Multiple Levels

[Anonymous]

Greetings everyone from the Pacific NW [:)] For those of you who have multi-level layouts, large or small, does the upper level continue your main layout theme, or did you use the change of height as a change of location? If so how did you use any particular method to model the change? I may have the chance to use a two-level layout and have wondered about this. It's difficult to see this in the layout descriptions in MR, but if you have any ideas to share, I'd appreciate it. The proposed 'real estate deal' my wife and I are working on is a room that is 12X16, formerly occupied by a child that left us to get married. Imagine that! (Someone earlier noted that children leaving home have some real benefits for the RR [:D][:D] ) If the deal can be nailed down construction can begin soon! Thanks for the posts

Dane,
UP Yellowstone Branch

[Anonymous]

I am building a two level layout and am kind of changing themes on the second deck. The first deck is central vally CA and the second level is the Sierras. First level has a town and HWY99 scene as well as a yard, upper level has scenes cherry picked from the Sierra, YV and Hetch Hetchy RRs. Bottom level has big steam (cab forwards and the like ) hauling reefers and class 1 rolling stock. Top level has older "junk", shays. small 2-6-0s, beat up cars, log bunks, and other older rolling stock still running on arch bar trucks climbing steep grades through the mountains.

Operations include through trains on the bottom (to and from staging) and trains being made up in the yard on the lower level to go up to the hills. The levels are connected by a helix.

Seems to me that in your space, the question is how are you going to get from level to level? A helix takes up roughly a 5.5' X 5.5' square (you can cheat this, but not a whole bunch). This will take up quite a chunk in your space. Other ideas such as the around the room (nolix) will require pretty steep grades to get suffiiceint elevation to get to another deck. 2% is the maximum most modelers use in grades . This translates to a 2" rise per 100" of travel or roughly 1 inch per 4 feet of track. You can see the problem when you consider that it will take almost 50 ft of track to climb one foot.. That is one lap around your room at a constant 2%. Many double deck designs have more than one foot separating decks (mine are 20" apart).

If it were me, I would grab the space quickly before other ideas are hatched. Move some train stuff in there and give the appearance of utilizing the space while you hatch a plan. The John Armstrong book on track planning is a good place to start. Sketch out a scale drawing of your room, buy one of those track planning templates and start drawing plans. Perhaps visit some double deck layouts in the area and steal ideas, I did.

My two cents,

Guy

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the post, Speed is certainly of the essence. I have the book you mentioned and it has been very helpful. I was figuring more of a 48"-50" space need for a helix, so your figures give a new perspective.

[orsonroy]

My layout is a three level, all of which have the same general location, that of the NKP's mainline between Peoria and Bloomington, IL. It's a point to point design, so it's basically a 250 foot long layout that I spiraled up to fit into my 12x25 basement layout room.

Guy, it really doesn't sound like you'll have enough space to build a multilevel layout. Helixes eal a LOT of space to no darned good purpose, but building a corkscrew layout like mine means that you need a minimum amount of linear space to make one lap around the wall, while still getting a reasonable amount of distance between decks. My 12x25 space (roughly 74 linear feet per level) is BARELY enough to give me 8"-10" of vertical clearance between the start of each level, which is barely enough space to HAVE a multideck (it widens to 16" in a few places). Unless you're building a logging/mining railroad, I'd go with a twice around mainline on a single deck.

[jfugate]

I did a multi-level logging branch design in N scale for the 1998 issue of Model Railroad Planning. It uses the mushroom configuration, which is also what I use on my own large basement layout. The mushroom design is a way to get a multidecked layout that does not look multidecked because you only see one deck at a time.

The trick is the two decks face opposite directions and you view the upper deck from a raised floor. At 12 feet wide, you have just enough room to do a mushroom design.

Here's the magazine index entry for my article:

http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=MRP&MO=1&YR=1998&output=3&sort=A

[Anonymous]

Ray and Joe, Thanks for taking time to explain. I have some good info now to go on, and thanks for the links. I could solve this if someone else would move out and free up more space!!! That will gratefully be awhile,

Dane

[AggroJones]

My layout would be double decked if I didn't have to live in that room. 11' x 11' is large enough for decking I don't need a helix or any kind of connection. It would be like 2 independent layouts stacked in the same horizontal space. One CA Sierra, one Cheyanne WY. My layout ground level is 46". Trouble is, the second deck would be too high to be practical. I'd need a friggin' stool to see above track level of the upper deck. And the lower can't get any lower cause everything in the room sits under the layout. Its pretty packed.

12 x 16 is plently enough for 2 sweet individual stacked layouts with no connecting helix.

[Big_Boy_4005]

Continued on the upper deck!!! The combination of the two decks allows for a decent main line length. In my case, I'll be representing about 50 miles worth.