How about a 4x8 Vertical layout ! ! I'm thinking instead of laying the 4x8 sheet horizontal, find the ideal angle of repose and slant the sheet at a reasonable angle on a frame and construct a series of switchbacks for logging or mining. Any suggestions as to what would be a functional and not too steep angle for a operational layout, must keep in mind the grade @2% and also the power of a locomotive, I would think a lot of turnouts(switches) would be involved plus a fair amount of track behind the switch to acccomodate a few cars. Again I think the ANGLE is the critical factor to it's success.
I have not seens any photos or diagrams of such a layout (only about 2 or 3 switchbacks) on a horizontal layout. Has anyone out there done such an operation and how difficult would a project like this be? Logging/mining seems to be a second cousin to the majority of layouts on this forum.
Any suggestions will be appreciated and would like to hear from the logging/ mining group as to this possible project.
Have I got a prototype for you!
Not too far inland from the North Coast of Japan, there is a tramway (600mm gauge, if my memory serves) that climbs a slope that appears to be about 30 degrees from the horizontal on a preposterous series of switchbacks. The slope is very nearly a plane, rocky and devoid of most vegetation. The usual train is a four-wheel `critter' and a half-dozen four wheel cars, either dump cars or open-top wood boxes on wheels. Recently I saw an ad for an HOn30 train that would be perfect for the job.
That's the good news. The flip side is, while it would be an interesting construction job (especially the scenery) operating it would be a mind-numbing bore!
The actual grade is more like 4%, but it would still only gain about 18 scale feet between stops. At two percent, half that.
I once considered building something like that as an adjunct to my smaller colliery. My reasons for rejecting the idea should be obvious.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Why slant a monolithic sheet? That will just create a lot of odd slopes across the track.
Cookie-cutter is what you want. Basic Model Railroad Benchwork: The Complete Photo Guide
Edit: The new version is Basic Model Railroad Benchwork, 2nd Edition
tatansI have not seens any photos or diagrams of such a layout (only about 2 or 3 switchbacks) on a horizontal layout.
This layout was mainly for display, but does provide some indication of what's possible in an 8 foot length. It's unusual in that the logging area is slightly below the interchange, but that was not unheard-of.
There are a few such multi-switchback layouts in 101 Track Plans, although most would require more length than suggested to actually fit.
Don't fear the saw.
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
I've gotta go with what cuyama recommended, cookie cutter is the way to go here. Much more flexible and far easier to work with the scenery, and actually, the scenery will look far more representative of a prototype with the cookie cutter method.
Just my thoughts,
Wayne
Modeling HO Freelance Logging Railroad.
Well, my thought is putting your 4x8 benchwork on an incline is opening yourself up to a lot of problems. You would be significantly better off in using the cookie cutter method or building the "mountains" on the solid level plywood.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Forgive my ignorance, what is 'cookie cutter' ?
cuyama Cookie-cutter is what you want. Basic Model Railroad Benchwork: The Complete Photo Guide
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
Take a sheet of paper and cut it with straight cuts, first one from the left, then one from the right, and then from the left, and then from the right. Make the cuts go about 2/3rd of the way across.
Now lift up one end, and see what you have made. Each switchback gains altitude, but all roadbeds are flat.
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
jeffrey-wimberly cuyama: Cookie-cutter is what you want. Basic Model Railroad Benchwork: The Complete Photo Guide Good link but the prices I see are insane! For a paperback? The dealers should be slapped.
cuyama: Cookie-cutter is what you want. Basic Model Railroad Benchwork: The Complete Photo Guide
Good link but the prices I see are insane! For a paperback? The dealers should be slapped.
oops, I didn't realize that the book was out of print and that the vampires have filled the breach. It must have just gone out of print.
I imagine this is something that Kalmbach will reprint soon or publish a new similar book on benchwork.
By the way, there are few pages of the book included on the amazon.com page under the link "Search inside this book", including a couple of photos that show cookie-cutter benchwork.
One can also search Google images for "cookie cutter benchwork"
There are many better ways to build benchwork than just a flat table.
Ahh, OK I seen a lot of that, I just didn't know the formal or nick name of it. Thanks!
I guess if I were asked to do something like that, I may think of using a framework like a wall frame & build L-Girder off that. One, the sheet is heavy & still needs a frame to support the angle it would be set at (like a roof truss set at 90 degrees upright). And second, the frame would eliminate many angle calculations & angle cutting tasks.
Here is ANOTHER KIND of "vertical" layout...
