3-level layout deck heights?

[TandHRR]

I found the article about wraping a track around a room 3 times, Model Railroader November 1966 "Stacked Mainline for Mileage" Marquis.

[Anonymous]

Why Don't you start with one and go up from there. I wouldn't try it because of the whole lease issue. I would want to have something in place fairly quickly to enjoy running some trains rather than spend two years building it and then loose the lease.

[tgindy]

Before you get to the deck heights => there two questions you need to answer for yourself...

[2] What's the prototype rationale in the layout design?
[2] Does this give me a planning reason for three levels?

Let me share some rational at the beginning stages of my own n-scale free-lanced Conemaugh Road & Traction.

It will be built for one person with allowance for more if someone else comes along.

It is in year one of a ten-year planning and modeling process. The CR&T could be looked at either as either a 1.5 level or a 2.5 level depending on your perspective.

The prototype rationale is Altoona to a Johnstown Pennsy circa 1956 (for steam and diesel) in the Western Pennsylvania autumn (for scenery) as prototype inspiration. Only with the most minimal of a Bethlehem Steel through yard, and spurs, did the 4-track PRR ever touch down in Johnstown's Conemaugh Valley.

Johnstown had, and still has, a smaller version of a "Union Station" where you went through a brick tunnel under two of the 4-track Pennsy mainline and then climbed the stairs to a platform to meet what is now Amtrak.

Thus, Conemaugh Road & Traction will drop off passengers at the LOWER front of the passenger station while the Pennsylvania Broadway Limited (and thru freights) will be at the UPPER back of the station apx. 20 feet higher => This is where the 1/2 comes in.

The CR&T will never track interchange with the Pennsy and this actually creates the flexibility to model a local shortline, and a separate but layout-incorporated PRR layout with Class 1 high iron mountain railroading.

You always felt like you were LOOKING UP up to see the Pennsylvania Railroad pass through the city! You were always going about your business in the lower valley when you heard the whistle blasts, or the vibration of the diesels sounding for miles through the Conemaugh Valley.

But, if you were at the level of the Pennsy mainline, you always felt like you were LOOKING DOWN into the Conemaugh Valley. Can you believe it? => a prototype reason to have your town look like its in a spaghetti bowl?

Here is where the n-scale over ho scale advantage comes into play for one level to the next with three methods of raising track elevation for the Pennsy layout portion...

[1] The Pennsy portion will highlight the Horseshoe Curve in one layout corner which will actually be part of a NOLIX.

[2] The Gallitzin Area in another layout corner will use the tunnels to begin only a PARTIAL HELIX. Gallitzin will also have a prototypical helper reverse loop back to the curve.

[3] The rest of the Pennsy layout portion will be a NOLIX using an elongated double-track dogbone, for the illusion of a 4-track mainline, from one level to the other for a continuous run option. The PRR's low point will be at the upper passenger station platform with the CR&T at the lower front of the station.

The result is the PRR can be in continuous operation while the CR&T can be a little more operational intensive, or; the CR&T can be silent while PRR operating helpers in Galitzin are looping back to Altoona staging.

The Pennsy planning rational will also provide the upper level a reason to look prototypical as that upper level.

As with any layout => if you have a reason => you will work toward a goal with a purpose.

And then, you can think more about heights of the levels with justification.