So, the wife and I are potentially going to be getting a new house. Said house will have a basement, and she’s giving me a section that’s about 11’ or 12’ x 20’ or 24’ (I’m estimating the size.) My plan is to put in a N Scale layout, likely combining some industry from my area (Detroit,) and replicating some of the (now defunct) Detroit & Mackinac line from the northern part of Michigans’ lower pennisula (My grandparents lived in one of the towns the D&M passed through.)
So, this will be a partially or mostly free-lanced layout.
My thinking is, to maximize run length (I want to be able to continous run,) go to a double deck or triple deck layout. Likely I’d have the Detroit end on the upper deck due to track snaking in and out of industries so reaching cars behind structures would be easier (no upper deck to watch out for.) The lower (or mid) deck would be the D&M section, as it’d be mostly single track in open country.
Obviously, the question remains, what might be a good deck separation that wouldn’t require to many loops in a helix to get between the levels? 20" 24"? I’m also leaning towards having the mid or lowest deck set just high enough that I could sit in an office chair to operate, then stand for the upper deck(s).
There is a lot of discussion about what you are describing. I have seen layouts with 42" and 60" for the two decks. I thought the upper deck as a little high. A lot depends on how wide the deck are. My current layout has the ‘staging’ at 36" and the main ‘on-stage’ layout space going from 42" to 54"(the area over the staging). 36" is really too low for an ‘on stage’ part of a layout, but works fine for my 10 track through staging area.
Most articles I have read form the Layout Design SIG suggests an 18"-20" seperation between the levels. I have 16" between levels, but this is fine for my staging(24" wide). One of the problems with multi-level layouts is getting the heights to ‘work’ - There never seems to be a perfect height.
BTW, I have a 30" radius helix(2 1/2 turns) on each end of the on-stage portion of the layout to get down to the staging area. Be aware that these eat up a lot of flex-track, and you will need to consider adding locomotives to move the trains up/down the helix. I would not build a helix with anything smaller than 30" radius for reliability of operation.
I’m not too surprised that it’s going to be one of those “what works for you may not work for me” sort of things. I’m leaning towards a sort of an “E” shape to the layout, have it run down the two long walls and a pennisula out the middle. I figure 2ft shelves will leave about 3ft aisles which should be OK, unless I start having multiple operators. I also think I might make the upper deck narrower than the lower, maybe go with a 12-16" upper deck and keep the trackwork to the front.
How tall are you? That makes a difference, especially with three decks, where you almost have to be tall to really use the third deck, unless you want to be kicking a stool around all the time to step on.
A two-foot deck spacing will really test whether you’re tall enough to run 3 decks. The 18" to 20" is more practical. But remember that part of that space is taken up with the structure and fascia of the deck above. Using the right design and materials is crucial to making multi-deck layouts work.
Be sure and consider deck height and deck depth together before finalizing design. While some things, like staging have less importance for good lines of sight, you want to usually be able to look and see most of the action while standing comfortably – or maybe using a roller chair on the lowest deck. A 2 foot deep scene where the available vertical distance is around 12" could be disappointing. It’s better to go narrower in a lot of places, as that space could better go to aisles, which brings us to…
Opinions vary on aisle width. Let’s put it this way, you have to be on pretty friendly terms with your operators to pass each other in a 36" aisle. Try to go wider if you regularly expect multi-operator use. This is especially critical in a multideck layout, as the potential points of conflicts multiply in number and get more often in actual use.
I went with 36" and 60" with a stanging area at 30"
I can get away with that because I have doctors stools on wheels. This lowers the operators height enough that he’s closer to eye level.
Everyone that typically builds double decks go with 18" seperation. They do this because people assume that the operator will be standing for both levels. So they have to stay “close” to the operators eyes.
I wanted at least 24"-30" seperation because my lower levels had some sky scrappers, and I wanted to convey a city of size by making it “deeper” which lends itself to a bigger lower deck.
Depending on the geography of your prototype railroads area and how faithfully you want to model it, maybe it would be worth considering a design that utilizes long continuously variable grades with wide reverse turns connecting them. A terraced or “nolix” type of layout. Switching areas such as towns and industrial sites could be level as in real life, but connected by trackage that gains and looses elevation in a subtle manner. This is not a new idea by any means, Lynn Westcott among others has mentioned the concept. I do think we sometimes get bound by our “linear” style of thinking, the dreaded 4’x8’ as the most common example.
Were I in your fortunate shoes (spacewise at any rate) I think I’d use it to plan a large rambling main with a few choice switching areas.
Isn’t it funny (and sad) how we always say “She is going to let me have _______ amount of room”. “She who must be obeyed”, indeed.
