I’m very close to choosing the "Wabeek and Sunmount Railway for my next layout. (Track Planning Ideas 58 track plans from Model Railroader pg. 33). This is the layout that prompted my thread about swing gates/lift gates on curves.
I’ve been wracking my brains to come up with a place that will work but there’s just too much trackage and distance…
Our local track planning “guru” is going to try and redraw the plan a bit, but there’s no room for dogbone
loops, etc. most likely. If he doesn’t come up with something I wondered:
…aside from building high and using a roller chair/stool has anyone come up with more “innovative/creative” solutions? I’m lobbying for a trap door/ladder coming up from the cellar into the center of the doughnut layout, but that has it’s own problems I’d like to avoid. (Cost, damp mildewy
cold air rising up into the train room, etc.)
Just thought I’d ask, while I shop for a “speed racer” stool
There is a gentleman here in Houston who has a large HO layout. It has expanded into a small second room of the house. It has a duck under but not a conventional one. It moves up. It is on a track system on each side of the door and has a linear actuator that can move it up out of the way. When it comes down, it has aligning pins that ensure that the track is perfect. Very innovative. He’s not the most nimble person anymore in his age so a different solution was needed. It’s pretty neat but did require some custom work to do. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of it.
Well one could presumably do what the LIRR did when they were confronted with an ever increasing number of automobiles not waiting for trains to clear the crossings that exist on the southern part of Nassau and Suffolk Counties here in NYS. The dug underpasses for the automobiles and eliminated the crossings altogether.
So one could dig a pit with a staircase going down one side of the former duckunder and another staircase going up on the other. [:-,]
You may be approaching the problem in the wrong way. Are you trying to make a section of the layout act as a lift, drop, or swing access? If you are, that may be your problem. You might have to loose the “layout” part under the tracks where the access is to be, and build just the access bridges.
In other words, if you have a section of the layout that crosses in front of a door and has three or four tracks on it at different levels, or even the same level, make a drop, or lift bridge for each track, separate from the other. Make them look like bridges, models in themselves, although they would be longer and not supported as the prototype. Your access into the center of the layout just became the giant chasm that the Railroad had to build several special bridges to cross.
If the vertical lift idea doesn’t appeal, you could go part of the Joe Fugate mushroom route.
Leave the doorway as-is (presuming the door swings outward or has been removed.) Once inside the room, climb the steps to the level of the false floor, then turn around and drop the trap door to close the canyon. Your head will be a lot closer to the ceiling, but the layout will be at a not-unreasonable height. And the duckunder will be, at worst, a nod-under.
Elmer, Your idea is along the lines of what I’ve been thinking with past candidate track plans. With the design I have pretty much settled on, I’d have some industries/sidings in the way so there’d be more than bridges and chasms, but I’m playing around with something in this range. If not for the industrial switching
what you’ve suggested would be easier. This is a pretty operationally packed track plan. I’m going to see I can make a BIG lift up gate that includes the small industries and trackage on foam (the rest will be plywood).
Chuck, my ceiliing is pretty low in this room so this won’t work for me, but these suggestions will be of help to others. Keep it up guys good suggestions here.
I think ease of “traveling” under and through 4’ of duck under is the path I’ll need to pursue.
I don’t think I’ll mind a roller chair too much but I want to make that arrangement as comfy and
easy for older guests as possible. I’m weighing that with the trap door ladder from the cellar below up into
to the train room. Easier in some ways but a much longer trip to the bathroom.
I’ll know in another week or so what the local guy who’s scale drawing ideas for me comes up with.
I’ll have an extra four feet of length and two of width to play with so hopefully I can move things around
the oval some and make room for access with Elmer’s notion.
I have a hinged drop section that supports three tracks on two levels. It provides great ingress and egress UNLESS something goes wrong on the outside when I’m in, or the inside when I’m out. When stuff happens, I have to unhook the whole *%@? thing to get in or get out. When I designed this layout I was 36. I could “scoot” under that drop section with no effort. I can’t do that anymore. Lately, I’ve tried to fool myself into thinking that the “duck under” might give me a reason to get into better shape, and therefore I would do so…well…guess how well that has worked! I’ve tried a very short rolling stool to scoot myself under the expanse with limited success. I have to report that 75% of the time, I either hit my head or scrape my back on the under-side of the drop section when I try this.
My recommendation, after dealing with such an arrangement for nearly 20 years, is DON’T DO IT!! In my case, it has limited enjoyment of running, maintaining, and scenicing the layout simply because of the “hassle factor” associated with raising or dropping the section - or the consequential visits to the chiropractor.
Re-design your track plan, or build your prevailing bench level at, say, 72 inches above the floor.
Another often unmentioned consequence is the magnitude 9 (on the model Richter scale) earthquakes that accompany the headache or scraped back. Your little people and trains, hardy as they are, still often get toppled. The ultimate disaster is trying to get under quickly to save a train from a 4ft impact test with the floor, and hitting the access point with shoulder, head, or back and generating an earthquake that launches a second train in its 4ft impact test. 3 times the pain (self and 2 trains). Don’t ask how I learned this…
Thanks as always, guys.
