My Next Track Plan

[Jeff]

Bob, what's the gap between decks?

[Bob Bryce]

20" clear between decks.  Framework is made from 1" steel angle iron (lots of long span strength and little thickness) with 1/2" plywood sitting inside and 2" foam to contour.

[Jeff]

Remember when you're planning your layout that even if it's 20" free and clear, you still have to reach the back edges when the train hits the fan. I suggest you build a little cardboard 1:1 model out in the driveway, throw a few laid-over cars at the back edge, and see if you can reach them without the 'godzilla in Tokyo' thing.

[Mike from CT]

Not to mention being able to even see the back corners of the lower level with the upper level in place....

[Bob Bryce]

This is a concern I will be testing soon.  Right now, I can reach 4 feet on our Christmas layout using a small stool and bending at the waist.  I won't be able to reach 4 feet with the upper section in place, but the farthest reach on the layout is actually between 30" and 36", and I have reached that far with the upper level restriction.  I have rear corner accesses on the lower level and the far corners on the upper level are all scenery above the hills.  I have underneath access to all the upper level tracks inside the tunnel areas.  The lower level center has an access way cut into the platform to the center area, where I have more access to both levels.

Again, this is still in "theory" and has to be and will be tested before significant construction begins.

As far as lighting in the lower level, it will all be lit with low current, low heat LED lighting strips in the lower level overhead.  I plan on two colors for night and day operation.  White for day and either blue or red for night, haven't decided.  Our Model railroad club is installing this feature on the new layout we are currently constructing, and I will have the opportunity to see how it works there.

[RhB_HJ]

LED strips are the cat's meow!

[Mike from CT]

LED strips are the cat's meow!

A bit off-topic, but I've been known to be a bit off-topic once or twice before....

I don't know about you, but I've always found a cat's meow to be annoying (it's the cat's demand for attention - RIGHT NOW!).  A cat's purr is a different matter.

[Jeff]

I agree, H-J. LED lighting of any kind used to be just great... IF you were using them as lighting inside an HO scale building or something. Now we have some fine 1 - 3 watt LED's that put out what can be called decent lighting for the home. I can see the next step on this matter being lighting that allows on-the-fly color adjustments to suit your taste or mood. I recently got rid of the low voltage halogens that we used for under-cabinet light in the kitchen and replaced them with a few LED strips and I was really pleased with the results, although I would have made the color a little warmer.

[Bob Bryce]

Well, it's been quite a while since I finished my design and I have now actually started building the layout for the second time. 

After starting to build the framework, my father had a bad stroke of health and had to move in with us.  The room he needed to move into was the newly designated train room, which meant dismantling some of the work I had started to make more room for him.  They found what was wrong, and after a while of rehab, he is doing much, much better and is again living at home.  So, here we go again.

Unfortunately, during the 9 months he was here, I could not do any actual work, but that did not prevent me from changing the layout in the computer.  It proved there are only 3 thing in life that are constant ... Death, Taxes and Changes to Model Railroad layouts!

So, although much is the same, many things were re-thought and changed.  I have attached the layout.

The upper level is still hills and mountains and consists of 4 railroads, each isolated from the other so collisions cannot occur.  The lower level is mostly industry and consists of 2 main railroads, each capable of running 2 trains on each railroad.  One is Tropicana, with 2 juice trains and the other is a freight/passenger line also with 2 trains.

The upper level still is based on the Alaska Railroad, with winter mountains and a ski resort on the left and summer mountains on the right.  I have moved all of the city elements to the lower level, as cities are generally pretty much flat while residential is not, so the rolling hills will be on the upper level with a lot of residential.  There is also a coal mine on the upper right and a concrete plant.

The lower level will still contain the Tropicana facility and have a city in the background, along with an oil refinery, oil fields, a saw mill and some other industries.  I have not finished laying out the city area yet.

There is not enough room for a track to transport from the lower level to the upper level, but that does not concern me.

I built the entire formwork with 2x4 framing and it has proven extremely strong over the 12' clear spans I need without any inside supports for the upper level, giving the lower level a completely unobstructed view.  There is 20" of clear space between the levels, and since the lower level is not completely flat, pretty much flat, there is more than enough room for access and viewing.  The mountain tunnels are accessible from beneath in the two corners without any problems.  I have already tried them out.