If you’re going to go with a mostly single track main on the lower level you might consider making the lower scene narrower than the upper scene, sort of a ‘display cabinet in the fascia’ idea. This concept actually originated with Sheldon (Atlantic Central).
As I type, I’m sitting (in an ordinary dining room chair) at a work surface 28 inches off the floor. At this height, or up to about 30 inches, I can reach the back (24 inches) while seated. 36 inches is just about my armpit height, so I’d want a longer-legged chair to work from while seated.
There’s a bookshelf 22 inches above the work surface. Scenically, for N scale, that might be excessive. Practically, if I remain seated, that 50 inch floor clearance is plenty for working - but if the edge came out to the edge of the lower level I’d probably put a knot on my head every time I forgot to duck before leaning in. Might be a good idea to use modules on the lower level that can be removed to a place with ample overhead clearance for serious work.
I set the upper deck height of my layout at “armpit” level. As I’m only 5’-8" tall, that put my upper deck at 52" above the floor. As I work in HO scale, I set my lower deck 18" below the upper deck or 34" above the floor. I was able to keep my fascia depth to only 4" so the resulting vertical space between decks is 14". This spacing combined with 24" deep decks allows me to see the bottom of the lower deck backdrop while standing only two feet from the fascia. The armpit height upper deck provides a decent viewing height and still allows easy reach access for operating without stools or stepladders. The lower deck is pretty low for standing operations but is perfect for operating from a rolling chair. Because I planned to use rolling chairs from the outset, I designed my layout with 48" main aisles. I use a helix at each end of my layout to connect the two decks. The scenes/locations I chose to model on the layout are far enough apart in the real world that the time the trains spend in each helix is appropriate for the time it would take a train to travel the “off-layout” distances between my modeled scenes. Besides, most visitors to my layout are equally attracted to the helix structure engineering/construction as they are to my modeled scenes. I don’t know whether that means my scenery sucks or my helix construction is that good!
In Tony Koester’s book Designing and Building Multi-Deck Model Railroads, he carefully avoids offering specific standards for anything. Instead, he explains the process you need to go through to develop your own standards. I was originally annoyed by this but I eventually came to understand the wisdom in it.
Spacing between the decks is the most important (IMO) aspect of the layout that you need to figure out for yourself. Listening to what others did and why can help you get started, but to get something you will be happy long term with you are going to have to do some mockups as Tony suggests in his book.
All you need is a pair of adjustable shelf tracks, some supports and a few shelves of different depths. Put the shelves up, put trains and structures on them and move them around. In an hour or so you’ll be able to figure out what’s right for you. This is what I did and I’m glad I did it.
I am building around the walls with a peninsula. There will be 3 visible levels on the walls spaced 12” apart. The top deck is 16” deep, but the bottom 2 vary between 6” and 12” deep. There are 2 levels on the peninsula with 18” separation with a max depth of 22”. Each level’s fascia is directly above the one under it.
This works for me because I wanted a longer main line run but didn’t want to do twice around on a single level. I found the tighter spacing to be more acceptable. This may not work for you.
Take the time and experiment with the shelves. You’ll spend years building and operating the layout. A couple hours and a few bucks worth of materials is really a comparatively small investment.
At 6’8" tall I find the lower decks of most multi deck layouts not only excruciating to operate, but unpleasant to even try to view at all. And I (or at least a portion of me) end up taking a disproportionate amount of the aisle space in any attempt to do so, not to mention the rude-appearing posture I have to assume. Some years back I had the chance to tour Jim Hediger’s famous Ohio Southern and have to admit that for the most part it was only the upper deck that I really got to appreciate.
I do note an increasing number of multi deck layouts in Model Railroad Planning where the builder did not feel a need to in essence duplicate the floor space for both decks, but has in essence a “main deck” with a partial deck, presumably below.
Multi deck layouts are more than a fad but they are not for me, either as builder or visitor.
It seems like the rule of thumb is if the lower level is a little too low, and the upper level a little too high, then you’ve done it correctly. [;)]
It depends on a couple of things. One is how wide is your benchwork. You could probably get by nicely with a 1-to-1 ratio - that is, if your benchwork is 12" wide, having the separation between levels be 12" would probably work OK. Since you’re in N scale, you can get a lot more scenery in a small area than HOers can, and since your tall buildings and mountains are only about half as high as HO ones, you might get by with a lower ratio…like 16" wide benchwork, but only 12-14" separation.
Lighting can make a difference, but not always in ways you might think. If you move your lights (mounted below the upper level) from 12" from the lower track to 24", it cuts the amount of light to 1/4 of what it was. However, if the lights are closer, the light they produce is more focused, so you may have more noticeable light and dark areas. With a greater separation, the light spreads out more and is more even.