I don't comment often, Crandell, but I'm really enjoying seeing your layout take shape.
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
Ulrich, you won't believe this, but I last had worked on the layout Friday. It was only for about three hours today that I got back into the loft. It was a weekend's 'thinking pause' for me while I figured out how to erect the new ramp. In fact, I think I may have to dismantle it and re-orient the cresecent pieces that comprise the ramp. I will run out of arc room when I complete the 360 degrees closest to the wall the way it looks now, and I know why. I changed the 'on-ramp' part where the transtion into the ramp starts at the commencement of the curve. I cheated by starting it to soon, and it meant the far end, near 360 degrees, is encroaching on the crossing and the wall beyond. Oh well...live and learn. It will only cost me an hour and a bit, but I'll have it right by the time I start to lay tracks.
Crandell
Thanks for the up date Crandell!
Ken
I hate Rust
Crandell,
either you work 24/7 on your layout, or you must have little helpers coming in at night!
Thanks, Bob. Well, I figure the bottom ramp is a go, so I commenced the installation of the ascending ramp and got this far today:
Also, I have mentioned that I have been cutting metal joiners into halves, and then each half is again halved so that I can easily fit them onto the two ends of flex track on curves where I run the sliding rail about five or six ties deep into the adjoining length of flex to avoid kinks. Here is a macro shot of one such join:
You really have gotten a lot accomplished in a short amount of time Crandell. I'm looking forward to seeing you progress.
Bob Berger, C.O.O. N-ovation & Northwestern R.R. My patio layout....SEE IT HERE
There's no place like ~/ ;)
I have been beavering away on my descending ramp, laying Code 100, filing rail ends, aligning them and their supports, soldering feeders, running 14 gauge house wire (solid core copper) because my runs were going beyond the 20' range, and I wanted top voltage. I will use 16 gauge speaker wire for sub-buses in each module. I soldered the various feeders to their sub or the bus itself when it seemed convenient, and I placed the PSX-AR from the old layout under the helix's descending spiral ramp and wired it all up.
Here is the PSX-AR. The two illuminted LED's are good news.
My strong desire today was to get a steamer up the ramp on that side of the loft to test joints and continuity, but also the general alignment, curves, and grade. I chose the BLI J Class because it doesn't like undulating track.
It ran up there just fine, and around the spiral. When I backed it, though, the tender derailed at a joint between modules, a gap really. I found the cork/rubber roadbed had lifted a bit so that one rail was high. I squeezed some goop under the roadbed, left some up the side and onto the plywood sub-roadbed as more of an anchor, weighted the rails, and have left it. I also backed out the retaining screw on the rail end on the other side of the gap, which is on the adjoining module. Tomorrow I will test again.
I am still having fun, still doing a lot of thinking. I did have an odd miss today. I was watching the J run up on her first climb and 'thud....". What the....!? Looked closer and it was jammed up against the fortunately soft spruce joist just above the headlight. Woops. I forgot to use the jig saw to cut out an arch in the joists under which the descending ramp runs on the module closest to the door. I had to take off the support for the roadbed in one case, at a join between modules natch, cut out the arch to get overhead clearance, and then try to realign the roadbed and rails again. Took some doing, but nothing to sweat about. It's all back as it was, but with clearance.
It was sweet to get power to the new layout. It means the old one is officially scrap as it is now 'cold'. I had to move the Super Empire Builder items over to the loft today to get the train to run, and I have removed the diagonal pit bridge on the old layout as well. So, slowly, a screw or other component at a time, it is being decommissioned.
I was pretty confident the DB150 base station/short circuit detector would work properly the first time I threw the toggle, and was gratified to not get that horrible beeping signifying a fault. The only fault was in my track alignment, and that was more a glue...well, a misglue, really.
Bob, it looks like a tremendous effort and result you have there. Thanks for the link. You have quite the empire! Sorry to take so long to reply. Been busy, ya know....
Someone emailed me about photos of the Santa Fe in 1989. Just go to my post and use the link following my name.
Bob Miller, mmr138
Crandall, I have been reading this with great interest but stayed out until now. I want to tell you a little about my layout, which I call the"Santa Fe in Oklahoma 1989." I actually started it in 1983 shortly after Andy S came to shoot photos and do an article in MR on my previous railroad, which was a freelance called the Mojave Western. I started tearing it out and began construction on the Santa Fe, so that enough was done to show for the NMRA national in Kansas City in 1984. That was no easy job.
