underside of the layout. You done a lot of great prep work. I can't wait to see the tracks and trains in action!
Or a skateboard. When the helix was at 90cm (3'), that's a duck-under. But if it moves down to 70cm (2'4"), that's a touch too low for easy bending and twisting; so I will be looking at very low stools, skateboards, or even just the caster wheels at the home store Thanks for the vote of confidence.
7th update, no trains yet. Of course, we need good foundations to do great things. I got distracted by moving some clutter away. I made a sign for the wall to mark the dimensions of the Helix, so I don't crowd it in when doing other things So there it is, from staging at 70cm, up to the main deck, 120cm to 150cm. Being an oval 4'x3' and 63mm (2.48") per lap, so 8-13 laps. Knowing where the helix will be, I decided the back wall is boring and needs something to occupy the space. Like a TV. The bottom shelf is 70cm from the floor, so about staging height. I could use these white brackets to support the staging deck, they are strong enough; although the layout will need framing and screwing down to stop it moving and warping (bookshelves can warp, books don't mind. train shelves shouldn't warp). So now I have somewhere to store more clutter If I move the current clutter off the last wing of the layout shelves, I should be able to dismantle them and rebuild them at the right height. Still tempted to put the surplus TV on the back wall. So I can have railfan youtube videos playing while working; I mean there will probably be a computer attached to the layout anyway, right ..
Not a lot of progress; Christmas activities and getting the pool ready for summer are consuming a lot of time. When the sun comes out,the garage where the layout is gets warmer than I expected - I may need to experiment with expansion and warping. Winter it will barely hit freezing, so only summer (December to February) is a problem. I figured 80°F, it might hit 90! Worst case I won't progress until 26/27 Dec.
Construction update. The shelves under the layout are now complete. | So there are now three sets of shelves, each approximately level, the lower is about 450mm off the floor and the higher 700mm. The L-girders can then sit, even more level, about 1200mm (4') off the floor. The shelves are bolted together with little metal brackets, to try to resist the tendency of three distinct shelf units each trying to move in opposite directions when knocked (or during an earthquake!) I am figuring that if the shelves are bolted together, and the L-girders are screwed together, then the layout atop the girders should not move around too much... I am figuring on finding the highest leg, and then shimming or lifting every L-girder to be level with that point. Strictly, the L-girders don't have to be square, perpendicular, or level; but I figure I might as well try, it might make life easier later At the moment, it looks like the highest point is on the right-end of the first picture; in the foreground of the second picture above. So the rest of this month is likely to be occupied by Christmas, so not many updates upcoming; although I think I have three free days before next year, so I might get something done
I snuck into the train room and tested what risers and joists and subroadbed will look like on the L-girders. The foreground track (needs cork, I know) is where the main yard will be, at minimum height (51.5", 1315mm above the floor, I measured it), while the background track will be on the other side of the view block and climbs from half-height (minimum +3") to highest point (minimum +6"). 3" rise in 8' is a little impractical, but it photographs well. (okay, my phone camera sucks). Here we see a sheet of plywood 22" above minimum deck height, showing off how the backdrop will dominate the room. I expect to hang a very light matrix from the ceiling above the backdrop, to support the layout lighting. The backdrop will be on poles too thin to be rigid enough for the task.. The main bridge scene will be in front of that plywood, I think about 3" of scenic drop below the bridge and minimum. ATSF SD40 #5014 running light on a 6% grade, nose towards the helix. From these experiments, it looks like the plan is not obviously flawed and I should probably continue to install the L-girders properly and then start transferring a 1:1 plan to paper
Yeah, I think at 7% the sd40 will start sliding downhill! The plan calls for 2% grades; this is just scrap timber for a photoshoot
Studied your plan and it's pretty sound design. I was glad to see you're also using screws to get it apart by chunks, that's save my layout from premature death - twice. The only thing I saw that made me twitch was the placement of what looks like a Kato double crossover on the helix on the "far" wall. I can see why you want it so you have continuous running on your design...but.... I can't tell how accessible that is for maintenance, and rerailing. I have a LOT of hidden storage and staging on my layout and it's been simplify, simplify - to reduce maintenance and prevent inadvertent operator error on hidden trackage. I'm a big advocate of hidden staging, but you have to seriously design to prevent inadvertent accidents - that in some cases leave a train of 25 89' intermodal flats raining down to the floor below, assisted by a 2% downhill grade on a trailing point switch set against you....hmm... I may sound paranoid but if you don't really need two tracks on the helix and those switches I'd think about it. Other than that section, you're really a single-track railroad, and making the helix double-track may be a bit of overkill. I'm not sure if you've thought about it, but based on your yard, canyon, bridge, town, and general single-track main line design - reminded me of the Peavine down from Williams. Yard, bridge, canyon, mining....check, check,check, check. Or maybe Prescott before the line relocations. If you are interested in a specific area rather than generic Santa Fe, take a look as I think you're at least halfway there whether you intended to be or not. I also couldn't tell if you were intending to back trains into your staging, or if you're changing ends via a passing siding or Giant Hand Power.
