mushrooms anyone?

[Anonymous]

In Jan and Feb 1997 MR, they did some articles on mushroom layout design. Has anyone on here designed or built a mushroom? If so, how has it gone?
Don't know what a mushroom is? See: http://my-memoirs.com/model-trains.asp

[ndbprr]

There was one in last years Great model railroads and the concept has merit but when first suggested there were some legitimate safety comments from both a house builder and a fireman. The first is if you are going to have a raised floor it needs to follow code with cross bracing so the floor doesn't have the potential to collapse. The second concern was could somone get lost in the maze in the event of a fire? Neither should be minimized when considering a mushroom layout.

[Sperandeo]

I know of a couple of other mushroom layouts besides Joe Fugate's – Joe was the author of the MR articles that "SPcatfish" referred to. I've operated one built by a friend of mine in LaCrosse, Wis., and the mushroom approach succeeds in separating the scenes on the two levels. There's a new John Armstrong mushroom plan, for modeling the famous Sierra RR in HO scale, in the June "Model Railroader" (on its way to you now).

So long,

Andy

[jfugate]

Otis McGee (Oakland, CA) is building a mushroom layout design of the SP Shasta Route from a custom plan made by the master himself, John Armstrong. I've visited the layout in person and Otis, Scott Kew, and friends are doing a first rate job on this layout!

The layout is a moat-style mushroom, which is one of the best ways to do a mushroom because you avoid the train-eating helix to get from one level to the other.

See: http://www.spshastaroute.com/layouts.html