My Santa Fe is three levels in a space 29ft by 33/36 ft. The top level is mostly all Oklahoma City and surrounding territory to Guthrie where it goes into a helix. The building of helix's was not the state of art it is today and a lot of trial and error went into it. The actual helix today rests under Oklahoma City Flynn yard.
the middle deck represents Enid OK which was/is a major grain elevator location on the old Enid district which ran from Guthrie to Kiowa KS. The middle deck includes the towns between Guthrie and Enid. At Enid the railroad ended for a time. But eventually I decided to add a bottom deck (which was a staging yard) and managed to include Cherokee OK, Kiowa and on into Waynoka (staging). This was not a helix but a long hidden grade that ran around the layout on a gentle grade. Waynoka is visible staging, so it is sceniced.
The design at first was a problem but we refined it. One problem was the town of Cherokee which had elevators, small yard, and was a junction with another hidden staging representing the old Santa Fe line down through OK. We learned to stage grain trains in the yard, the guy working Cherokee yard got a head start during an op session so he wouldn't be trampled later and was/is good.
I admit I didn't use a lot of the ideas in MR, but it all came out okay and the NCE DCC enhanced the system. The proof of the pudding is that in year 2012, the railroad (with a few enhancements) is still fun and still operating. And I have the layout I had always wanted.
The railroad also includes a portion of the BN (SLSF) running from staging (Cherokee yard, Tulsa) to Avard. All on the middle deck including running through Enid and then into west end staging.
Bob
Thanks. Just wondering.
"Mess with the best, die like the rest" -U.S. Marine Corp
MINRail (Minessota Rail Transportaion Corp.) - "If they got rid of the weeds what would hold the rails down?"
And yes I am 17.
I'm not a modeller per se, Gabe. I prefer to freelance. I just wanted to build a helix this time, hopefully one I can use in another layout if I decide it fits function somehow. I didn't want a folded loop, but I like the idea of the rails running around me. A helix allows me to build a large mountain with the trains popping in and out of view as they spiral up or down, out of portals and across bridges. It also allows me to have a largely flat layout for a change. My last was a hilly folded loop with a duck under and central operating pit. The grades were too ambitious, and it was single track main. This time it will be double and somewhat faster with better quality trackwork. I enjoy watching trains run, but I also enjoy some switching. This one will have a vastly improved and larger yard, faster twinned mains with a double crossover, a reversing wye where the tail doubles as the descent to the sub-layout staging butt-end yard.
I like steam locomotives from a variety of railroads, and do not wish to constrain myself to the terrain, climate, grades, engineering practices, and cultural artifacts of one railroad or one locale. So, I wing it and do it my way. Hopefully some of it will ring a bell now and then to my imagery viewers when I get around to some images of the finished layout or finished parts of it.
What exactly are you modeling?
Heck Up.
Honestly, Mark, I would have abandoned it and rethunk my whole layout after maybe two weeks. Heck no, one week. I can't be stalled, or demure, or be stymied, or question myself for more than a couple of thinking days. I just know I'd tear it all out and start over...six months later. So, with some luck, brain power, and some good materials and tools, I hope I have something that will get me to layout #4, hopefully in 6-10 years. Ideally, this would go forever, maybe incorporated in the next layout.
Oh, and I would bet good money your helix is a superior product, much more refined, a more consistent grade, etc. You could probably sell yours in a few years and make a fortune.
Daunting? Helix construction daunting?
Mine was a piece of cake! I only spent a year on it...
Agreed, Randy, for me the first problem was how to initiate the decline into the true grade, but at the same time get the turn you see at left on the solid partial sheet of plywood. I solved that by forcing the ply to dip midway using risers with tops just a bit lower than the ones closer to the top of the run. But, as you can see in the first photo just now, I cut a stress relief line at one corner of the ply so that I could also torsion the sheet to begin to cant toward the right as we view it. That cant had the effect of wanting to make the outer lip dip more, causing the same locomotive tilting problem with its boiler top leaning way outward on the curve. I had to forcefully lift that outer edge and screw large risers with four screws to the frame to get it to get back to near-level. All of this torsioning and tension sure makes for a rigid bench!
It appears to me, from the first image, that the grade might be somewhat steeper than my desired 2%. I trust my eyes, but I know now to back them up with hard numbers. So, I have measured the drop in elevation at several places along the spiral ramp, and it comes to within a tenth of 2% each time. I can live with that 'standard error' if it is consistent. I doubt it is, but even if the grade varies between 2.3% and 1.7% at times, it's no biggie. It is better than what I had on my last layout.
