Currently building an HO layout with mountains, I have been thinking of a way to install some type of tunnel tube that's simple and cost effective to install, "instead of the normal 'it's concealed' by the scenery" deal. I am thinking 4" corrugated pipe slit down the side and cut to length as needed. Being slit, take one side and attach to the subroadbed and allow the natural springyness of the pipe to clamp it to the other side of the subbed. It allows easy access "if carefully done" and will give the "more real" effect of being in a tunnel as far as sound engines and not to mention it would fix the 'see thru' look you normally get with traditional scenery method looking into a tunnel.
Just thinkin!!
RF&PRR
Depends on the length of your tunnel and how long and skinny your arms are if there's a derailment in the tunnel. Might want to rethink your idea a little more.I made mine out of 1 inch insulation board with hidden liftoffs just in case, once painted and carved it will resemble the real thing. Jim.
Neat idea for those tunnel => portal ends!
Black flexible/corrugated plastic drainage pipe comes in a 4" diameter. You wouldn't need to enhance that much of the (darkish/black) tunnel entrance -- Note the prototype Gallitzin Tunnels (portals) between Altoona and Johnstown.
My grandmother used to say: "What will they think of next?"
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
Ok, it's narrow gauge. Bu I've got the idea from the prototype:
and the module with two portals:
Plaster of Paris and Northeastern stripwood. Foam for the base and wood.
Wolfgang
Pueblo & Salt Lake RR
Come to us http://www.westportterminal.de my videos my blog
I find no need to carry any tunnel liner any further than about 10-12" beyond the portal. This can vary depending on the actual tunnel position and length. Some sort of access to tunnels longer than 30" is a must. This can be from under or behind scenery/ benchwork or a removable section.
This older pic showing portal/ partial finshed concrete liner. Since tunnel is almost 12' long access from under open grid was a must. Now completed, and w/ the viewing angle that 12" of liner is all that was nec. Note the 1/8" Lexan guard rails Outer ones are only temp. Rock cut is partially weathered Cripplebush Rubber rocks
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
As a subway modeler with an extensive network of tunnels, I'd have to agree that access is very important. If there's a spot in your tunnel that you can't reach, that's where the trains will derail and your engines will stall. Also remember that even perfect trackwork needs to be cleaned now and then.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
gondola1988 Depends on the length of your tunnel and how long and skinny your arms are if there's a derailment in the tunnel. Might want to rethink your idea a little more.I made mine out of 1 inch insulation board with hidden liftoffs just in case, once painted and carved it will resemble the real thing. Jim.
Heh... He said "if"... I believe the word you were reaching for is "WHEN"
I wouldn't enclose the full length of any tunnel more than 6 or 8" long. You're just asking for trouble.
As for sound projection, the corrugations in the black pipe would create a baffling effect, so it wouldn't work all that well for that either.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
I made mine out of of several layers of tin foil. It is now glued in place to some portals made out of foam. I used Dap to hide the transition point between the foam and tin foil. So far so good. I am hoping that once I carve the portals to look like rock, it will turn out well.
Peering through it it looks very real and if I ever get a on board camera, the trip through should look good. So for that reason I must have a lining the entire length. It's hard to keep up with Mr. B in that department.
Using tin foil it is easy to make it any length. As far as access, I just need a fist size whole from underneath through the foam along the tunnel.
Sorry for the fuzzy pic. It's the only one I took. I also painted the ceiling a soot colour and used a wash to grime it up a bit.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
So far, just about everyone says "don't do it", including me. If it was such a good idea, the model magazines would be all over it, and they are not. I think you should take the advice of the experience on this forum and not use flex pipe for a tunnel.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
Years ago, our HO modular club first took EXTRA care when laying track where a tunnel was to be located. Then, we used either 4 or 6" PVC DWV pipe for our straight tunnel AND installed pair of rerailers about 8" inside each tunnel end. In this way, derailed cars would rerail themselves automatically. We never had a problem with this setup. One of the Cardinal Rules we learned in our old HO club: Try anything at least once, as many members had lots of good ideas. One will never KNOW for sure if an idea is truly worthwhile, if it is never even attempted! My 2 cents. TTFN. ........Old Tom aks papasmurf in NH
Tunnel portals needn't be handsome, particularly when a tunnel is partially "daylighted."
(Gee, there is light at the end of the tunnel!)
Yes, those Gallitzen Tunnels are awesome on straight track, but I barrowed a friend's to examine how to place it on my tunnels, which are various sizes and hights coming in and out of a figure eight 0-27 track in my layout. I only had one problem, that I couldn't resolve with a barrowed one. I couldn't split it in the middle and enlarge it, to keep my train from slaming the side of it where the track curves sharply out of the tunnels. But that's the only time I ever seen those type not work. It wasn't nobody's problem but my own "lack of skills" and such. I had stubbornly placed the figure eight into the center of my oval fast trak anyway, just to run two trains at once. I will have to scratch build my tunel entrances and exits to make them large enouph to get a turning train through them. My layout is stil a work in progress, and a very long way from being finished, but you are welcome to see the problems I that I was faced with on that same subject by seeing my pics and vids so far on my shutterfly here: http://magnum2230b.shutterfly.com/pictures
At the risk of beating a dead horse....
I had a great idea for a tunnel once (when first getting back in to the hobby 10+ years ago). I was making a tunnel liner out of foam sheets. I also decided that, to save space I would make an 18" curve in the tunnel. Hear this train coming yet?
My longer locos and rolling stock, with their overhang on the curve, would hit the side, derail, and wedge themselves in the tunnel. Fortunately, the back of the mountain was open, but I still had to cut the liner open in several places to remove stuck equipment. And I got very tired of dragging my layout away from the wall to get at it.
I will never, ever, ever have limited access to a tunnel again.
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
As a firm believer in Murphy's Law, I would never lay any track anywhere that I cannot easily reach.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Well I can reach mine kind of well, exept for one other tiney oversite... When I poured my envirotex instant lake-bed, I had not ever suspected that my lake had a small leak in it somewhere. I now have a "stuck-on very good" mountain to my layout, which before could just be lifted out for construction and repairs,etc. Also one of my Polar Express coaches has a nice glossy sheen of what could be described as a small patch of thick ice on it now, which my guess is,"won't ever come off" but that was my fault too. I parked both trains inside the tunnel, so I wouldn't spill anything on them during this process. The good news is, that coach car saved my track from the same ill fate. So a lesson well learned on that one. I do understand exactly what you were saying about being able to reach it, and that was the plan behind a "lift off mountain" that was easy to get to. I just goofed the idea up with a small leak. "I guess that's why people in the real world use liners in their ponds" but I tought the paper mache' and the primer and paint sealed it up good, and just didn't see that one coming. Anyway, I learned a good valuable lesson that time.
This sounds like the ABS foundation drainage pipe I've seen at HD! Will definitely keep this Tip in mind when my new HO switching layout finally gets started, as there WILL be at least one tunnel. THANKS! .....papasmurf