Just goes up and up and up... designed for 5x6 feet N scale.
Lowest level staging...
Based loosely on Denver Northwestern and Pacific over top of the Rockies before Moffat Tunnel was completed.
Track was 4% grade but scenery was VERTICAL.
By use of a jig-saw one can cut the plywood into almost any shape (hence: cookie cutter) and then just lift it up and support it by a vertical piece of wood and presto, there is your raised subroadbed. Then on the raised piece of plywood (sub-roadbed) one can add cork roadbed, then the track. It makes adding bridges, rivers, and sides of hills very easy and quite realistic.
Draw your trackplan on the plywood, drill some holes for the blade of a jigsaw, and then start cutting out the shape of the track location. Pretty easy and makes for a nice looking layout.
It's nonsense listings like that that keep me from treating Amazon as anything more than a vendor of last resort. Pretty much any specialty category is littered with those silly listings that make it not worth my time to search there.
-Fritz Milhaupt, Publications Editor, Pere Marquette Historical Society, Inc.http://www.pmhistsoc.org
One can "Google" Cookie cutter model railroad under images and see some examples of how this method looks under construction. I'm not sure one needs to purchase a book or magazine as it is pretty straightforward construction.
You could create dramatic height differences on a logging or mining railroad by using an incline. The basic concept is a steep grade about 10%, where one or a few cars are brought up or down coupled to a pulley car connected by cable to a winch house at the top. Locos at the top and bottom handled the cars at their respective ends. MR did an article on a logging incline back in the early-mid 60's including different designs for the pulley car.
Some larger inclines were used by early railroads to get over mountains. Some of these had double tracks so descending cars could act as counter weights for ascending cars. Reference points for these would be Honesdale Gravity Railroad D&H and Gordon Plane, Reading RR.
Jim
Just to bring this thing full circle, that, `Switchback to end all switchbacks,' that I described in my first post actually replaced an incline. The reasoning was that the incline required an operator. Since it was located out in the middle of nowhere that meant carrying extra crew - and whoever was going to operate the winch for an uphill move had to climb a staircase about a thousand feet high (Puff! Puff! Puff!) in order to open the shed and get to the controls - after starting the generator (no power line out there, either.) After a couple of years, the operators decided that two dozen switches (spring switches favoring the uphill route) were less hassle than one diesel-electric hoist.
The incline in Japan actually carried the train (3 cars at a time, IIRC) on a separate platform, with the cars parallel to the contour lines of the hill. By way of contrast, the single-bulkhead log cars on the Yosemite Valley were lowered on their own wheels, bulkhead end down.
As far as chasing out-of-print books, I have a working relationship with a very good used-book purveyor who has obtained even obscure titles for a lot less than Amazon wants. I'm pretty sure that any large settlement should have some similar business.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
hi,
for a more reasonable price an other book published by our host.
The front page is rather revealing if you are interested in cookie-cutter.
Paul
Helped a friend scenic a switchback portion on his then layout, from memory 4% grades, top rail approximately 4 feet above the bottom rail on a 10 foot long wall, lots of overhang on the rock faces, plaster socked rags on chicken wire netting, then a bit of hand sculpting extra plaster, was fun. He and another friend did the painting and dry brushing. Ran a Model Die Casting "A" class Climax, a couple of log cars and a bobber caboose, looked great, perhaps not every ones cup of tea, but he pushes the boundaries.
If you have the Urge and the Means then Go For It!!
Cheers, The Bear
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
fmilhaupt It's nonsense listings like that that keep me from treating Amazon as anything more than a vendor of last resort. Pretty much any specialty category is littered with those silly listings that make it not worth my time to search there.
In a way, Amazon is like the Buy It Now feature on eBay. You can find some good deals, but there are also "sellers" who set ridiculously high prices that no intelligent or informed buyer would ever pay.
Rich
Alton Junction
$900 for a new copy!??!? This is a model railroading book, not a first edition of the Guttenberg Bible!
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
Medina1128 $900 for a new copy!??!? This is a model railroading book, not a first edition of the Guttenberg Bible!
Is there a difference?
Hi,
Let me change gears on you..............
Before you make your vertical layout, there are a couple of things to think about..........
- A vertical layout typically means a whole lot of rockwork for those vertical spaces. This isn't a bad thing, but it is something that will definitely keep you stretched to accomplish the rock faces.
- With all the grades and switchbacks, you can't leave cars standing by themselves. So you are going to have to have horizontal surfaces for sidings or the like.