The initial turn with the ramp is the hard part, after that, cut up a huge supply of spacer blocks all exactly the sme size - for a continuous grade, each point of the level above is exactly the same distance above the previous level. I would place at least 3 pairs of spacer blocks per segment - one at each end overlapping the joint to the next segment, and one set int he middle to counteract the twist.
Just remember to lay the track on each one before adding the next level! Feeder drops I'd run towards the middle, and run a couple of heavy drops off your main bus to run up the 'chimney' and gather in all the feeders.
Purely speculation, since I haven't built one yet. Perhaps my next layout will need 2 levels to get in all I want, I'm just not sure how I'd feel about the change in orientation (if the train goes left to right ont he lower level, as a eastbound, then comes back right to left but it's still an eastbound...umm.. However, if the second level is viewed as looking south and the lower level is looking north - then it makes sense. In fact that may solve one of my problems now that I type out these thoughts.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Thanks for the update!
Very nice so far, yes this stage of the construction (helix) can really be daunting. I see you solved the clearance issues on that decending track. You're not in any "race", it pays to think it all through. Disregard "The Peanut Gallery" Hmm, 1 person working and 10 looking over your shoulder, Sounds familiar, we tend to call this the "bleachers" @ the club. Keep up that outstanding work, we'll be peering over your shoulder, you know!
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
Dang! That is looking wonderful Crandell. I was wondering how you were gonna build the helix. That just looks awesome.
Great work so far, keep it up man.
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
I have tried to keep it slow so that I can think a bit. RRCanuck said to me in a pm that he had wanted to tackle a helix, but that they were a bit daunting. I was much more cavalier, until I got to making the ramps and supporting them with risers and keeping it all at grade and level transversely. Now I am with him...and find it is indeed daunting. However, with fits and starts, some thoughtful pauses, I have come this far.
You can see the 2% ramp (yay, a real honest-to-goodness 2%er this time!). I figured out how to make it all go right. The half-inch ply crescents want to torsion downward at the end, but you can't let them do that. So, as you try to twist the end back to level, you cause the middle to tilt downward at the outside of the curve. Imagine a locomotive emerging from a portal along this middle portion tilted dangerously outward on the curve. Yikes!. So, trying to keep the grade constant, you use clamps to adjust the crescent's risers upwards and tilted a bit to force the plywood to be level across its axis, or across the centerline all the way up it.
Here is another view, this one more to the left showing the far tangent descending ramp that will eventually go around a left turn, over a lower level of my liftout bridge at the door to the loft, turn left again, and join a shelf comprising the staging yard under the large yard module, probably with about 10-12" of headroom. Yay, I'm gonna have real staging this time.
So, I am still laying roadbed and tracks before I cover up the modules with plywood and since I had to make supports for the descending ramp...you can see at least one. After the ramp in the helix is fully tracked, I will commence the rising spiral ramp atop it with about 4" spacing.
You can see the open box in the center of the helix? It is actually split in two so that it can be uncoupled and moved as two pieces. The central box will be a slide under and sit up access in the interior of the mountain if I need that access. Otherwise, most of the mountain top will be a lift-off, probably in two pieces...not sure how I'll do it yet.
The roadbed is a plasticized natural cork granule underlay I picked up at Home Depot. It is easily cut in strips wide enough for roadbed, I kerf it with scissors, and bend it to form curves when I must. It is about 3/32" thick, so a nice sound-deadening layer.
This build is at about half the pace of my last layout. I don't expect to be 'finished' this one until close to Christmas, but that's only because I have no real concept of how much it will take to get it looking and operating decently. I can only say I am in no hurry this time, and want very much to darned well get the most inaccessible track bullet-proof.
Oh yeah, I am having a blast. No major screwups, no major bleeds, the language isn't very salty...life is good.
Hum, you work to slow!
Just looking forward to see what you come up with. Your current layout is one of my favorites on the site. Plus I am looking forward to stealing some of your ideas!
Still work faster than me, over 2 years and my layout still isn't 'done' (or done as alayout ever gets). Staging's not connected to the layout, a passing siding is needed (turnout are there, just not connected to anything) and I still have the whole cement plant penninsula to build - benchwork and track. No choice but to do some work this weekend, but that's all mainly just getting my show equipment ready to travel, weekend after is Timonium. I'm slow.
No, Ken, I am a bit flat at the moment with other commitments on my time. I did manage to get four legs on one module yesterday, but that is as far as I could go. Friday I hope to get working on the down ramp to staging. I will have to ponder my way first...maybe as I sleep tonight.
