I’m soliciting suggestions on the best way to conquer a 14% grade.
A little history first. Back in 1998, when I first moved into my new home, I wasn’t thinking garden railway when making the purchase, and as such, enjoy a grade of about 14% from the front of my house to the back, roughly 75 feet.
In 1999, I laid my first tracks in the front yard beside my front door and all was hunky dory for the next six years.
In 2005, I began construction on the rear layout, which is much larger than the front and an entity unto it’s own. During construction, the wife came out to see my progress and asked if I had plans to join the two together. Up until that point, I hadn’t really considered it, but she got the cogs moving in my tiny brain and now it’s eating at the back of my skull.
So here’s the Q? what would be my best options for climbing the grade. There’s roughly six feet (2 meters) vertical difference between the two layouts. I may be able to place a couple of helixes in line. One would be hidden beneath my back deck. It would possibly be a double track helix.
Grade leveling is out. This runs along the foundation of the house on three sides. Are there other options besides the use of helii? I am currently running 60’s/70’s era diesels but will most likely modernize the fleet within the next few years.
Mark:
What about doing a double “loop back”, something like this:
This would provide an excellent excuse for some nice bridges and also provide some space for more siding business, i.e… mines, lumber mills etc.
So long as you “Director of Land Management” (as my wife likes to be called) grants sufficient “right of way” footage, You could easily develop another complete story line here. Bridges, sidings, tunnels, mines, businesses!!! If you can acquire a ten foot wide “easement” from front yard to back yard, you could have another entire “Point to Point GRR”!
There may be a way you could use a locomotive on track fitted with an ABT rack to get rolling stock from one level to another… The Swiss “Kneeling Cows” seem quite happy at 1 in 7 grades. Anyway it would look impressive as it mounted the rise from one track to another .
Mark at the other place I suggested based on the pics provided using one loop helix around that big tree between the front and rear yard and another larger helix under your deck connecting to the rear layout. I still feel you’ll find something along those lines being your best option.
The other option being switchbacks which are not really correct for modern US RRs.
As is see it you have 4 options, cog railway as suggested, loops as Tom said and getting rid of your smaller older front section and moving it to the back; or raising your front section so that it is waist height as many peole do.
One thing I haven’t seen here is the use of horseshoe curves. You didn’t mention how wide the side yard is, but if you wanted some variety you could put in a couple of horseshoes and a helix. Horeshoes were utilized by the SP and others on the way west to manage the grades, but most were removed as deisels took over.
I’m astonished that nowone has looked to the loggan railroads that faced a much worse grade. They built (or later bought) a car made of plate steel with cupplers and a massive pulli on the deck. mount a winch at the top of the hill and run the cord from the winch threw the pulli, and out to a teathered pt. You can pull equipmant up or lower it down. one more operating quirk. Can’t find a pic off google. i know thereis some in the book “THIS WAS LOGGING.”
I thought that was famous, like the cable cars of Los Angelus (thats probly wrong). I think they drug trains at a 28 degree angle (I think), so 14 shuldn’t be a problem. You in Austrailia?
It’s the Cable Cars of San Fransisco. Anyway, when dealing with grades ALWAYS look at the mining and logging railroads, as they always had to deal with rough, steep grades.
I would go with switchbacks and hang the prototype/modern era argument. I would feel more like I was running the railroad and conquering the land by using a switchback, imagine the operational possibilities!
The only other viable option I see is the helix idea, it is technically involved and expensive, but it will work fine.
The caveat of course is that this is your railroad, so whatever you decide to do will be correct and the best course of action to take. Having fun is the only unbreakable rule![swg]
Wouldn’t a helix be a real pain? what with the geometry, then the grade, in which you need to factor in the curve and as such the rollin stock. I’ll bet i can make an euqasion for this.
min. turn radui of stock
distance traveled = grade and grade + hight of stock… (Ok I lost myself)
anyways, I don’t remember if anyone said the dimentions we got here but you’d be limited to 3-4 car trains up the hill.
I’m working on a helix for my front yard in Pinetop. My plan calls for lifting 3’ within the 20’ I have to work with so I designed a 4 level helix. I wanted a reasonable grade so I picked 1.5%. That gives me 9" per level. The circumference for the 9" 1.5% grade is 50’ (rise over run is the way I’m calculating grade). The diameter then is 16.5’ which works for the space I have and would allow me to use R5 if I go with sectional track. Right now I’m leaning towards flex track. The 50 identical tressels are spaced every 1’.
The tricky part will be the circular rising foundation. I’ll be resurecting my surveying skills from my college days oh so long ago.
Polishing track buried inside the helix is an issue so I’m looking at SS for the 200’ block.