I met with the fellow who’s re-drawing my track plan out to scale. He’s already had ideas for extending the layout a bit beneath the industrial switching area and having room for a lift or swing gate. He thinks he
might even have something worked out for leaving the inward opening door but I’m open to reversing it.
rolleiman who has been very helpful,suggested the specific area to insert a gate lst, so credit where credit is due! I was happy when I got together with my “guru” after that good advice, to see that he was on the same page.
We’ll see if a duck under can be avoided after all. If not, he thinks he’s got one spot down to only about 16" wide which beats 4 feet by…well 2.5 ft. I hope so, but just in case…any other ideas here are helpful and fun to hear about.
The wall that was dividing the train room in half came down today! After a bit of dry walling
and painting it’ll be bench work time at last! Hopefully in a couple of weeks time. Late July at most! Hopefully I’ll have a “scale sketch” in a week or two.
My lower level benchwork is too low for a duckunder and the doorway space too narrow for some type of hinged crossing, so I did a variation of a liftout section. I put legs and castors on it. It just slides right in and lines itself up. And it can still be used as an emergency crawlunder (yuk).
I use an old set of video plugs to make the 8 conductor connection. I intend to put in a micro switch to shut off the approach tracks and some other finishing touches. It’s been working great for 10 years or so.
Good morning, Harvey Wallbanger, Another friend here in Port townsend where we hold our regular Wed. evening sessions has a great solution. He has the door reversed to open out into the laundry room. Using formed steel or aluminum channel on the order of 1/2x1" for stiffness under the bridges, he has built plastic bridge sets on his parallel but separate tracks across the doorway. They are even at a different height. They are both hinged on the same side and swing up. He has also cleverly installed tiny microswitches so that if the bridge is up the track is dead for 12" on each approach to the bridge. At the open end he notched out the seat for the channel to fit snugly and has no problems with rail alignment. I will show you when you come down.
Be sure you clean up all the drywall and mud dust and prime the new drywall, eh? Otherwise your layout will always have a light coat of the dust. John Colley, Port Townsend, WA
Hi modelmaker51 and John,
mm51, what method do you use at the track connection/line up level to be sure there are no derailments?
This is a cool idea. I’d wondered if a “slide in” gate would work. Can you please post a pic or two showing
how things line up at track level? I knew there’d be some interesting and innovative ideas forthcoming here. Everytime we think we’ve seen or heard it all… Thanks.
Hi John, Yep, I’ll be heading in the room in a few minutes to vacuum up a ton of dust and bits. It seems that contractors don’t clean up hardly at all anymore! Thanks for the tip/reminder to prime the new taping
once that gets done. Unfortunately that room was carpedted already so I’m not sure if I’ll EVER get all the dust out. We’ll have it cleaned by the carpet pros once the room is ready to start benchwork.
Thanks for the offer to show me the gate your friend has. As soon as the dust settles around here, I’ll make a real effort to take the ferry over to see you. Will walk on work or are you located quite a way’s from down town? Hopefully I can bring the scale sketch by then as well.
To be honest, I don’t use anything, it lines up perfect everytime. I built the whole thing including a 6" approach on either side of the bridge out of a 1/2 a sheet of marine 3/4" plywood. I had to make some minor adjustments to the gaps after the first summer/winter cycle but nothing since then. I did make some wedges to hold it in place, but we never use them.
Once built, I laid the track through (glued down with Liquid nails) and secured the last 3 or 4 ties with nails and then cut the gaps. I filed the ends of the rails to a taper to avoid the wheels snagging the ends of the rails. We regularly pull 70 to 80 weighted car trains across both levels.
The really nice thing is that there’s nothing to lift out and find a place to store it, I just pull it out and sove it down the isle out of the way.
Thanks for your reply. Sounds like you did it right the lst time. It’s interesting to see how many people
use track soldered to screw head, dado joint bridge ends, etc. and how many others just line 'em up
and do ok way down the road.
Do we sometimes make this harder than it needs to be?
I know I’ll feel paranoid enough about it to do the soldered screw heads thing and every other trick I
can fit in just so people will have to find something else to be able to say “I told you so” about
I missread your comment about being paranoid, sorry. But to the point, the nails require a bit less precision, the srews under the rails have to be at a pricise height or you’ll end up with a bump in the track. You can always bend the nail into the final position, (snug agaist the side of the rail). Howevr the screws would be less visible, pick your poison.
After diligently searching for duck unders and swing gates and lift outs, I found a lot of plans that were innovative, creative and looked really neat. SO, I tried to build one. What a disaster, it was on a curve and I wanted it to swing out. The geometry involved is not trivial, but hey, other guys did it so can I.
I’ll admit that I have failed miserably at two things building my railroad. 1st was the swinging gate , the second was hand laying track turnouts. I’m bonafide proof that disproves the old saying that anyone can do it. I couldn’t, I spent a lot of money and even more time trying.
Visiting a lot of different home railroads in my area, I see fellows with swing ups, drop ins and roll unders, but have yet to see a swing out.
