"BUILDING A LIFTOUT OR SWINGGATE"

[TrainsRMe1]

I have a question, I'm trying to decide if I want to build a liftout or a swinggate across my doorway, the problem is my door opens inward towards the trainroom, so my question is, which one would be better to build, and could I connect it to my door??, the door is made of metal though, thanks for the help,

["JaBear"]

TrainsRMe1

and could I connect it to my door

No, but while not impossible, the geometry would be very hard to get right.

Cheers, the Bear.

[BroadwayLion]

Whale... Ewe knead an interlock so that the trains cannot run when the bridge is up. But ewe also knead an interlock so that the door cannot be opened from the outside when the bridge is in place.

How big a room is this? Do you have numbers of visitors?

Fire regulations (and good common sense) dictate that you do not block the exit.

If was railroad of mine, LION would simply remove the door, then him could make it a permanent duck under, or a swing or lift bridge.

Signals approaching drawbridges are frequently equiped with Smash Board signals. It will wake up an inattentive engineer, but in HO could stop a train in its tracks.

Of course if you remove the door, the cat will get in and then cat hair will wrap itself aournd your gears an motors.

The price you gotta pay.

 

ROAR

[carl425]

TrainsRMe1

...the problem is my door opens inward towards the trainroom

I reversed the door to the train room so that it swings out into the hall.  I didn't find to be a difficult project at all.

Mounting the track on a door that swings in will be extremely difficult.  To keep the movable section of the layout from swinging into the fixed section, the hinge point needs to be on the inside of the swing.  The door will be on the outside.

[ACY Tom]

Another option might be a folding door.

Tom

[RR_Mel]

My first layout was a shelf railroad that I built when I was 14 years old.  I was taking Wood Shop in High School so I felt that I was hot stuff when it came to construction.  My Dad gave me half of our one car detached garage, my half had the walk-in door that opened in.

 

My Dad wasn’t a happy camper because of my decision to switch from Lionel 3 rail O-27 to HO, back in 1951 he was a firm believer that HO was too small and wouldn’t stay on the track.  I decided I would be better off not asking him for help because he was a Very Unhappy Camper about my HO stuff. (1 MDC 0-6-0, 1 Ambroid box car, 1 caboose & 3’ of hand laid track all acquired with Paper Route money)

 

I proceeded to build a shelf layout and the door was a big issue for me.  I consulted with my Wood Shop Teacher and with his helpful instructions I was able to reverse the door to swing out.

 

From that point on it was all my design and I went with a hinged lift up section at the doorway.  I used a simple doorbell push button to turn the power off to my entire layout when the section/bridge was up.  A small block of wood with a wood screw would hold the doorbell button pushed in to apply power to the rails with the section/bridge down.

 

My hand laid HO track and home made turnouts worked perfect and my MDC 0-6-0 never derailed after I did the final tweaking on my track.

 

Over a long period of time my Dad finally accepted my itty bitty model railroad junk and for my 16^th birthday he gave me an HO MDC 2-8-0 Consolidation locomotive kit.

 

I favor a swing up section of track at your doorway, when I finally moved out on my own in 1958 my swing up section was still fully functional and my younger brother became the owner of my first layout.

 

Mel

 

 

Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

[Hobbez]

Instead of a lift or swing gate, how about a gate that swings down or up, hinged on one end?  I know I have seen articles on doing this, but I cant seem to get anything to come up in google right now.

[tomikawaTT]

There have been numerous threads about the pros and cons of assorted types of 'removable for access' sections in these forums.  Search the keywords: lift out, gate, drop leaf.  That will provide an evening or several of past discussions.

In your situation, if the door is narrow I would go for a drop leaf, hinged on the same side as the door hinges, dimensioned so that the open room door will protect the trackwork and whatever else is on the drop leaf.

In my case, an earlier layout in half of the same space included a movable access designed like a bascule bridge.  When I was granted the whole double garage the need went away, but the bascule anchor lives on as a cassette dock - I use cassettes for off-layout rolling stock storage.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with walk-in access)

[TrainsRMe1]

My room size is 18 x 18 ,and  I  don't  have many visitors, 

[joe27]

On one of my early layouts I had a similar problem. I removed the door (no cats) and built a double track swing bridge. This was in a small 12x 13 room and never had any grief from it. 

[TrainsRMe1]

So a reversed door it is,