Where There Is A Will, There Is A Way.

[BATMAN]

,

[snjroy]

Hmmm... designing an HO scale layout for kids... that kids can't reach. I wonder what happened after the cameraman left the room?

Simon

[SeeYou190]

snjroy

Hmmm... designing an HO scale layout for kids... that kids can't reach

Can't see it, can't reach it, can't operate it. It just makes noise.

Oh what fun.

-Kevin

[Overmod]

I'll differ -- it's damn cool.  And what a great study and workshop arrangement as he grows older.

I am now kicking myself because I had a similar bed-over-desks arrangement in college.  Admittedly in retrospect I did not have the headroom to hang it as they did, because I used a full boxspring in frame (its bottom was opened and indirect lighting to below installed, and even then I had to duck... but man, it's a running model railroad!

Many of the techniques recently discussed in railroad storage by lifting above parking in a garage might be highly relevant to this setup...

[BATMAN]

I was thinking that it would not have taken much to have been able to move it up and down with even a small boat trailer rachet.

[hornblower]

I tried an around the ceiling layout in my son's bedroom years ago. While it operated well, it was just too difficult to see and we both lost interest in it rather quickly.

[dknelson]

I sense a cruel deception going on here - "now Jimmy the way to reach your trains is to eat ALL of those good vegetables because they will make you nice and tall."   

Dave Nelson

[SeeYou190]

dknelson

eat ALL of those good vegetables because they will make you nice and tall."   

Being tall is seriously overrated, has few advantages, and tons of disadvantages.

I should have eaten less vegetables.

Being tall and married to a woman who is only 5'3" is another set of problems.

-Kevin

[riogrande5761]

I didn't see a "way" in that video.  Is there a part 2?

[tin can]

So very true.  I tell people I am tall because I ate my vegtables.  I am sure genetics played a role, as my dad is 6' 5" and my mom is 6'.  I am now 6'7" tall (was 6'8").  About the only really neat thing I can think about my height was that I could dunk a basketball.  As Kevin said, there are lots of disadvantages.    

My wife is only a foot shorter than me.  Both of my kids are tall.  We stand out in a crowd. 

I am jumping into this thread because a work colleague asked if I knew of a way to suspend a layout in a garage.  He is wanting to resurrect his uncles Lionel trains by building a table that can go up and down in his garage.

[MisterBeasley]

I have a tall friend that told me being tall is great until you get on an airplane.

[Overmod]

tin can

I am jumping into this thread because a work colleague asked if I knew of a way to suspend a layout in a garage.  He is wanting to resurrect his uncles Lionel trains by building a table that can go up and down in his garage.

We had a whole long detailed thread on how to do precisely this, no more than a few weeks ago.  In fact some of it was referenced a few posts earlier in saying how easy it might be.  (Since 'community search' now works again you can probably find it by the time I convert the thread reference to be clickable!)

[snjroy]

Type this in your Google:     site:http://cs.trains.com/mrr suspended

Simon

 

[Overmod]

Lastspikemike

This is the next video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?ebc=ANyPxKqyEE79yjKYSWz9ltMJc9t5MiWt-Ko3EjVR8FAKHoFBV9JPzNXFVEVs-vSHGOo-Bmh_unjEN7Tx_jG3pEQEJNW2deTV9w&feature=emb_rel_end&v=oHEulOcU7jY Explains why the FM opposed piston engine just used a roots blower whereas the very clever EMD diesel could use a centrifugal supercharger, exhaust valves.

Actually it does no such thing.  It does, however, neatly explain to you why a Roots blower is a perfectly good supercharger.  I guess you are actually learning something...

Incidentally most EMD engines through D block use Roots instead of centrifugal, just as did most of the -71 series motors; the presence of exhaust valves in a 567 is functionally little different from opening the upper scavenge port on a FM, except that it is somewhat more difficult to adjust either timing or duration.  OP engines with centrifugal supercharging happily make over 8400hp and are, in fact, useful in locomotives when the rights holders license them to do so...

Not sure what that has to do with raising and lowering a kid's layout, but I'm sure you do.

I'd think four exposed screw drives would be hard to synchronize, susceptible to accident, and possibly messy to keep lubricated, as well as being a pinch hazard or worse to the child.  Perhaps a better use of screw drive is laterally, perhaps with tackle to decrease the effective stroke length, to four drop cables at the quarter points (and perhaps fold-down stabilizing legs or self-aligning pins and sockets when it is down)  Some of the track-drive garage-door openers might be adapted for this service.

I keep thinking that it would be better, though, to have the layout permanently slightly overcounterbalanced, like a dumbwaiter, and have only minimal force for motor or hand crank or whatever to overcome.  Counterweights might run inside the columns/posts with the equivalent of sash weights or large clock weight shells...

[selector]

Overmod

 

 ...

I keep thinking that it would be better, though, to have the layout permanently slightly overcounterbalanced, like a dumbwaiter, and have only minimal force for motor or hand crank or whatever to overcome.  Counterweights might run inside the columns/posts with the equivalent of sash weights or large clock weight shells...

 

This is my approach.  Not strictly on topic, but I have a swing up, a pretty hefty and cantilevered one that takes a pony or three to hoist it to where I can lock in some swing-up supports and walk in or out easily.  By placing a couple of counterweights on pulleys, it's a much easier job.  Don't elevators and Bascule bridges use the same concept?

[doctorwayne]

BATMAN

"Where There Is A Will, There Is A Way.".

Well, if the kid "will" get a ladder, he'll have a "way" to see the dang thing.

Otherwise, most kids would simply hop up onto the desk...what fun is it if you can't even touch it?

My kids and grandkids were all permitted to touch some things on the layout, but also learned about those things which shouldn't be touched.  

The older ones aren't interested in model trains, but the younger ones still enjoy it.

Wayne

[tin can]

Thanks.  When I ran the search, this thread was the first result.  I have some ideas for him; trying to get him to join.

[Track fiddler]

I don't know if anyone noticed but there was a ladder on his bed to the left that he could have climbed and peeked through the rungs occasionally but I didn't see him do it, ...Yet

It could be a psychological subconscious thing that could be quite beneficial to anyone that sells model railroad stuff.  They could all pull together and start a non-profitable fundraiser going for one of these installed in every kids bedroom. 

Lo and behold with enough time and conditioning the kid might not even know why he's so interested in trains later on and get into the hobby instead of punching keypad buttons with their fingers all the time.  Just have the thing run full time with a light sensor so a distant train whistle sounds every night as he sleeps.

 

I had a carpentry instructor that once said you cannot gain knowledge just by being around tools and expect to know how to use them from it just soaking in.  Contraire, ...I pay to differ!  Every time I go into Menards or Home Depot and I'm around tools, I see them, they soak in and I understand how to use the ones I haven't used yet just by looking at them and being around them.  My tool collection is getting bigger and bigger.

 

So I think this train in the bedroom saturation could possibly work.

 

 

TF

[Canalligators]

Being 6-3 tall has more advantages than disadvantages.  But being 6-7 tall probably means you have trouble buying clothes, don’t fit in many cars or beds, etc.  BTW, I get around not fitting in airplanes by taking Amtrak.