Nice construction thread! Some comments regarding a helix... On a previous layout, I had a 36" diameter double track helix (stacked circles with uniform radius loops) with the lower deck at 36 inches and the upper deck at 58 inches. The outside of the helix was covered to provide a backdrop for the lower shelf that ran around the outside of the helix (meaning, all maintenance had to be done from inside the helix). This helix was VERY difficult to crawl into (from floor to underside of the L-girders supporting the helix base was about 32 inches), and once inside, there was no elbow room or even a way to bend over a little to see the outside track. Because there was only a little over 3 inches between the railheads and the underside of the next highest loop, maintenance was tough and repairs were nearly impossible. Additionally, operations were adversely affected by the steep grades to gain clearance between loops. For my current layout, I have 4 single track helixes moving trains from 48 or 53 inches up to 64 or 65 inches. All 4 helixes are bowl-shaped (each loop gradually increases in radius as it spirals up, so that the only place one track is over another is where the bottom track enters the helix by passing under the 2nd loop. Every loop is easily accessed from above when standing inside the helix. (The smallest radius, 15.75 inches, is only held for a fraction of an inch, and, by the top of the bottom/first loop, the radius has increased to 17.25 inches, to 18.75 by the top of the 2nd, 20.25 by the top of the 3rd, etc.) Your original plan looks like a double helix. If you make it a single track helix with a right turnout located at 3:00 to the helix at the top of the yard (diverging route to the track that runs behind "Another town", straight route going to the yard), a left turnout at about 8:00 to the helix with the straight route going to "Another town" and the diverging route going down the helix to staging, and eliminate the double crossover, then you will still have your access to staging from either the Yard side or the "Another town" side, as well as the option of continuous running (yard side to "Another town" side). For operations, it looks like your passing siding at "Another town" is long enough to let you treat the helix as its own block, so it should be easy to time opposing trains into and out of the staging yard (and thus, not it is necessary to have a double track helix). 1. Consider making a bowl-shaped helix of gradually increasing radii as the helix rises, instead of a stacked/cylindrical helix of uniform radius. 2. Reduce the radius of the bottom loop as much as your locomotives will tolerate (6 axle trucks or steam with 6 drivers will bind on tight curves much more than four axle trucks/4 driver steam locos). Let's assume 15.75 inches.Your first loop at the bottom of the helix could start at 15.75 inches radius and gradually reach 17.25 inches at the start of the second loop, 18.75 inches at the start of the 3rd loop, and 20.25 inches at the start of the 4th loop. If staging is at 0 inches and the helix entrance is about where the double cross-over is in your track plan, then by one loop up an oval with 12 inch sides and a 2.0% grade trains will have risen 2 inches-9/16ths, 2nd loop = 5 in-5/16ths, 3rd loop = 8 inches-4/16ths, and 4th loop = 11 inches-6/16ths. The bowl-shaped helix foot print for the 3rd loop = 42.75 inches, and 45.75 inches for the 4th loop. This helix footprint would seem to fit into your original plan with only minor adjustments, especially if you move the center of the oval a little to the left (to keep the yard tracks long). 3. If you have 3 loops, this means you may have to shorten "Another town" (or at least the single spur that extends toward the helix) by 8 inches, or shift the town down 8 inches closer to the mine; and a fourth loop would probably need both a shortening of the single spur AND shifting the town for a combined total of 11 inches.
One of the last steps when leaving the previous house was dismembering the last Duck River's spiral helix. 13" minimum, 1" wide subroadbed, 1/4" ply. It mostly worked, although at 1", I did have to notch a few supports. Looking at the space, I have just on 1m before the table legs and 1.3m between wall ornaments (39.1" by 51.3"); currently the plan for staging is 700mm over the floor and the main deck at 1315mm, for 615mm rise (24.2"). I could abbreviate the staging, raise it up from 700; but then I lose the 'reverted loop' part along the workbench - might not be fun with less overhead reach. Philosophically, the helix is double track because up and down 10 laps at 2% is a long time (1240 linear inches I think?), single track would mean waiting a long time between trains. The basic work-around on a single track helix is to have a siding on the main deck before the helix, to hold the waiting train. Back to double track, the most complicated piece of trackwork (Peco crossover) in the least accessible place (top of the helix, against the wall) is useful for several reasons. It does give continuous running using the top lap of the helix, although simpler trackwork could also achieve that. It allows trains to enter and exit the helix from either the main yard or Another Town, but mostly it enables up or down running on either helix track - although normally up on the outside track (2% grade, 16.25" radius) and down on the inside track (2.1% gade, 15" radius). Double checking, I never uploaded the staging deck plan. Oops. On the staging deck the plan is to park trains engine forward, so they can advance up the helix at the start of running. Trains can run down either nose-in to the staging, requiring 0-5-0 turning of the train (because I'm not silly enough to back a train up a helix ). But more usefully, a track from the helix to the work bench (under the main yard) allows arriving trains to nose-in the to the workbench and then back around the helix into the staging - I believe this idea is called a "Reverted Loop". The result is the train is now nose-out for the next session. Will definitely investigate rails/crash barriers and maybe some strategically placed foam blocks to avoid runaway trains flying off the tracks. Even more fun, my thought at the moment is that the staging yard throat will work best as a sector-plate style design, where only one track is aligned. Saves on turnouts and lets all yard tracks be equally long. Does give a runaway train something else to derail on! I wonder if I really need the helix? Without the reverted loop part, the staging could be a fair bit closer to the main deck height. Helices do add complexity and maintenance, while also being hard on the back / elbows. Might be time to build a cardboard mock-up in the space and see if I am as flexible as I feel
