I’m looking for info on Easy Helix for model railroads. I believe they were made in Wisconsin in plastic. It looked like a very nice system. Had a nice website the last I checked. A Google search doesn’t bring it up. I’m sure in the last 6 months I was looking at the website. There is an Ashlin Designs helix, but not what I’m trying to find. It could’ve been EZ Helix, but that didn’t turn up any hits on Google. Or is it out of business. Unless, I don’t have a clue anymore how i got to the website before[:D]. Thanks for any help.
Thanks for the possible use of your helix sections. I’ve reconsidered my use of a helix and decided to stay with my current staging and expanding it. I won’t be using any helix, but widening my staging and moving the mainline out in front. It looks very promising now. I’m going to do some other changes to the layout also. The helix really takes up too much space. Way more than I would gain doing the staging the way I will now. Thanks to everyone who responded!
I am interested! Have they gone up on ebay yet? If not, I would like to see if they would work for my layout. I will have two layers, and I was going to buy from easy helix when I was ready. I’m still not ready, but . . .
I regret that I too will have to pass. I think I need about three stacked to get the height I need. If Easy Helix is no longer in business, I will have problems getting the parts I need.
Will do and for those still looking for the company, they are still in business. I was using the wrong URL. The correct URL is http://www.easyhelix.com/.
Good to see they are still around. They seemed to cease advertising for a while and it appears they no longer use the TrainStyles name. They had a booth at Milwaukee’s Trainfest at least once and set up the figure eight helix-to-helix setup you can see on their website.
The photo gallery shows the installation on the late Mike Ziegler’s Conowingo Central, featured in RMC and the NMRA Magazine. Unfortunately that layout has now been dismantled but the helix worked very reliably for Mike. He used it to transition from his main layout room in his basement down to an additional room that was built under the new family room of his house, and was a couple of stair steps lower, so it was not the usual purpose for a helix. He had openings in the side so nervous operators could see their trains but it was otherwise enclosed with a “roof” on top that held an interesting farm scene built to N scale, a nice scenic feature on his layout for those of us tall enough to see it.
The guy who helped Mike install the Easy Helix was local modeler Dick Cecil (the guy you see building the layout on the World’s Greatest Hobby DVD) and it was Dick who factors in one of Jim Hediger’s favorite stories. Jim had one of the first double deck layouts and one of the first helixes, and Dick helped him assemble it. They had the thing done before they got to thinking – shouldn’t we have been laying down track as we went up the layers of the Helix? Yup - and they had to deconstruct most of Hediger’s helix to lay track. Dick had some notions about how the Easy Helix should go together that were not entirely in accord with the instruction sheet. I think he took some ribbing on that but once they followed the instructions the end result worked very well and had a clean and neat appearance that home made helixes do not always have.