Are you done yet?
Over 2000 views all ready! Not that we are pressuring you Crandell.
selector Bob, I don't have a biscuit joiner and don't think I will use one anyway. I will build support columns and risers, and use metal L-brackets to support the plywood subroadbed. At least, that's the plan. For me the trickiest part will be in the relative heights of the module to the south of the helix as the outer frame 1X4 will interfere with the path of the descending helix to staging. I have already made the helix legs shorter to allow an unhindered path for the descent. It means building up that much more for the rising spiral tunnel, but it's no more than one turn, not several stacked. However, the descending one must run under the southern module, and right now the 1X4 blocks the path. I will have to notch the abutting 1X4's. Crandell
Bob, I don't have a biscuit joiner and don't think I will use one anyway. I will build support columns and risers, and use metal L-brackets to support the plywood subroadbed. At least, that's the plan. For me the trickiest part will be in the relative heights of the module to the south of the helix as the outer frame 1X4 will interfere with the path of the descending helix to staging. I have already made the helix legs shorter to allow an unhindered path for the descent. It means building up that much more for the rising spiral tunnel, but it's no more than one turn, not several stacked. However, the descending one must run under the southern module, and right now the 1X4 blocks the path. I will have to notch the abutting 1X4's.
Do you already have the specs for the helix calculated (rise/ min grade to the elevation required for the no turns to enter/ exit the helix?
You may be able to "cripple" out that interfering 1x4 to gain clearance to lower staging. If your final scenery will allow, you may be able to channel the decending path into the base plywood even supporting eccessive span on the plywood top. This can only work if it can be disguised under scenery or under a building. I would have no trouble spanning the 1/2" ply up to 20-24" if it can be edge or top braced. The decending "channel" can also allow for 1x side supports to the upper "base" plywood. The decending subroadbed may need to be wider than the channel cut for those blocking supports.
Crandell, are you building your helix by blocking each section of roadbed or supporting w/ threaded rod? Of coarse the rod needs wider subroadbed as compared to 1x outboard supports. What are you using to "scab" the underside of the subroadbed sections? If vertical clearance is a real issue and a thinner ply needed for the joint I would recommend using a biscuit joiner or at least cut a lap joint for the seams. If you have sufficeint height scrap arcs of the 1/2" ply will do the job.
If you are having "fits" w/ cutting that but joint @ the TT/ house section, just double the joist at the plywood seam, This may make "decking" that module easier.
This is also the perfect time to start to get a feel for sw machine positions, especially for yard ladders, to move any interfering 1x4 joists. Having to notch or otherwise move joists or configuring offset linkage for the Tortoise latter will be tough. Esspecially doing this under such low benchwork. This became such a nusiance for all the benchwork layout for our yards at the club, that we decided to allow a double 1x4 "chase" for the yard ladders and throats. The remaining joists were just "crippled" to the angled 1xs. Has work out fantastic as all the Tortoises are within a clear chase.
This framing may be totally unneccessary in your case, we do have some extremely large yards and elaborate benchwork. May work for others though. Too bad I don't have pic of underside.
Bob, thanks, and yes I am fine. The cuts show just a bit of healing and broken skin today. I am trying to be careful.
Today I did a couple of things because I seem to be flat after the marathon that was Sunday. I used a piece of scrap 1/2" ply as a sturdy base at the bottom of the helix on which I will anchor the foot of the first arc of spiraling roadbed. I am doing this because I need to lever the curved ramp/spiral length upward along the vertical curve that will be the transition from level to grade up the helix. Secondly, I measured out twin arcs on a sheet of plywood and use them to place two lengths of flextrack. I wanted to figure out how wide my helical roadbed would have to be so that I wasn't wasting wood and also having the tracks too close and getting sideswiping of passenger cars and longer engines. My worst engine for overhang is the Rivarossi Allegheny 2-6-6-6, and I grabbed a long Walthers CPR passenger car, the steel fluted side type. Moving those two back and forth, and placing small scrap blocks of wood close to them on the outside of the tracks, I learned that 2.75" centers is fine, and I need about 13/16" clearance outboard of the tracks on either side. I settled on 5" wide roadbed.
Next step is to build the descending spiral ramp to the netherworld staging. When building a helix, you have to 'pave as you go', meaning you must lay tracks before you turn the spiral over on itself and have no view or room to lay the nice curves. You build most of a turn, and before you continue, while you can still stand over that much and work on it, you lay out the track segments and test. Once you have it right, continue to cover that level with the upper spiral curves.