Originally posted by Trainnut1250 Guys, One thing to keep in mind is the difference between a fiddle yard and a (strictly speaking) staging yard. Staging only parks trains. Fiddle yards allow for the 0-5-0 arrangement of rolling stock. Fiddle yards will need quite a bit more vertical clearance to operate sucessfully. True, but you will need 0-5-0 access to staging also. Murphy will bite you if you don't. Larry http://www.youtube.com/user/ClinchValleySD40 http://www.flickr.com/photos/52481330@N05/ http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/cat/500/page/1/ppuser/8745/sl/c Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, December 22, 2005 7:52 AM Thanks everyone for your advice. I will need to rework my new track plans to allow for 12 inch clearence on the lower level. I will keep the tracks near the front to ease visibility, tinkering and maintainence. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, December 22, 2005 2:05 AM Guys, One thing to keep in mind is the difference between a fiddle yard and a (strictly speaking) staging yard. Staging only parks trains. Fiddle yards allow for the 0-5-0 arrangement of rolling stock. Fiddle yards will need quite a bit more vertical clearance to operate sucessfully. I have a large yard on the top that is accessable for building trains and switching out locos etc. My staging is designed only to park trains...Not to re-arrange rolling stock. This means (provided I can run pretty derailment free) that I don't need the vertical reach across space in the staging areas. If there is a derailment I can always move stuff out of the way. Having said all that I would have liked more clearance than 7". My advice is to make as much space as you can. When designing the layout it is important that you have a space that is pretty good sized just to put trains on and take stuff off. If this is going to be in a staging area it changes the design of the area quite a bit. . Reply Edit lesterperry Member sinceFebruary 2001 From: US 269 posts Posted by lesterperry on Wednesday, December 21, 2005 11:13 PM I have 2 hidden yards under my layout. If I could do it different I would. They are 3 tracks each and no helix. It takes about 45 feet to get down to each of them. I have about 8 inches of clearance and to me that is not enough. If I need to remove power and have to reach across another train it is a pain. My yards are side by side so it is actually 6 track deep. Also they are not through yards the loco & cabboose must be removed and swapped ends to return to layout. Just wanted to point out some possible problems to avoid in design Lester Perry Check out my layout at http://lesterperry.webs.com/ Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, December 21, 2005 2:47 PM QUOTE: Originally posted by stuinstra Guy. The Helix you built is very interesting. It's had to tell from the pictures, but I'm guessing its about 32 to 36 inches in diameter with 2.5 inches height between deck loops. Made of 1/2 inch thick plywood. Does that sound about right? The diameter is 65", radii are 30" and 32.5" Distance between railheads is 3.75" per loop. Sub-roadbed is 1/2" plywood. There are actually two helixs in one. One climbs up from staging to the lower level and then a second is a double tracked helix climbing up to the upper deck. You can see this in the photo by looking for the gap in layers. That is the start of the second helix. In the double tracked portion, The second track is for staging. Both the lower and upper helix have tracks running around them, one for staging escape on the bottom level and the other is for lower level loop and a reversing loop. There is over 300' of track in the helix and hidden staging on this layout.....I built the layout to operate and with the idea in mind that I will continue to acquire rolling stock . Rule of thumb: @18 40' cars for every 10 feet of track. If one builds 10 cars a year for twenty years one ends up with around at least 100 feet of storage needed. Reply Edit ClinchValleySD40 Member sinceJune 2001 From: Holly, MI 1,269 posts Posted by ClinchValleySD40 on Wednesday, December 21, 2005 1:44 PM I think 6 inches is way too small. Speaking from experience, my previous layout I had 8 inches which I thought was good enough to reach in to rerail something. Wrong. Makes it very difficult to do any kind of work in the area (and you'll have to) other than just a simple truck off the track. I made sure my new layout has 12 inches and it is much better. There are two levels of this staging (12 and 24 inches below the yards) and although it works, I'd prefer to do it a different way if I could. I use a helix for each of the two staging levels to get up to the yards, grade is about 2.5 percent which is okay. Larry http://www.youtube.com/user/ClinchValleySD40 http://www.flickr.com/photos/52481330@N05/ http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/cat/500/page/1/ppuser/8745/sl/c Reply selector Member sinceFebruary 2005 From: Vancouver Island, BC 23,326 posts Posted by selector on Wednesday, December 21, 2005 11:50 AM QUOTE: Originally posted by phatpony If it's only 2.5" a train will never fit. Min clearance is like 3.5 ". You almost need a full 4" between levels to have room for track and road base. Add another 2" at least for your hands. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, December 21, 2005 8:58 AM If it's only 2.5" a train will never fit. Min clearance is like 3.5 ". You almost need a full 4" between levels to have room for track and road base. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, December 21, 2005 8:42 AM Guy. The Helix you built is very interesting. It's had to tell from the pictures, but I'm guessing its about 32 to 36 inches in diameter with 2.5 inches height between deck loops. Made of 1/2 inch thick plywood. Does that sound about right? Reply Edit Tim_Seawel Member sinceDecember 2004 From: North Bend Wa 71 posts Posted by Tim_Seawel on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 10:45 PM I have a G shaped HO layout with hidden staging directly beneath the visible portion. I t has 5 staging tracks that are each 14 cars plus 2 engines long. The staging tracks lead to a 16ft long reverse loop so all trains can return to staging headed out the proper way . From railhead to railhead is 8.5 inches so there is 4.5 inches of open space below the upper becnhwork. I would liked to have had more room vertically but didn't want to build a helix to get between the 2 levels as it is I have grade of 3.9% to climb to get out of the staging area. It does take 2 four alxe gp's or one sd 45 to pull the 14 cars up this climb. Merry Christmas Tim View my railroad Reply dacort Member sinceAugust 2002 From: Newark, CA 235 posts Posted by dacort on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 5:37 PM My HO layout has a 4 track staging yard underneath, with about 5" minimum clearance in most spots. More would be better but the grade would have been too steep. As it is, I have a short stretch that exceeds 4%. It hasn't been too much of a problem, though I really do need more than one locomotive on most trains. My yard is single ended and the ends of the track run up to one edge of the layout and are visible. My detection system is to bend down and look. I would definitely recommend building this kind of thing first, even though I did just the opposite as I was reusing parts of a previous layout that had to go over the yard. - Dan Cortopassi Rail Videos: http://www.tsgmultimedia.com Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 4:19 PM I haven't actually built my layout yet, but I did design in under layout staging. I will drop down 12" using a 30" 3 turn helix. I opted for more drop to get my large hands in without knocking everything around. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 3:32 PM I have a lower level staging yard and it is 7" below the next deck. I wanted more seperation but didn't want to have to climb/descend anymore than 7". Staging is acessed from a helix at one end: two + turns at 2.% and from a very long hidden climb at the other end, once again around 2%. It takes about 30 feet to climb 7" at 2%. I don't recommend steeper grades (experience with 5% grades on a previous layout has confirmed this opinion). I used rerailers after turnouts and I kept most of the yard throat along the aisle edge of my yard so they are able to be hand thrown. The staging works very well for me and solves a space issue. You must plan for it up front. It was the first part of the layout I built. I used code 100 track and Peco turnouts. So far operation has been flawless. To see some pictures of what I did click on the link in my signature and scroll down about halfway to pictures of the new layout. For dectection I will be installing photoelectric sensors using a circuit I found on Rob Paisley's site. Reply Edit sleeper33 Member sinceSeptember 2005 From: England 525 posts Posted by sleeper33 on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 1:24 PM why dont you put isolating sections on the ends of staging tracks ? alot cheaper tha tv cameras[2c] Gav TRYING TO DO EVERYTHING AT ONCE AND NOT GETTING ANYWERE Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 10:14 AM The ramps going betweens levels would be seperate from the staging area. The staging area itself will be level. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 10:07 AM Rerailers are a good idea, hadn't thought of that for some reason. I had thought about a web cam but I'll problably just use sensors and LED's on a schematic panel Reply Edit nedthomas Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Pennsylvania 709 posts Posted by nedthomas on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 10:06 AM 6" clearance is good. I used 5" and it is OK but 6" would be better. My layout allowed me to build it with no grade in or out of the staging yard as it is covered by upper levels of the layout. If you need grades the inbound can be steeper than the outbound. My yard is used in one direction only and I did not install switch machines on the outbound end, the engines just move the points. One other point - install the yard as part of the inital construction and not after. Don't ask how I know? I also installed a TV and it is very useful. Reply cacole Member sinceJuly 2003 From: Sierra Vista, Arizona 13,757 posts Posted by cacole on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 9:43 AM I haven't done this, but a friend of mine who lives near Tombstone is building an under-layout staging area on his layout. Be sure to leave enough vertical clearance so you can reach in. Your plan of 6 inches vertical clearance should be sufficient, depending on how many tracks and how deep a reach you're going to have. You're going to need some type of detection to know when trains are reaching the end of the tracks. My friend is using a closed circuit TV system with a low-light camera. Keep the approach track at no more than a 1% grade if possible, and put rerailers into it. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Under layout staging in HO Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 8:46 AM I'm starting a new layout and considering putting staging below the main layout. I would like to ask those who already do this the following: 1) How much height difference do you use from your main level to the lower staging level? 2) How much running length (in feet) are you using for the transition between the two levels?. 3) Do you like having the staging under the layout? 4) Approx. how much of a grade do you think is acceptable for this transition? I would think you would want at least 6 inches of clearence on the staging for handling cars and other problems. Any other recommendations would be welcome (previous mistakes, lessions learned, if I was doing it over again [:)] Reply Edit Subscriber & Member Login Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more! Login Register Users Online Falcon48 see all » Search the Community ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Model Railroader Newsletter See all Sign up for our FREE e-newsletter and get model railroad news in your inbox! Sign up
Larry
http://www.youtube.com/user/ClinchValleySD40
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52481330@N05/
http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/cat/500/page/1/ppuser/8745/sl/c
QUOTE: Originally posted by stuinstra Guy. The Helix you built is very interesting. It's had to tell from the pictures, but I'm guessing its about 32 to 36 inches in diameter with 2.5 inches height between deck loops. Made of 1/2 inch thick plywood. Does that sound about right?
QUOTE: Originally posted by phatpony If it's only 2.5" a train will never fit. Min clearance is like 3.5 ". You almost need a full 4" between levels to have room for track and road base.