A friend of mine is building a 1" scale railroad in his yard. He asked me if I had access to plans or dimensions for a typical Interlocking Tower. While I search on-line, I thought I would post this for my informed Colleagues. Any help, as always, is much appreciated.
Trackside Structures (a Kalmbach book) actually has plans for a few of them, including one very impressive, highly detailed tower with complete interior and light made by Ben King.
Andrew
An interlocking tower would be a nice project at 1" scale…I’m not sure if they are still around, but some company made manual switches for model railroads that resembled “Armstrong” levers as used in interlocking towers to control switches! If one wanted a unique switch-control environment, one could utilize these switches to actually control the switching via the interior of the interlocking tower by making the roof removable.
Most of the books on model railroad structures had at least one interlocking-tower plan in 'em–shouldn’t be too hard to find at your local hobby shop.
Thanks guys
1"? " stands for 1 inch. I think you mean 1’, 1 foot. Of course, I could be wrong…
1 foot scale would be actual size…I think 1" scale typically means 1/12 scale–1 inch real-world is a scale foot. Much as O is sometimes referred to as 1/4" scale…
There’s a dandy interlocking tower with bay windows in “Brisges & Buildings for Model Railroads” with plans, exploded view and construction details–it is intended for HO but could easily be scaled up. It would be a bit over two feet high.
One company that makes levers is www.humpyard.com . Their levers are actually made to work with “choke cable” type turnout control, but would also look very cool in a tower. [Note: web site offline as of 9:30 am Eastern 24 Nov - should be back soon (I guess…?!)]
Andrew