Making the best of a space...suggestions ?

[Dave]

Nice plan Richie I'm planning a new layout in a square room so I think I'll nick some ideas from your sketch!

[aramand]

Thanks - some great ideas there!

[aramand]

So, latest incarnation is the following :

 

 

Going to go with a double level on most of the layout but keep the lifting section so the door to the room can either be open or closed while the layout is being used.

 

On the Helix - is there a default or recommended height drop ? I've never seen one in real life but from a pure practical point of view and being able to access the lower level I'm thinking a 2 ft drop in height (the main part of the double level will be 3ft wide so need to be able to access the back of it) The lower level will not have any scenery on it and will really be a storage/fiddle yard.

 

Overall it would be made up of

 

-- 4 foot diameter helix (drawn as a 4ft sq but maybe round off the outside corner)

-- Double level 2ft * 2.5 ft

-- Double level 8.5 ft * 3ft (probably made up from 2 separate baseboard maybe 4ft * 3ft and 4.5ft * 3ft)

-- 2ft * 2.5ft

-- 2ft * 1.5ft

-- Lifting section approx 1ft wide and 3ft long

 

The tracks on the drawing are just indications of 3 loops I want to incorporate, the outer one will probably be a simple loop alright and be completely disconnected from rest of the track as it will run a live-steam loco, the inner two loops will be made more interesting rather than just running straight lines (hopefully!)

[aramand]

Apologies not sure why the image is showing up twice in the last post..

[josefstadt]

Be careful about the width of your baseboards. The higher the baseboard is the narrower it needs to be so you can reach across it for track laying, cleaning etc. I'd stick to a max width of 2ft -2½ft. In the helix you will need some way of getting to the far side if a train gets into trouble.

 

With regard to the helix, I don't think that there is a 'default or recommended height drop'. This is purely a matter of choice and depends on what you want on each of the levels. For example, if the lower level is storage and the upper level is scenic (as you have suggested), then a height difference of 9 to 12 ins would do. However if both levels were sceniced then a greater difference would be needed. The only constant is that the difference in height for each full rotation must take account of the height of your rolling stock plus the height of the track and the thickness of the baseboard - approx 3 inches. See

on the Everard Junction website where he describes building a helix. Kirley and Anthony on this site have videos of the helixes on their layouts.

[BosKonay]

I would echo on the board depth.

 

My terminus boards are 2.5 feet and that's pretty much the absolute limit I can comfortably reach.

[aramand]

Thanks for the input - I can certainly reduce the main board from 3ft to 2.5ft I think, would make it more comfortable to work on while doing scenery and everything else...

 

Not sure that I can do much with the Helix width, I guess it may be able to reduce a little but Dave reckoned it would need to be 3.5-4ft diameter to accommodate the correct radius curves. Plan would be to try and keep the scenery simple on that (perhaps a hill and tunnel structure) but even so of I got a de-railment at the back of the helix I could be in trouble to reach it!

[Flying Scotsman 4472]

I would suggest a minimum of 4' for the out side diameter of your helix