I brought this up cause I've been there........... My last HO layout had a lot of grades and I put in an awful lot of rockwork - which is not necessarily hard - but to make it look realistic it can be a challenge.
Also, I found on the previous and current layout that cars won't rest on anything but level track. Yup, that sounds pretty basic. However it really hit me in the face on the new layout as those cars with Intermountain wheel sets won't stand still for ANY kind of unlevel trackage.
One last thing......... having a lot of grades takes up horizontal space - space that could be used for structures and other interesting "creations of man". Neither choice is right or wrong, but I overdid the last layout and ended up with little room for structures, etc.
To return this discussion back from cookie cutting...
May I suggest a prototype for a vertical layout?
The cliffs of the Palisades on the west bank of the Hudson River had a traction line running from the river to the top of the cliffs. The line ran near the old Palisades Amusement Park just south of the George Washington Bridge. (http://www.palisadespark.com/)
Information about the streetcar line can be found at:
http://www.hobokenmuseum.org/views/Trolleys/trolleys.htm
The trolley line was double tracked, featured horseshoe curves, and had a spectacular location.
Would make a great vertical layout
Have fun,
Kevin
WOW ! ! Great responses, the cookie cutter concept is great, also the post on cutting a sheet of paper from each end from broadwaylion really is an inspiration and gives way to many variations, these concepts are really the way to go, I now see a sloped piece of plywood would not be practical or possible.
A 4x8-1/4'' piece of fibreboard ( or whatever it's called) would work well, after cutting and bracing up the switchbacks I could cover the whole sheet with metal or plastic screening, stapled and cover it with a plaster coating (POSSIBLE ? ?) how about drywall plaster.
Thanks for the inspiration and hints. the photos were super.
To touch on a ffew of Mobileman's points:
Switchbacks usually connect levels. In the case of my Japanese prototype, there is a flat space at the bottom (with a couple of sidings and a couple of buildings related to water control) and a level passing siding at the summit. Anything on the switchback grades had better have a locomotive on one end of it!
Switchback tail tracks typically have an upgrade from the points to the track bumper, to give a boost when starting uphill - you start uphill by starting downhill. There's no law that says the tail track can't have a level spur, or be level itself.
Cars can be persuaded to remain in place, even on moderate (<1%) grades. My persuader of choice is a bristle or two from a nylon-bristled brush - stiff enough to hold a car placed against it, soft enough to bend to allow clearance. The bristles should be just tall enough to engage an axle (between the rails) or a journal box (otside the rails.)
Whether you want to fill space with tracks (the `bowl' of a major yard) structures (metropolis, tank town or one lonely section house miles from anything) or landforms is something that should be decided very early on in the planning process. If you are following a specific prototype the decision is pre-made. Freelancers actually have a harder time with this. As for which way I go, check my signature...
Chuck (Modeling sparsely populated Central Japan in September, 1964)
Chuck,
Thanks for that great idea of a "persuader" using a nylon bristle. I do have an area where that will come in handy and I really appreciate hearing about this excellent idea.
Cannot claim this as MY idea but have thought out loud, with others, the possibility of a choke type cable set at right angles underneath the track and between the ties that when pushed in, the inner would protrude enough to snag an axle, remote brakeman!!
Cheers, The Bear.
If I were building a switchback, I would use Woodland Scenics foam risers and inclines. I used them on my current layout and they're much easier than cutting playwood banchwork.
Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.
www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com
GP-9_Man11786 If I were building a switchback, I would use Woodland Scenics foam risers and inclines. I used them on my current layout and they're much easier than cutting playwood banchwork.
Woodland Scenics foam risers are an adequate (notice that I did not say good) product - IF the layout base is a solid table surface. I can't think of a single advanced modeler who would build a 30<45 degree slope a meter tall starting with a level table surface at the bottom. Anyone who did so would need a cubic yard of foam riser material - to do a job that only needs a single sheet of cookie-cut plywood.
As for easier - plywood will form natural grade transitions with minimal persuasion. The WS product requires the modeler to mix, match and make up the difference with a wood rasp every time the grade changes. Neither is plug-and-play, but I'd place heavy money that the cookie cut plywood subgrade would be in place, properly supported and ready for roadbed long before the WS riser user had sorted out exactly which piece to use where and how to form those all-important transitions.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - cookie-cut plywood on steel L-girder benchwork, LOTS of vertical scenery and very little level track)
I've used both WS Risers and the cookie cutter method in building model railroads and I have to agree with Chuck here: cutting the plywood (cookie cutter style) will be far easier in this particular application.