Another issue is dealing with derailments inside the helix. My side braces could only come down half way (4.5") leaving me room to remove a car when I need to without having to move it 100’ up or down the track (Murphy’s law says that derailments will occur at the worst possible places).
One more concern is speed control since only the engine has any braking capability. Decoupling a car towards the top of the helix and having it free fall @ 1.5% over 200’ could generate some speed. This is an issue that may need to be dealt with if it becomes frequent.
I actually have quite a bit of room to build a helix beneath my deck. That’s the good part.
It’s under the deck. That’s the bad part.
I really have little to worry about as far as track continuity is concerned within the helix as I am running battery on that particular line.
I can make make it work with a helix but not a switchback. I want to run prototypically long trains and have geared my purchases toward that. To change to a switchback system would mean selling off what I own and buying new, which I have no inclination to do because most of us have a tendency to think in historical terms as that which began at our birth. I’m a tail end baby boomer being born in '59 and diesels are pretty much what I’ve grown up watching.
I’m really looking forward to connecting the two lines someday, but i’m not sure if it’ll be this summer or not. Funding is not at it’s highest these days so I must economize where possible and save the funding for necessary purchases (like food).
I have some leftover track still populating my garage. I’ll do an inventory soon to determine where I’m at with it.
Rex, it sounds like you’re well on your way to making your helix a reality.
If it’s under the deck, it wouldn’t be too bad to have a steep grade because it wouldn’t be visible. I have a very steep grade on my railway (10% I think) that extends for about four feet. To help the trains climb it, I put very old Liquid Nails, in an almost solid state, onto the rails as a permanent form of sand. Now, even my lightest locos have no trouble climbing the grade. Don’t know if that will be helpful for you, but I thought you might like to know.
I’ve been playing with several different approaches to your situation. Now I need to ask a question. I understand that the length (from front to back) is 75 feet. How wide is the area that will be available to the trains. If the path is only a few feet wide, then possibly the only way is with the helix. Is this a continuos slope from front to rear, or is it fairly flat with steps (or retaining walls)? If you have 20 or more feet of width over the entire course of a continuos slope, then it would be very feasible to having overlapping rising loops (visualize an elongated helix, slid sideways). This would open up the possibility of passing sidings, mines or small industries, for that “local freight” that is always present. This might even open up the possibility of parking/staging those long consists in a hidden yard under the porch.
I’ve been using your situation to keep my mind busy while just setting next to the wife’s hospital bed as she sleeps. So if you don’t mind, I would like to play with your plans a little bit more. Helps keep me sane. Depending upon the width of area available I can foresee some fantastically diverse possibilities. Plus it has given me a few more ideas for my own GRR.
Today I built a 1 section full scale prototype from a piece of cedar fence picket. I’ve got some design changes to make. My side trusses turned out about a 1/2" too low as I can’t get a car out the side. Also the cedar board turned out to be 5/8" thick instead of 1/2" which means my 4-40 fasteners need to be a little longer. I only ordered enough socket head screws to build the prototype this time around so not a big deal. I think I need to look for a thinner saw blade for my table saw. I made a awful lot of saw dust and was short some material to finish the prototype. Oh well back to Home Depot tomorrow.
I’d love to see your helix design is you decide to go that route.
The latest GRR mag’s main feature features a helix, which doesn’t look at all like a helix. It doesn’t climb as high as you want but take a looky and maybe it will give you an idea.
Can you be a little more specific about the liquid nails? Did you add a fine sand to it? How thick is the coating? It sounds like an interesting solution.
Ttrigg:
I’ll try and take some measurements to give you more specifics. So sorry to hear about your wife. you will both be in my prayers.
Dave:
I’ll take another look see at GR. I haven’t had a chance to peruse it too closely this issue.
Okay, here’s a couple of pics of the area in question. Looking at the first pic, you can see to the left of the deck stairs, there is a stand of large ornamental grass. This is where the track would appear from beneath the deck. It’s a little misleading though, since the track would only come out at about half way up the level on the grass.
The tree bed stands out about fourteen feet from the house at it’s furthest point. It’s located a little less than halfway up from the deck to the front. It’s also about fourteen feet from front to back but that’s not really an issue as that can be easily modified. BTW, the beds alongside the house are a non-negotiable. My wife had a vision when we moved in and they are absolutely beautiful when the flowers and plants are in full bloom. So I’ll have to figure a way to work around them.
This is a third look from near the back corner of the property. In it, you can see where the track pops out from under the deck and runs along the bottom edge of the pool.
In this last pic you can see where the track goes under the deck. It’s about a foot off the ground at this point. Right now, it’s a giant figure 8, one loop going around the perimeter of the pool and the other in the train bed. The lower track crosses under the upper right where the track goes beneath the deck. At this point is where I would begin the climb through a helix under the deck and the train would wind it’s was up the hill toward the front.
