I have to admit, I am one of those folks... I find the helixes beautiful. Someday when I have enough room, I plan to build a helix that will somehow have at least 1/2 visible by staging so you could watch it.. (gotta give the guy in staging something interesting to watch once in awhile!)
Brian
Great Model Railroads 2007 showed an M-St.L layout with a one or one-and-a-half turn helix which the builder did just what you describe, added some scenicking and a backdrop.
His article pointed out the big problem with helixes - helixes are fascinating!! He noted that whenever a train is in the helix, everyone stops what they're doing to watch it. I can confirm that from the old Hub Hobby in Richfield MN (when it was actually in the Hub Shopping Center); they had a layout built in the store that had three levels and a helix. Whenever trains were running, there would be several people watching the trains go up and down the helix, and maybe one person looking at the scenicked part of the layout.
IIRC think it's the prototype Cumbers & Toltec RR ( or other tourist RR ), that uses a helix to climb the wall of a gorge before crossing a trestle to the other side. The track goes into a tunnel and out onto the wall and back in to a tunnel ( and so on ) several times. From what I understand, the track does not actualy lay right above the lower track, but is off set a bit as it goes up the side of the gorge, giving it a bit of a stair steped apparence..
I'm already working on exactly what you've thought up:
My helix will be embedded into an outside corner of my layout room. The "inside" of the helix will be unsceniced, as it will be sharing some space with my hidden staging yards. The "outside" of the helix will be fully sceniced, and the center lap of the five lap helix will feature a small townsite with a depot (train order station) and spur for an elevator. Both the start and end of the helix will also feature parts of towns.
Ray Breyer
Modeling the NKP's Peoria Division, circa 1943
DigitalGriffin wrote:You could get really creative. Imagine doing elevated trains on a hill on one level and circling around on a slightly larger lower loop the next. Now you have 8" between solid levels.
You could get really creative. Imagine doing elevated trains on a hill on one level and circling around on a slightly larger lower loop the next. Now you have 8" between solid levels.
There are two non-helix possibilities which have been touched on in this thread, but without the terminology...
1st, there's the "nolix" which is not using a helix at all. This assumes you have a large enough layout for the mainline(s) to make that 1%-2% grade, perhaps with dogbones at the layout ends, to double back on itself without a vertical helix.
2nd, there's the time-honored "spiral" that goes back to the days before the vertical helix became a popular option. This also assumes you have a larger layout area for the spirals to spread out & gain some elevation, but not requiring anything near the layout real-estate of a nolix.
An example of today's underused "spiral" technique...
...is in Carsten's 1989 "Track Design" special issue taken from their "Layout Doctor" compilations of 25-40 years ago in Railroad Model Craftsman like "Spiral Reverse Loops" on pages 53-54 where the spiral is actually inside the reverse loop. The two other classic spirals discussed in this article are outside spirals and inside spirals.
http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=BOOK&MO=3&YR=1989&output=5
So, if you know to look for spirals to gain elevation in a track plan...
...you'll see the subtle use of lengthened-spirals by authors like John Armstrong
http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=BOOK&MO=5&YR=1983&output=5
...and the spirals in Kalmbach's 1981 "Track Planning Ideas" (58 plans...) by Bob Hayden.
There's the "Greenbriar Central Railway" on page 18, a compact L-shaped point-to-point staging & switching layout, with a spiral in the only corner intersecting the two layout legs incorporating tunnels & track overpasses within the spiral's scenery.
http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=BOOK&MO=1&YR=1981&output=5
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
I designed one in a mountain that popped out at various levels as it wound up to Hogwart's Castle. The plan died when the kids quit coming to the basement.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
There is a really interesting PROTOTYPE helix, on the Alishan Forestry Railway in Taiwan.
The train approaches the base of a spur in the mountain through a canyon, makes a sharp right turn and enters a long tunnel with a sharp right turn just before it reaches daylight. It then proceeds around the outside of the mountain (with a few short bridges and tunnels for emphasis,) crossing above the first tunnel before once again penetrating the ridge.
On around for a second full 360 (which, with twists and turns, is more like 720) The third time, the track tunnels halfway back to the nose of the ridge, then figure-eights over that tunnel and makes a station stop before continuing onward. From the first portal to the station is only a few hundred meters as the buzzard flies, and about 25 times as far by rail.
Did I mention that the whole business is climbing a continuous 4% grade? Or that the track is 30 inch gauge?
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
So what do you think of the following idea:
Why not line the inside curve of the helix with a scenery backdrop? You imagine a train leaving a city and ariving in the country as it went up and down a hill.
I know 3"->4" between levels isn't much, but done properly you could line it with short trees, bushes, a fence, or maybe some street lights. The side benefit is because the inside is lined, it acts as a natural barrier from trains falling into the inside of the helix.
Maybe you could do a bridge viaduct and run one train beneath the other
Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions
Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!