I will post some photos once I get the formwork cleared off from construction tools and trash and can take some respectable photos.

[Jeff]

Now that I've had a chance to see the actual Alaska Railroad in operation ( via TV ), the right part of it should be lots of fun. I assume you're going to model the section that crosses the Kenai range?

[md_traindrvr]

Not really sure that is how it happened, but something did.  I now need to re-load my entire system from a previous image and restore my files from a backup, all of which I can do.  So far, all of my software programs are still working fine, all data seems to be intact, only my system files seem to be affected, but I am hesitant to transmit anything until I fix all of this.

So.....  how was all of your weekends?

Back in the day we used to tell older users that the only way to become a computer expert was to lose your 3 most important files and then manually type in those files. 

Sorry to hear about your problems. I feel your pain. Hope all went well...

[Bob Bryce]

Well, I have started modeling the upper level of our layout. 

On the rear portion of the upper level I am modeling Alaska, but not a model of any exact prototype areas, due to space limits.  Alaska's vast open areas are much larger than my train room!  The front portion of the upper level will be mostly lower rolling hills with residential areas and a mining operation.

It will span the Kenai mountain range on the left and Mt. McKinley on the right. 

The model itself will not include these mountain ranges, but my wife will be painting them in the background as a wrap around Muriel.

The model will contain two tall mountain peaks, one on the right and one on the left connected by a long spanning (44") arch bridge.  The bridge I will be constructing is an actual bridge in Alaska that I will be using to connect the two mountain ranges.  One of the photos I have attached is the actual bridge in Alaska and the other is what I am going to model.  It spans a large valley south of Fairbanks between Fairbanks and Denali.

The model kit is actually the Bietschtal bridge (Germany) with some modifications to more replicate the actual vertical steel supports found on the bridge in Alaska.  The photo of the model bridge is not mine, but was taken from the internet.  It shows the general idea I will be using for the vertical supports on each end, which the Bietschtal bridge does not actually have.  I will be using more of these supports than is seen in the photo, as the bridge in Alaska has more.

I have attached the Anyrail file as well.  Right now I am working on the upper level and putting together the outer two most tracks.  I have made a foam mock-up of the bridge for planning purposes, and I am currently in the process of building the actual bridge.  Until the bridge in installed, I really can't go much farther as everything hinges on the elevation of the bridge.

More later.

[Mike from CT]

<snip>

The model itself will not include these mountain ranges, but my wife will be painting them in the background as a wrap around Muriel.

<snip>

Bob, in my reckless, feckless, youth I dated a girl known as "wrap around Muriel".  In fact most of my male friends did, as well. 

(I know.... the auto-correct speller did that to you.... I still trying to figure out who/what I can blame for my response....)

[Bob Bryce]

Mike,  don't blame anyone for it ... I liked it!

Moving on a little, I'm now trying to figure out how to make the long span for the train station, which as you can see in the plan, goes over the town, not through it, as it must allow two other railroads to pass under it.

I got the idea to make the long span like the concrete bridges on highways.  I used the 24" long concrete spans from the monorail (that I will probably not be using due to space) to make the railroad overpass.  Here is a photo of the first stage of my plan.  Lots of work to do yet, but I hope you get the idea.

[Bob Bryce]

After all this time it looks like I am finally getting back to work on my railroad.  Several changes, but still the same main theme.  I had installed all of the risers for the outermost rail and built the 4' long bridge.  When it came to the right and left spans of the railroad meeting in the front, they met just fine ... except the right side was 1" higher than the left side.   

It was simply a dumb shit awe shit on my behalf.   I am using the Woodland Scenics foam riser system, and for some reason to make the large bridge in the back higher, I added a complete row of 1" risers under the sloped risers.  I miss-calculated how much room I had to get them both back down to the same elevation where they joined.  I could have made it work, but everything would have been too high for my plans.  So I started the lousy task of getting out my hot knives and removing the 1" section of foam. 

Even being as careful as I was, it still took a lot of repair work, but I feel it was the right decision.  Once I get the layout back to a point where I can take some worthwhile photos, I will post them.